Friday, November 11, 2005

Cool Piece on In-Line Muzzle Loaders

I love this article...elitist that I am, I always thought muzzleloader season was for seriously retro outdoorspeople, and god bless 'em! In-line muzzleloaders are, well, tacky:
See, a long time ago, there was a group of dedicated hunters who were very interested in re-creating the experience of hunting as it was done back in the frontier days. So they used replicas of old-fashioned firearms, like Hawken rifles or Kentucky rifles like Daniel Boone used."

"Did Daniel Boone's rifle have a fluted, chrome-finish barrel with an integral ported compensator to reduce recoil, like that one?"

"No, sweetie, that came later. Anyway, in most states, hunters were granted a special season in which they could hunt deer only with these old-fashioned black-powder firearms. You had to be a very good hunter, and sneak in very close, because you only got one shot and it took forever to reload. And those old weapons weren't nearly as accurate as a modern rifle."

"Oh. So that's probably why they mounted that Redfield illuminated-reticle variable-power scope over the existing fiber-optic sights."

"Yes, but that came later, too..."