Long post but you may find it interesting.
I'm new to this forum but not to muzzleloading. I compete with Civil War arms in the North South Skirmish Association. We shoot Civil War era guns in competition and that includes artillery, yup, we shoot cannons for score. That means there are some of the "transitional" guns to breech loaders shot, but the really big event is the musket match and that is 100% muzzleloading. We have our Nationals twice a year in Winchester VA where we camp on site adjacent to the range.
Last winter, a group of us were chatting round the campfire about the state of youth, the 2nd, chili recipes, and the decline of muzzleloading in the shooting sports world. Some will say it isn't happening, but look at the average age of a muzzleloading competitor, look at the sales numbers of traditional muzzleloaders v the modern stuff and exactly who is buying what. So we decided to look at ways to reverse the decline and we ran across a gentleman from a Scout Council and he was telling us of the severe shortage of muzzleloading instructors in Scouting. We looked into it and, yeah, it is past acute. Of the instructors that do exist, almost NONE are active muzzleloading enthusiasts of any kind, be it modern, traditional whatever. This shortage extends far past the Scouts to others as well. Our merry little band decided to just grab this bull by the horns and see how far we get dragged into the pasture.
We contacted a local Scout Council and found out what was required to teach muzzleloading at a Scout camp. From the results of that meeting, a group of us in NC got NRA/NMLRA Muzzleloading Instructor certified, a requirement for working with most youth orgs. We secured corporate support from Schutzen for powder and percussion caps, an NSSA member (Pat "PJ" Kelly) donated 5 1863 Remington muskets, S&S and Lodgewood supplied logistics support for the muskets and the lead was covered by speaking engagements at Sons of Confederate Veterans meetings through honorariums and donations. With everything in place, time to cast lots and lots of minie balls.
Our plan was to go the a local Scout camp once a week to instruct in Muzzleloading, to assist in the Rifle Shooting merit badge muzzleloading and to conduct open shoots in the evenings for Scouts wishing to experience shooting a Civil War musket with live ammunition. The camp is question is a very well funded camp but their muzzleloading program is, well, lacking. Of the staff in shooting sports, only 2 were certified to instruct in muzzleloading. One was running the 22lr program and far to busy to do muzzleloading and besides, he's a shotgun guy away from Scouts. The other instructor was running their "Mountain Man" program in a remote primitive camp where the Scouts get to experience aspects of the 19th century lifestyle. He is not a "shooting enthusiast" of any type and only has the instructor cert so it can be part of his program. The camp muzzleloaders are all marginal and there were lots of misfires, hangfires, and generally inaccurate.
That's where we started. We did what we could with the stuff on hand in the primitive camp, but fortunately we had our own guns and ammo. The Scouts almost universally showed a preference for the muskets as they were reliable and accurate. Prior to starting at camp we set up the sights and got a good working load for the muskets. Our worst musket was a 3moa shooter.
Overall, it was a huge hit. We are getting requests to run the muzzleloading part of the Rifle merit badge and conduct troop shoots through the winter. Our Board of Directors has given a green light to greatly expand on what we're doing. Current plan is to get many more of our members certified as instructors in our various regions and have them work as teams with youth orgs in muzzleloading. The ideal plan is to equip each team with a set of traditional style roundball guns, a set of matched muskets, and ammo so they come to a youth function with everything needed to conduct an instruction session. Yeah it's ambitious but go big or go home.
If you made it this far through my ramblings, you have my sincere thanks and I'll post some more stuff if anybody is interested in following what we're doing.
Topic: New guy intro and some interesting stuff (Read 566 times)