That happened over 20 years ago. Where is the "news"?
A scope does not enhance trajectory-- that's nonsense. Of course, a cotton patch has the same function as a sabot, and is used for "smaller than bore sized" projectiles.
Who do you think gets to "draw a line" for the United States? A gunmaker in Italy? A shooting range in Indiana? You? Me?
Ridiculous. Citizens should. DNR's exist to serve citizens, not the other way around.
Who said a scope enhances trajectory? I sure didn't, what are you talking about? But I will say this--a scope sure as hell allows most people to shoot a lot more accurately at long ranges. To say otherwise, now that's nonsense. A scope, a sabot, and smokeless powder all increase the effective range of the average hunter, allowing the modern muzzleloader to "have his cake and eat it too." In other words, to hunt in the special early seasons with a rifle that can kill cleanly at 200 yards.
And you know what else is nonsense? Comparing a cotton patch to a sabot and comparing a modern saboted muzzleloader bullet to a round ball, now that's nonsense. If that comparison was valid, everyone who shoots sabots could just switch to a patched round ball and get the same performance. What a crock.
You ask where's the news and say all this took place 20 years ago? Now that's nonsense too. What happened 20 years ago was the popularization of the in-line by Knight. So far so good because everyone knows that the in-line action itself gives no ballistic advantage, that's been pretty well proven.
Was the muzzleloader that uses smokeless powder developed 20 years ago? I don't think so, but you would know that better than I would, what was the date? It wasn't 20 years ago, now was it? What about the popularization of muzzleloaders that are built to shoot "magnum" charges of 150 grains of powder (which by the way in practical terms are only really useful for flatter trajectories at long ranges) ? Was that 20 years ago too? Twenty years ago, was everybody new to muzzleloader hunting shooting saboted bullets and using scopes? Not where I hunted. Barnes didn't make ML bullets back then and the best rounds for sabots were just pistol bullets, not even close to the BC of the specialized ML sabot rounds available today.
So that's what's new, in case you missed it.
Who gets to draw the line? I agree, it's citizens. And every time I read someone's opinion about how the Colorado DOW is "backward" for its restrictions on muzzleloaders, it's always from a citizen--of another state. They don't count.
Sometimes these opinions are also from people "in the business" who are promoting and have a financial interest in marketing these new products.
Sometimes, these people even post on this forum.
