Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Best Muzzleloader Ever Made?

"Best" can be defined in many ways.

Is an AK 47 the best chose for a center fire,--- or is the best choice a Hagan single-shot made by 4 guild masters?

Well it depends on what your mission statement is I suppose.



If simply killing game is the mission statement I believe the best one is the most modern scope sighted inline you can get, firing smokeless powder and shooting jacketed bullets, or a Russian RPG, or maybe it is an 60MM Mortar. If loading from the muzzle, and ability to kill more easily is the mission statement something of the above category is best.

But if "Best" means tradition, style, history, hand crafted quality, and not simply trying to get past game regulations and the original intent of what Muzzle-loading seasons were written into the law for, I believe a hand made flintlock of cap-lock rifle, made in the old way, to the highest standard of quality, is the best.

I for one am not against in-line muzzleloaders. Not at all. I am for any kind of shooting that burns powder. In fact, I have killed deer and antelope with AKs and ARs. I have killed elk with auto loading 308s and one 270 Short mag too. I am NOT against modern guns at all, even if they were to be single shots and even if they load from the muzzle.

But I am and I have always been against giving super modern weapons a "free pass" to be used for hunting in seasons that were designed to give place for old fashioned weapons. The game and fish departments want the money, and have lost sight (intentionally I think) of the intent of the law in the first place.

I have killed a lot of game with muzzleloaders in my life, starting when I was 14. So far I have not killed a single animal on a muzzleloader license, or in muzzleloader season. I have killed 100% of them in regular gun season. I tried 2 times in muzzleloader season, and both times I got skunked.
But I have killed about 23 head of game (what I can count now, and remember for sure) with muzzleloaders in my life and all were on a regular tag. That's big game only, not small game or varmints. I speak of deer, elk antelope and moose.

Speaking only for myself, I like guns and I like to hunt with them. But the guns I like, I like a lot, all year long. I like them in and out of the hunting season.

An inline to me is like a wrench. It's a tool----- and not even a tool I'd take in pride in.
Like a pipe wrench. It stays in a box for as long as I don't need it and is pretty much forgotten until I need it again. When I need that wrench I get it out, it preforms the job it's designed to do, and I put it back. If the mission statement is to make water come to the house, the pipe wrench is just fine. I love having the water run when I want it, but when I turn on the faucet I don't have fond memories of the wrench.

If the mission statement is to kill something I'd have to say the inline is like the pipe wrench, but so is the AK47 and the AR15 or FN-FAL and these 3 are FAR better for making meat.

So I for one have no use for an inline at all. But that just me.

Hunting with an inline (to me) is to loose sight of the mission statement.
My mission statement is to hunt the old way. Not just to kill something.
That's the same reason I hunt archery seasons with a long bow and wood arrows.

It doesn't make me right or you wrong.

But I'd bet I feel a lot more satisfaction 1 month after the hunt, and every month thereafter, than the inline of compound shooters do.

Just my guess.