AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: Bob Gerard on October 13, 2024, 02:32:49 AM
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Our club, Wilderness Road Muzzleloaders in Wytheville, VA had a Boy Scout Muzzleloader Introduction day and we all had a wonderful time. Scouts, Leaders, and Dads all had their first taste of musket and rifle shooting and did great. We’re working to get youth introduced and interested in muzzleloading and these are good steps.We hope to do more.
This is me with my colleague and great friend Charles who is part of our Muzzleloading Instructor team.
(https://i.ibb.co/7VWKCN7/IMG-3144.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Y8khQTv)
image upload site (https://imgbb.com/)
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Strong work. Memories made and acorns planted.
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Well done, boys, and well said MK 17Fan.
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Good times for sure.
We have done something similar here as part of the Hunter Ed field day.
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Back around 2002-2003 I came into a couple of smoothbores made by one of the members here. As neither was really to my taste, I turned them over to the local scout troop I was working with. Over the years those guns have been used by every scout in the course of earning their shotgun merit badge, have springboarded most of them to their American Heritage badge, and have figured in roughly half of them getting merit badges in woodworking or metalworking. We now have parents who were scouts, and the ML shooting is something they all look forward to.
The guns have been useful teaching tools, enough so that I've had to rebuild the locks once or twice. I always had a good set of troop leaders and involved parents, so the weekend before any shooting we'd meet and plan things out. What we never had was any other ML shooters in the area who were willing to come help, or, despite requests, any support (educational materials etc) from the NMLRA. I'm not sure what that says about the folks who complain the sport is dying off.
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It seems that most of the time people will grumble and bemoan about the lack of new blood in this hobby (though that is debatable from my own experience in my Rev War Reenactment group and the couple of clubs I belong to!) rather than actually investing time or energy to do anything about it.
And then there’s the situations where newer folks are driven away by the “grumpy old fargs” who spend more time knocking someone down than expressing any interest or providing even a welcoming hand or smile.
I actually believe our members can be the biggest cause of our own downfall.
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You guys are doing a great thing! Not only introducing kids and thier dads to muzzleloading but giving them a good dose of history, which no one these days seems to care much about except for maybe vilifying our founding fathers. God bless you all and a very merry Christmas.