Something I have never done before... Ross Gun and Coin was sponsoring a 'Range Day @ Skyline Gun Club'. This is an annual event in which Ross invites manufactures to bring their guns to the range and allow the general public to come in and shoot the different weapons on display.
The only muzzleloader manufacture there was Knight and I was asked if I wanted to help man the area. It was a 600 mile drive for me to get there, but man I am glad that I did. I got to meet a couple of people from Knight that I knew by name but have never met in person. Even Robby of Rok Slide stopped by and worked out a couple of the rifles.
Knight had brought along a Little Horn, a Western Edition Knight Ultra Lite, plus we had a Mountaineer set up with a Western kit and another Ultra Lite set up as regular scope modern muzzleloader. The rifles were on display and available for the public to shoot. They were able to choose the rifle they might like to shoot. The booth personnel would talk a bit about the rifles and the shooters experience. It seems to me that we had many more NEW ML shooters than we did experienced shooters. With the new shooters we would load the rifle the first time for them, but along the way we would explain what we were doing and the purpose of what we were doing. Often most shooters would choose to shoot a second round and then we would let the shooter work their way through the loading process. I was really surprised and even more happy about the experience these folks were getting and the sense of accomplishment and thrill they felt after they shot and busted the birds at the other end.
I really felt there was a lot myths about ML and ML shooting put aside at this shoot. With the Little Horn even the young kids were able to get into the feeling of shooting a ML.
As a note of interest I was surprised by the number of people that chose to shoot the Mountaineer Western Edition basically because it had a thumbhole stock. Their reason... I have never shot a thumbhole before and wanted to see what it felt like. I believe most really felt comfortable with the thumbhole configuration.
Here is a collection of pictures that show some of the things we were able to do. I really wanted to get a lot more pictures, but with the number of people participating, I really never had time to get the camera out to take pictures - so I only have a limited few taken by others in the booth.
