Irritated!

[preacherman]

I have been hunting since I was 12, in that time I have never failed to fill a deer tag. Last year, I switched to muzzy, and just barely got it filled. Not the seasons fault, mine ... apparently I can't shoot one well.

So I hit the range a lot this year, and went ahead and pulled another muzzy tag. But I missed a slew of deer this year, and first time in my life a deer tag went unfilled. It's been a good year with work so I'm not gonna starve, but man it stinks!

I'm gonna put more range time this year, but I'm just not sure I have the confidence in this rifle!?

Vent over!


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[lokidog]

How consistent are you at the range?  Maybe you need to work up a different load or use different bullets?  Lots of powder to burn to get consistent.

Good shooting.

[JimmyHoffa]

Is it a sidelock or an inline?  Sometimes there's enough difference in lock time to affect your shooting.

[MountainDevil54]

some times its not the rifle. A new shooter to BP often flinches. One may shoot well off a bench, but how well does that shooter shoot when its taken away? You must practice shooting like you are in the field.

[longwalker]

I hate muzzle loaders , stupidest weapon out there to hunt with. That being said 3 out of the last 4 years there what I filled my deer tag with. I guess it's part of there charm

[lokidog]

some times its not the rifle. A new shooter to BP often flinches. One may shoot well off a bench, but how well does that shooter shoot when its taken away? You must practice shooting like you are in the field.

This is a good point, follow through is definitely a key to consistent ML shooting.

[preacherman]

It's a knight disc extreme, I'm sure it is me.


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[preacherman]

It's unbelievably accurate on the bench, and offhand I do as well as I do with my shotgun, slinging slugs. That's what I've taken nearly ever deer with.


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[Soady]

Sometimes it is either the eyes or the sight picture of the target you are trying to hit. Since I changed to a peep/ghost ring aperture and a glow bead front sight target hits have improved except in this years snow blizzard white out against those elk. Deer came easy in the dark timber and the glow bead shined brightly

Or maybe the rifle just doesn't fit your profile. Eliminate what doesn't work and what does, fine tune from there and take someone with you when you go shooting so they can watch what you are doing when you shoot. Flinching, jerking the trigger, raising your head off the stock comb, and all sorts of other things are going to be visible to the observer, hopefully providing you with feed back to improve.

[RightPlace-RightTime]

Sorry you went one year without filling your tag.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

A lot of variables can affect a blackpowder shot. Keeping the barrel clean is a big one.  Another one in Western Washington is humidity. Black powder is like salt and will attract moisture from the air. If you don't empty your gun at night and use fresh powder every day,  you take a chance on getting damp powder which means it doesn't all ignite when you pull the trigger. In extreme cases your gun might not go off at all or the charge may be so weak that the ball moves partially and gets stuck in the barrel.

Lastly, make sure you are holding your rifle still through the whole shot. The whole process of the trigger striking the cap and the spark setting off the powder takes slightly longer than shooting a cartridge. Then there are hangfires..... those darn hangfires. Hunting in coastal rain, you're going to have them.

When my dad and I hunted blackpowder regularly with my uncles and cousins and friends, we had about every kind of failure with a muzzleloader you can have at one time or another. Some, like hangfires, would happen regularly enough that we started a list and numbered them, so when it came time to give your excuse for not getting a deer, we just gave the number instead of the whole excuse. These were running jokes in our camp. We always got our deer in the end, but we missed plenty of opportunities too.

[elkboy]

Summarizing what Sitka is saying, in a way: you just have to know how the rifle will perform under a slew of different conditions.  I shoot Knights also (Bighorn and Mountaineer), and because they are muzzleloaders, things like temperature, humidity, and faulty percussion caps will give you variability in performance that nobody would ever put up with in a centerfire rifle.  So keep the faith, hit the range under different weather conditions, and yes, change out your load on those wet days (firing a cap through the cleaned barrel before you pour powder back in!).  I am an absolute fanatic on cleaning, oiling, and keeping dry- and my muzzleloaders are honestly quite dependable.  Sabotloader I am sure can weigh in. 

Good luck, Preacherman.  PM me if you want the horrific saga of my first season of muzzleloading, involving four different borrowed muzzleloaders (the fourth one did the trick).  But I stuck with it, and have taken a lot of deer since. 

[Smokepole]

Preacherman, I was killing deer every year with a modern firearm.  I remember it was so easy to go up to my honey hole & shoot a buck with my 7mm, it just didn't seem fair any more.  So I went muzzy.  It put the challenge back into hunting for me.  No more 300 yard shots.  I spend a lot of time up close.  I do a lot more hunting because I miss quite a bit, or a cap fails to go off.  It is a whole new adventure... and you don't have to deal with the punkin patch.

Since you have a good gun, I'd just shoot it off hand a lot.  Learn the trajectory of your loads & practice shooting them up and down slopes, and on level ground.  If you wear reading glasses like I do, consider getting a rear peep.

But the main thing is to keep having fun with it.   

[boneaddict]

If it's good on paper, what's happening in the woods?   Different angles, breathing, buck fever??   

[T Pearce]

Is it a sidelock or an inline?  Sometimes there's enough difference in lock time to affect your shooting.

Probably this.