Buying a New Muzzleloader in 2006?
You Need to Read This!
The
American firearms industry is an industry to be proud of. It is
our heritage, our birthright, inextricably intertwined with American
history, and what it means to be an American.
Shooting
sports have never been safer. In fact, a new report from the National
Safety Council shows that accidental firearm-related fatalities
remained at record lows in 2004 (the latest year on record).
Statistics in the council's "Injury Facts 2005-2006"
show a 48 percent decrease over a 10-year period ending in 2004.
Firearms-related sports are just as safe as we allow them to be,
and varies in concert with the respect with which we treat them.
Thanks to modern metallurgy, quality control, and manufacturing
methods we have shooting equipment available to us at a combination
of quality and affordability never before available.
Modern
muzzleloading began here, prospers here, and leads the world in
both quality and innovation. America is the largest muzzleloading
enthusiast market in the word. It was the "Michigan Wolverine"
that adapted the 209 shotshell primer to muzzleloading use; it was
our own Tony Knight and Doc White that elevated muzzleloading to
its current level of popularity, effectiveness, and safety. It has
been Del Ramsey that showed up we can take game cleaner and faster
with MMP sabots, and it has been Hodgdon powder that gave us propellants
with consistency, convenience, and availability. Buffalo Bullets
and Barnes Bullets have presented us with projectiles that shoot
more accurately, and take game more humanely than ever before. Henry
Ball and Savage Arms have given us new, extremely high standards
in accuracy, strength, trigger quality, and safety. It is a great
time for muzzleloading.
By far,
the cheapest part of shooting sports is the initial cost of the
firearm itself. A quality firearm holds its value, and has an indefinite
life. America offers the best-built, best tested muzzleloaders in
the world, and I mean Knight, NEF/H & R, Savage, Thompson/Center.
We have affordable, effective, well-mannered firearms worth treasuring,
enjoying, and passing on to the next generation.
Unfortunately,
marketing hyperbole sometimes works. And, although quality muzzleloaders
are available at the fraction of a cost of any well-outfitted hunt,
less than one shoulder mount, and even less than a quality scope,
base, and ring set, we sometimes purchase muzzleloaders that are
built to dubious standards.
By subsidizing
poor quality imports, we denigrate the continuing innovation and
excellence of our own uniquely American experience. Uninformed shop
clerks sell CVA/Winchester Muzzleloading, Traditions, and now the
pot-metal abomination sold under the once proud Remington name--the
Genesis--like fishing lures. Sadly, all too often, we bite. Their
true value, of course, is reflected in their abysmal resale value.
Certainly many
items are in a "global mareketplace," but muzzleloading
is distinctly not-- it is Americana. By funding foreign copyists,
and peddlers of borderline or deficient quality muzzleloaders is
to encourage more of the same. It is tacit approval of the destruction
of the quality modern American muzzleloader maker, and discourages
more development from right here . . . where it all began.
Whether
new to firearms, new to muzzleloading, or just looking for better
equipment with which to hunt, the reasons to own a muzzleloader
of good quality, materials, design, and testing are huge. It is
not just resale value; it is field performance year after year.
It is pride of ownership, it is safety, and it is reliability. Anything
less is tortured, false economy.
When
entering a new sport, or taking a rejuvenated interest in a sport,
the quality of your equipment directly affects the quality of our
experience and, inevitably, the quality of our hunting and shooting.
The purpose of muzzleloading is simple: enjoyment.
With
the current, reasonable cost of quality rifles with decent triggers,
strong actions, quality barrels, and reliable customer service from
reputable companies behind them, the pay off in performance and
enjoyment is both immediate and long lasting. The deep satisfaction
of ownership and operation of a quality rifle endures, while the
momentary "satisfaction" of low price and brightly shrink-wrapped
pot-metal guns with barrels that won't close and 14 pound triggers
is false, fleeting, and transient.
As my
father, a man of conservative tastes, has taught me, any tool that
you need to buy twice is no bargain at all. The ticket to ride is
not the overall cost of ownership. We all seem to learn that sooner
or later, if we have enough birthdays. The savvy consumer already
knows it.
The American
muzzleloading industry produces the best in the world, and deserves
our respect and support. In return, we can enjoy standards of quality
and performance that were impossible to achieve, at any price, only
a decade ago. It is a great time to enjoy muzzleloading; more now
than ever before.
©
2006 by Randy Wakeman
