Blackpowder shooting

I discovered shooting black powder in muzzleloading firearms around sixty years ago, when I was in my middle teenage years. We were living in Illinois at the time and that state had just legalized muzzleloaders for deer hunting. My brother and I thought hunting with a rifle would beat a rifled slug shotgun any day while chasing deer.

We started shooting the muzzleloaders at local club matches and for practice on weekends when no matches were scheduled. We were shooting virtually every weekend. Shooting with the “older” guys taught us a lot about techniques and equipment needed for loading and cleaning the blackpowder rifles. We did well in the matches. In fact, my brother and I alternated between winning one particular match with one specific club for about five or six consecutive years. There was talk the club members were going to rename the match “the Delo brothers’ match” because of that streak.

I joined the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) during this time and received their monthly magazine, called “Muzzle Blasts.” The magazine regularly printed the various match scores and results for the matches we shot in and, both my brother and I saw our names in print multiple times for our shooting skills. As time passed, I went off to college and was no longer a regular competitive blackpowder shooter.

I still shot my muzzleloader off and on over the years for fun. After I retired from ADF&G, I started attending the Mt. McKinley Mountain Men matches here in the Valley and found out about a nationwide match sponsored by the NMLRA. That match was known as “the Territorials” and any state could hold such a match as long as an NMLRA affiliated club was willing to sponsor it.

The Mt. McKinley club in Alaska was NMLRA affiliated and sponsored the three- to four-day match each year. There were individual aggregate matches for about any type of muzzleloading firearm you could imagine. Over the years, I have shot in flintlock smoothbore matches; various flintlock, and percussion side-lock rifle matches (like hunter or one-gun); sighted smoothbore matches; military rifled musket matches; inline percussion matches; blackpowder cartridge rifle matches; and blackpowder handgun matches. The only limitation was having the proper firearm for the particular match you wanted to shoot. If you didn’t have the proper gun, chances are one of the other shooters would loan you a gun for the matches.

To improve my chances of placing in a match, I purchased a military rifled musket when I realized few shooters were shooting that aggregate. I did the same for the sighted smoothbore aggregate, except I assembled my gun from parts purchased online. That got me several shooting medals or ribbons over time until everybody else started doing the same thing and competition got more intense. I still won medals or ribbons, but not as frequently as before.

I was looking through the current edition of “Muzzle Blast” magazine recently and, in a section listing the top seven to ten scores for the various aggregates nationwide, imagine my surprise to find my name in listings of the matches from last year’s Territorials. I was expecting to see Pat Reed’s name and did, several times in different matches (top gun, one-gun, unlimited Longhunter), since Pat is a nationally ranked shooter. I found Jeff Binegar’s (Bean) name under the smoothbore category and Steve Anderson listed under the pistol championship and revolver matches.

I was listed under the cartridge championship grouping and inline bench championship. Calvin Pope and Joe Coe were also listed under the inline bench championship category. All these guys participated in the 2023 Alaskan Territorials and, I am proud to say, ably represented Alaska when compared to shooters from across the country competing against other shooters.

I set the Alaska state record score for the standing bear target a few years ago in the blackpowder cartridge aggregate and, to my surprise, the record still stands. I don’t know how long that will last because there are several good black powder cartridge rifle shooters here and the record isn’t that high of a score (49 out of a possible 50-5X).

I know this sounds like bragging, but I was honestly surprised to see the listings in the magazine and I am proud of the record score on the bear target. I don’t have that many more years left where I can compete at this level, so I must blow my horn when I can. The younger shooters will be coming along shortly!