New guy here, but would like to post about my summer

[Dave951]

So I'm a new guy on this forum, but not new to muzzle loading and black powder. I don't shoot much round ball because I'm a competitor in the North South Skirmish Association and we shoot minies so we don't need no patches for anything other than cleaning. I do, however, have a PRB TC White Mnt Carbine that I really really like.

So this is what went on this summer. A group of us in the NSSA over the winter decided to volunteer in instructing youth in muzzleloading. There were a number of reasons but we went and got the NRA/NMLRA Muzzleloading Instructor certification and worked at a local BSA camp. We went up there once each week and conducted the shooting portion of the Rifle Shooting Merit Badge with muzzleloaders in the Mountain Man primitive camp and in the evening, we conducted an open shoot for those campers who wanted to shoot a Civil War musket with live ammo.

We had corporate support from Schutzen for powder and caps, S&S and Lodgewood provided logistical support for the muskets and the muskets were donated by Pat "PJ" Kelly of the NSSA.

Over the summer, we worked with nearly 300 Scouts and Scouters and we're looking to expand our efforts through the winter and reach more Scout camps and other youth orgs. The driving force here is there is an acute lack of certified muzzle loading instructors who are also muzzle loading enthusiasts. We're working to correct that.

So a bit long winded, maybe some pix later.

 

[Okie Hog]

Welcome dave951. It's a good thing that you are doing. Without an infusion of young folks conventional muzzle loading will die a slow death.

 

[Buck Conner1]

.
In Colorado we have done much like what you just did through the BSA and the GSA groups probably 35-40 years ago. Those efforts paid off with the young folks we took under our wings now teaching their children and so on. Many of the group of us older instructors have now passed on, but still remembered for their efforts in helping the youth of yesterday. I run into some of our students once in a while - they have children about the same age as they were when we helped show them the way, now they have taken up the teaching. The BSA has a good program for teaching all weapon instructions that you never hear about on the news, that's to bad that the good things are never mentioned.

I mentioned the two groups, what was funny to me the girls out shot the boys about 70% of the time for score. The main reason was the boys wouldn't pay attention to the instruction (they knew everything) while the girls listened to every word.  Kids ....