Closing in on Georgia’s Primitive Weapons season
Georgia’s 2014 archery season has been underway for almost a month and now a special hunting season for primitive weapons set aside by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is set to begin. The 2014 Primitive Weapons season in Georgia will run from Saturday, October 11 through Friday, October 17 and during the entire week, hunters can harvest deer of either sex.
Legal weapons during the primitive weapons season include crossbows, bow and arrows and any muzzleloading firearm. Muzzleloader hunters can use scopes, iron sights or peep sights (fiber-optic sights are also legal).
The earliest primitive weapons were called Atlatl. This primitive weapon was used to throw arrows or spears by hand. It was truly a very early primitive and inaccurate weapon and was soon replaced by the bow and arrow which was much more accurate. One of the more accurate types of bow and arrow is the crossbow and they date to the 5th century BC in China.
Hunters look upon the use of the muzzleloader to harvest wildlife as a challenge that dates back to the days when settlers first came to America. Early immigrants to America depended on their muzzleloaders for food and protection.
Those early American settlers gave special attention to their muzzleloaders because they were so important to their daily struggle to survive. Compared to today’s modern muzzleloaders, the early versions were prone to breakdown and early settlers were constantly working for better rifles.
From the desire for better quality rifles, the American gunsmith was born. American gunsmiths took the best features of European rifles and created rifles that were accurate, dependable and adapted for the thick forest of the new America.
Most American firearms were being made in factories by 1850 and the early American gunsmiths began to slowly disappear. Many names are used when referring to muzzleloaders. Black powder rifles and smokepoles are two of the names associated with muzzleloaders.
In early America, black-powder or gun-powder was the only propellant suitable for use in all guns. Gun-powder is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate and creates smoke when fired in a rifle hence the name smokepole.
Black-powder is forever associated with the traditional muzzleloading rifles and is preferred by traditional hunters but black-powder is becoming harder to find. It is being replaced with smokeless powder that is less dangerous, less corrosive to the gun and produces little or no smoke.
When primitive weapons seasons were initially instituted the most popular types of rifles were hammer-driven Hawken types or Kentucky rifles with wooden ramrods using real granulated black-powder and lead balls in .45, .50 or .58 caliber and modern muzzleloaders did not exist.
Today’s modern muzzleloader looks and operates nothing like the traditional smokepole rifle used by the early settlers. If you’re looking for a challenge reminiscent of early American settlers then the traditional smokepole is the choice. That rifle presents the greatest challenge to the hunter due to the fact that the rifle has iron sights and gives the hunter a single shot. The hunter must learn to shoot well with open sights, keep the powder dry and get close to their quarry.
The modern muzzleloader is essentially a single shot rifle. They are often referred to as in-line rifles since the components are all loaded in-line with one another. It might look like and even operate somewhat like the traditional muzzleloader but it is a drastically different gun.
The modern muzzleloader gun uses saboted bullets and Pyrodex (modern substitute for gun-powder) pellets. That means the hunter does not have to measure a charge of powder and does not have to worry about rain since the primer for ignition is secured in the breech. Modern muzzleloaders use modern scopes which improve their accuracy so that having a single shot available isn’t a great concern.
Many traditional muzzleloaders do not believe that the modern muzzleloader should be used by hunters during the primitive weapons season. However the time for that argument has long since passed and both traditional and modern muzzleloaders along with traditional and modern archery equipment are now legal during the primitive weapons season.
So whether you fall into the category of traditional muzzleloader hunter and shoot a replica from the past or you fall into the non-traditional muzzleloader hunter and shoot the modern muzzleloader, you need to get your muzzleloader ready if you plan to hunt during Georgia’s upcoming primitive weapons season. Good hunting and see you next week.