For the love of muzzleloading

The La Grande Rifle and Pistol Club’s River Range Complex was a study in contrasts Sunday.

At the 300-yard Jack Wicklander Range people sharpened their modern rifle skills, firing bullets that continuously broke the sound barrier.

Not so at the club’s Charlie Smutz 100-yard range. There, lead balls flew out of guns and smoke appeared after each shot.

The Smutz Range was the site of a Grande Ronde Muzzleloaders Shoot Sunday. Men and women displayed skills there Sunday that would have served them well during the 1800-40 fur trade era. Participants tested their ability to fire muzzleloader rifles and pistols accurately plus their knife and tomahawk throwing skills.

Sunday’s shoot drew 11 men and women, some of whom came from Baker City and Pilot Rock. The Grande Ronde Muzzleloaders conduct shoots each month year-round at the Smutz Range.

“They give us an opportunity to share our love of muzzleloading,’’ said Karen Fulbright of Pilot Rock.

Fulbright and all club members are known to each other by their buckskinner names. She is called Flaming Biscuit by other Muzzleloaders.

The muzzleloaders fired at the shoots are replicas of those used during the fur trading era — guns that give shooters a three-dimensional sense of the past.

“You have a better feel for history when you use the tools they used,’’ said Mike Hasel of La Grande, a member of the Grande Ronde Muzzleloaders, which is a part of the La Grande Rifle and Pistol Club.

Many who take part in the muzzleloader events, including Fulbright, sometimes come in clothes they made that replicate those worn more than 150 years ago.

“I love that period of clothes. Just the simplicity.... ’’ Fulbright said.

She also is struck by how the clothes were handmade without assistance from mechanical devices.

Lee Sancoy of La Grande also expresses a fascination for the self-sufficiency of people who lived in the fur trader era. He is impressed at how people could build rifles with little more than wood and iron.

Sancoy also speaks in awe of how easily mountain men traveled back and forth across the Rocky Mountains more than 150 years ago.

“They went across the Rockies like it was their backyard,’’ Sancoy said.

Mountain men could find their way across North America, “but we get lost in Portland,’’ Sancoy said.

Mountain men used their muzzleloaders only for self-defense and to harvest meat. They rarely practiced, which means many of today’s muzzleloading aficionados would hold their own against mountain men of the past, said Darrel Plank of La Grande.

“Our accuracy is as good or better than the majority of old-timers,’’ Plank said.

Plank and many other members of the La Grande Muzzleloaders hunt deer and elk with muzzleloaders. Plank relishes the added challenges of trying to take a big game animal with a muzzleloader.

“(The muzzleloader) puts the hunt back into it,’’ he said.

Plank said he believes muzzleloader hunters face a greater challenge than archers. One reason is archers can fire second shots more quickly. It takes a skilled muzzleloader about 30 seconds to reload, a process that includes pouring powder into a barrel and adding a lead ball.

Participants in Sunday’s shoot were under no pressure to reload quickly since entrants were not timed.

“There is no rush. It is really relaxing,’’ Fulbright said.

All three events at Sunday’s shoot were won by Plank, whose buckskinner name is Mountain Man.

“The competition is serious but friendly. We enjoy ourselves,’’ Plank said.

They enjoy not only the competition but also the chance to temporarily test Father Time’s reverse gear.