MUZZLELOADERS
A few years back, I drew an antelope tag for the Catlow Valley in southeastern Oregon. This unit is known to harbor some big bucks, and I was thrilled to finally have the chance to hunt antelope in my home state again, nearly 15 years after pulling my first rifle tag.

However, there was a catch. The tag I had drawn was a muzzleloader permit. I didn't own one, nor had I even fired one. I planned on borrowing my father's Hawken if I drew. But now that it was a reality, I didn't have complete confidence in that old piece of art that adorned his mantle.

I knew that my friend and fellow writer Nick Rinn hunted with a muzzleloader, so I gave him a call. He advised me to purchase a more modern firearm, and soon I had my hands on an Austin and Halleck bolt-action rifle.

This particular firearm is designed to be fired with shotgun primers. But Oregon does not allow this type of percussion cap to be used to ignite the powder. It came with fiber-optic sights, but I had to pull these off because of another restriction.

The rage in muzzleloading projectiles is sabot and jacketed bullets, but the Beaver State doesn't allow these either. So I settled on some solid lead bullets. I took the gun to the range and, after some tinkering, was able to keep three shots within a dinner plate at 100 yards.

That became my personal maximum range with iron sights.

The unnerving thing was that the No. 11 percussion caps ignited the charge only about 80 percent of the time. Going into my antelope hunt, I was faced with the reality that when the moment of truth came, there was a 20 percent chance that the gun wouldn't fire.

But fortunately, at the end of a three-hour stalk -- most of it on my belly along the uncomfortable high-desert floor -- the muzzleloader fired, and the slug found the lungs of a nice pronghorn buck.

Obviously, one of the challenges of muzzleloading is navigating all the restrictions, which differ from state to state. Also, muzzleloaders come in a variety of designs and can be ignited using flintlock, matchlock, wheel lock mechanisms or percussion caps.

The modern muzzleloader is the in-line, which is ignited by the caps. These are legal in California, Oregon and Washington, but the latter two states require that the breech must be exposed to the elements. Washington and California allow 209 primers, while Oregon does not.

None of the three states allows scopes on muzzleloaders. Oregon takes this one step further by outlawing fiber optic sights.

Carefully read the regulations of your state to determine what you can stuff down the barrel, aim with, use as a projectile and use to ignite your powder.

Muzzleloaders give hunters excellent opportunities to tag a record-book Pacific Northwest mule deer.

The muzzleloader is my favorite tool for spot-and-stalk hunting. The effective range, given the restrictions, is about 100 yards for most shooters. One shot is usually all you will get, and with a muzzleloader, I personally would never take anything other than a broadside still shot.

Muzzleloaders have twice the effective range of a modern compound bow, and they can be fired from the prone position after a long belly-crawl.