BLACK POWDER: THE END OF AN ERA?

BLACK POWDER

“Where were the other shooters?” wondered author Mike Nesbitt (second from left) following low attendance at an annual black powder shooting event in western Washington state that dates back to the 1980s. In years past, “well over 100” participants would have competed in some of the matches.

THE END OF AN ERA?

Long-standing black powder shooting match struggles to attract participants and may not return in 2023.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT

The 44th annual Gib Isaakson Memorial Black Powder Shoot, part of the Oregon Trail Days event in Tenino, Washington, was recently held in July. What makes this muzzleloading match so different is that it is held right in the city park amidst a weekendlong celebration. Unfortunately, this year’s shoot might have been the last one. (More on this later.)

My memory isn’t specific enough to recall when I first went to this doin’s. Back then it was a huge gathering and I went there not to shoot but to do some shopping in the large traders’ area, where gunmakers and outfitters traded their goods either from tents or simply off of their blankets. That was the place to get materials and goods for the rest of the year, just like the summer rendezvous was for the trappers who traded away the furs they had taken.

They had the shooting matches back then, too, but there were so many shooters, well over 100, that sometimes the matches were run in double relays. To put it simply, the annual gathering and shooting match at Tenino was something we didn’t want to miss.

IT MUST HAVE been the mid-1980s when I started shooting in these matches.

Will Ulry, a trader and competitor at Tenino, makes wooden chairs and trunks plus other goods, and for as long as I can remember he’s always put up one of his wooden chairs as a shooting prize for the aggregate. Taking that chair became a real tradition for the aggregate winner and I still have the chair I won there in 1997. My rifle shooting was pretty good in those days and I won a total of six chairs, taking first place each time, all before 2010. (Will donates chairs to several other events too, including Buffalo Camp.)

Another outstanding craftsman who offered very worthy items for prizes was Harold Moore, the wellremembered powder horn maker. Harold would donate three powder horns for the trade gun match for the top three finishers.

It was in 2001 when I won my first Harold Moore powder horn; I used a Leonard Day swivel-breech flintlock that had one .54-caliber rifled barrel and one 28-gauge smoothbore barrel. That gun looks like an over/under but to change from one barrel to the other, the “catch” is depressed and the barrels are then turned to swivel the wanted barrel to the top. I still have that wellmade powder horn.

Harold donated powder horns for the trade gun match for a good number of years and those matches were most often filled with highly competitive shooters all trying their very best to be awarded such a fine prize. Later, after Harold could no longer make those powder horns, Steve Skillman stepped in to carry on the tradition.

AT THIS YEAR’S Gib Isaakson Memorial Black Powder Shoot, the trade gun shooters were again competing for three of Steve’s buffalo powder horns. The trade gun match was the first event to be shot, early on Saturday morning. Tom Brown, the booshway of this doin’s as well as the match director and chief range safety officer, had the shooters assemble on the firing line for the shooters’ meeting – all four of us.

That was almost unbelievable. Where were the other shooters? The number of shooters had been declining over the past few years at the Tenino matches, but nothing like this. In his short address at the shooters’ meeting, Tom suggested that this would be the

Nesbitt’s fowler and pistol, plus a powder horn prize – emblematic of the unique artisanmade trophies awarded to top shooters at the Gib Isaakson Memorial Black Powder Shoot over the years.

Even the event’s marque competition, the Washington State Muzzleloaders Association’s Formal Rifle Match, only saw 13 shooters on the line. If there’s any hope for its future, when members of the public attending the concurrent Oregon Trail Days celebration were invited to try shooting a muzzleloader for $1 per shot, it proved “very popular.”

Nesbitt fires from the sitting position at a 90-yard target. In light of low participation at this year’s event, his club will now mull whether to even hold a 2023 edition. “The match is a very good one, but it needs shooters to support it. If this shoot is discontinued, it will be the end of an era,” he writes.

last of the shooting matches at Tenino. However, the final decision will not be made until the black powder planning meeting, which will be held by Capitol City Rifle & Pistol Club of the Olympia, Washington, area next month.

Then the shoot was on. The trade gun match uses a single target with two images on it; one is a moonshine jug and the other is a smiling quarter moon. We call it the “moonshine target.” Shooting begins at 40 yards with five shots. I took those five shots at the jug, a wider target than the quarter moon and hopefully easier to hit with the smoothbore, which has no rear sight. After all shooters had fired five shots from the 40-yard distance, we all moved forward to 25 yards for another five shots. That put 10 shots on the paper, or at least 10 tries, and with the range closed, we retrieved our targets. My trade gun target didn’t look too bad.

The load I used in my 20-gauge Fowler had a .595-inch round ball patched with a .015-inch lubed patch over 60 grains of Schuetzen 3Fg powder. That’s a load I’ve used for several years and it always seems to work very well in the Fowlers and Northwest Trade Guns. Priming the flintlock, of course, was done with 4Fg from my priming flask.

FOR THE PISTOL match, which gained one more shooter for a total of five, I reverted back to a percussion gun, my favorite .50-caliber Hawken-style halfstock pistol with the single-set trigger. That “hand cannon” uses 35 grains of the 3Fg powder under a patched .490inch round ball; with that load, it is a very consistent shooting gun. My first shot hit just a little low of the bull’s-eye while I was using a 6 o’clock hold. Then my second shot, with the same hold, hit even lower. So I used a 12 o’clock hold, aiming at the top of the black, and the other eight shots all hit very well, giving me a score in the 90s.

After that was the ladies’ match, but we had only one lady turn out. We made her shoot anyway. Guess what? She won!

The last match of the day had competitors shoot rifles at three novelty targets from just 25 yards. These included the candle, where you want to hit the flame but not the candle; the “Mike Fink” target, which shows a cup on top of a man’s head and you want to hit the cup as low as possible without touching the man; and the “V” target, where you want to place the bullet as low in the V as you can without touching the V. These are all paper targets and they can be tough because none of them have a bull’s-eye to aim at and you only get one shot per target.

Then, that afternoon, members of the public were invited to try a muzzleloading rifle, with the rifle

Here’s Nesbitt's .50-caliber lightweight Hawken percussion rifle.

loaded by a volunteer, for $1 per shot. That was very popular this year and our two volunteers, Tom Witt and Derek Sotelo, were kept busy until they ran out of ammunition. The $1 per shot was donated to the club.

ON SUNDAY MORNING, the real shooting match began, with the first target at 90 yards. Here’s where I used my lightweight percussion Hawken-style rifle in .50-caliber. This portion of the match at Tenino was also the Formal Rifle Match of the Washington State Muzzleloaders Association. The number of shooters had risen to 13 for the rifle match, still very low compared to the more than 100 that we used to enjoy. The rifle match was run in five relays, one relay per target, with those targets posted at 90, 75 and 50 yards, and then two targets at 25 yards. After each target was shot, the firing line moved closer to the targets.

Bob DeLisle was the big winner for the aggregate. He took first place in all five rifle matches with his TVM .40-caliber flintlock Leman, and he shot all targets offhand, although sitting and cross-sticks were allowed at the two longest distances.

The top three trade gun shooters were each awarded the buffalo powder horns and I took first place there, as well as in the pistol match. The other prizes were provided by the Puget Sound Free Trappers. I was awarded fourth place in the aggregate, picking a new coffeepot from the prize table, and all shooters received a prize from that table in order of their aggregate score.

Now we must wait for the planning meeting to see if the shooting match in the city park at Tenino will be done again. The match is a very good one, but it needs shooters to support it. If this shoot is discontinued, it will be the end of an era.