Hi Roundball...
Although I agree with your letters ending, your arguments with these people is mostly wasted. Nobody cares that muzzleloader seasons were for the "challenged" muzzleloader or equipment. Nobody cares that you haven't lost a deer to a roundball, but that should have been more of your argument.
A muzzleloader is loaded through the muzzle. To argue otherwise makes us look foolish. I didn't read the article you mention, but it probably is not unlike many others I have read. These folks are driven much of time by sponsors, and Jim Chambers, Euroarms, Pedersoli, L&R and the like, just aren't out there paying the freight, and aren't getting the press.
Things are as they are. If someone challenges the roundball, you are not going to win the argument by saying roundballs are better than than an expandable sabot pushed along by smokeless powder at 2500 fps.
What has to be argued is that the expandable is NO BETTER than a properly placed roundball. What has to be argued is that traditionalists take hunting more seriously than do the moderns. What has to be argued are that roundballers apply themselves to be better woodsmen than do the moderns. What has to be argued is that the roundballer is more into the challenge of the hunt than are the moderns. What has to be argued is that the modern companies like T/C, Knight, and CVA are more into the instant gratification crowd than they are into "true" hunters.
Now you may get an argument about a lot of this from the modern muzzleloader shooter, but challenge them nonetheless. Modern muzzleloaders are here to stay, but so to is the traditional archer and bow. Expand the hype of getting close, being one with nature, being up to the challenge, not being a sissy, is a better approach in MY OPINION, than the whining I hear from most traditionalists about modern muzzleloaders. They are here to stay, so lets just expand our ranks instead.
You did do the right thing in responding. I wish that more of us would.
Aloha,
Tom
