We’re so excited about this year’s NMLRA Women’s Weekend Shoot! We’ve got lots of great matches lined up. We’ll also be running our .22 long range shoot the same weekend, so bring your husbands and boyfriends down too for a weekend of fun for everyone!
Can you keep up? | The Seneca Run at the NMLRA National Championships
The NMLRA begins the Pittman Robertson Application for Range Improvements
NMLRA representatives have taken another step forward on a series of range improvements for NMLRA Headquarters! This week we have contracted an engineering firm to begin drafting site plans that will be taken to the INDNR to begin the NMLRA's application into the Pittman Robertson Grant Program.
NMLRA Board Members are hard at work completing other sections of the application process with hopes of approval and a swift start to the range improvements.
Follow the NMLRA on Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram for live updates as we continue this exciting process.
A look inside February 2020's Muzzle Blasts Magazine
Muzzle Blasts Editor Dave Ehrig gave you a little taste of what February’s magazine had to offer last week with the Editor’s Message, now it’s time for a look inside at just some of the articles in February’s Muzzle Blasts.
Interested in reading these articles, but not ready for a 12 month commitment? Order single issues today from the NMLRA Store
In this month’s issue
A Moment Frozen in Time Part 2
A Noble Idea Worth Copying
Deer Horns and Rut Nuts - Making Unique and Useful Hunting Trophies
Journey to Flint Part 2
Making a Shotgun Wad Cutter
John Brown’s Hawken Rifle
Focus on Family
Rendezvous Monthly
And MORE
The truth about women followers of the British Military in the 18th century
Gunmakers of Buffallo Valley and Greasy Cove by Dave Byrd
February 1, 2020 Match Results | Versailles American Legion Junior Shooting Sports Team
Inventory of Goods available at the 1825 Rendezvous on Henry's Fork of the Green River
The GOEX Dealer Initiative
Goex wants to Help New GOEX Black Powder Dealers!
The GOEX Dealer Initiative is designed to help get new GOEX Black Powder Dealers up and running
Eastern Woodland Bow Making Course Schedule - 2020
Announcing the NMLRA Monthly Downloadable Target Program!
Hunting season may be over for most of us, but that's no reason to put your #muzzleloader away for the year! We’re excited to be launching our new downloadable target program. In the first week of each month, we’ll share a new themed target that’s free to download just to give you an excuse to get your smokepole out.
Join us for some muzzleloader shooting this month with this cupid inspired target!
Exclusive look at Pedersoli's new black powder target pistol | Muzzle Blasts
Podcast Transcript : Blending Fine Art, History, and the Outdoors with Eric Ewing
Message from the Board of Directors - Muzzle Blasts February 2020
This article and many more are published each month in Muzzle Blasts Magazine. Order your copy today!
I would like to introduce myself for those that don’t know me, I am Mike Yazel your Treasurer of the NMLRA and a past President of the same. I have been involved in Muzzle Loading most of my life as my parents began coming to Friendship in 1962 when I was about 3 years old. Our whole family shot together for many years until us kids got older and my sisters drifted away from it but my father and I continued on shooting, building guns and collecting interesting Muzzle Load-ers. I have served on the Board of Directors in various capacities over the years although I have devoted the bulk of my effort to updating the Associations business and accounting practices. While this has been a very long journey we are in the home stretch now and will have things modernized with far better reporting that will aid the board and membership in making the best decisions for the NMLRA going forward.
This is truly a time of transition for the NMLRA as the Board of Directors has voted to move forward with the Pittman Robertson program which will help us transform the range to better serve the membership and other shooters who come to use it. This alone provided much impetus to update our accounting procedures so we could track Range Operations as well as Association Operations. The NMLRA is roughly a $1.5 to $1.8 million dollar operation in any given year with many different and diverse areas of operations. We print a monthly magazine that requires specialized staff both in house and outside, membership requires people and programs to sign people up and interact with them across the country and around the globe. Our accounting system is much more than simple dollars in and dollars out. We need the ability to track the performance of our events large and small, powder and target sales, gate revenue, camping, registration and the list goes on and on.
Off shoot time there are memberships to be entered daily and this time of year camping reservations are in full swing for the coming shooting season. We take registrations for programs like the Gunsmithing Seminars and classes held here in the Education Center at the Range in Friendship. We have people joining the 1 of 1000 endowment which if you have not yet done please consider it as this program is about three-quarters of the way to its goal of establishing a $1,000,000 endowment from which 75 percent of the yearly earnings can be used for projects on the range.
This year will see new camping software come online along with card swipers at all points of sale, later in the year we hope to begin the first use of barcoding to make your transactions quicker and our accounting of them much simpler. For those of you that do not frequent the range there are many changes you are beginning to see as well. The NMLRA presence online has expanded dramatically in recent months as we have begun podcasts and videos about all things Muzzle Loading and Living History. As we reach out to an even wider audience online you will see growth in the digital version of the magazine as it becomes more interactive and sign-ups for memberships, camping, classes, and registration take on a new look at the website. Behind the scenes of all of this has to be an accounting system that ties all of this information and the thousands of transactions we process each year together. This system had in the past simply contained too many separate and often out of date pieces that prevented us from doing the job as well as we could and burdened the staff with work that should be automated. With the hiring addition of Kim Scobee to our accounting operation, this transformation has kicked into high gear. Kim has a broad background in IT as it applies to finances and has been working hard for several months putting the pieces of software and systems in place to move us forward. While most of you will never see all of the changes being made behind the scenes rest assured they are all to serve you, the membership of the NMLRA better in the future.
Thank you for supporting the NMLRA and helping all of us serve you better as a member.
Mike Yazel
Be Sure to Visit our Sponsors!
The February 2020 Muzzle Blasts is here!
The Baxter girls swipe the new issue of Muzzle Blasts as soon as it arrives in their home. Sorry Mom and Dad!
In this month’s issue
A Moment Frozen in Time Part 2
A Noble Idea Worth Copying
Deer Horns and Rut Nuts - Making Unique and Useful Hunting Trophies
Journey to Flint Part 2
Making a Shotgun Wad Cutter
John Brown’s Hawken Rifle
Focus on Family
Rendezvous Monthly
And MORE
From the Editor
One of the new efforts at Muzzle Blasts this year is an effort to
focus on the families at Friendship. Many families are in their
3rd and 4th generations as they travel across the continent
to visit with old friends, share stories, celebrate births,
graduations, weddings and changes in home, work and life.
But the key ingredient in all of this is the story of “friendship”
in Friendship. Lonnie Vermillion was brave enough to be the
first in sharing a vignette of a storied gentleman by the name
of Jack McDonald . . . and we at MB are looking forward to
yours.
On the Cover, “Night Camp” by Dave Hasler
View more of Dave’s work here
I have been interested in art since I was a boy taking all the drawing and painting possible in high school, and majoring in art at college. I taught art for 32 years and retired 10 years ago.
My paintings reflect the people and places of the early eastern frontier with an emphasis on historic accuracy of the period. I use many reenactors as models and much of the landscape here in western New York as the backgrounds. I have reenacted mainly French and Indian War and Revolutionary War impressions since 1976.
My Americana paintings depict a more rural and simplistic lifestyle when the country was being settled. Barns and cabins set in landscape compositions along with still-life painting reflect the beauty of early American stoneware pottery and other utilitarian pieces.