Show Notes
In this episode, Dan Johnson interviews Ryan Muckenhirn from Vortex Optics about muzzleloaders and scopes. They discuss the compatibility of rifle scopes with muzzleloaders, the ideal scope for different hunting scenarios, the impact of weather on scopes, and tips for sighting in a muzzleloader. Ryan emphasizes the importance of consistency in loading practices and the trust that comes with having a reliable and accurate firearm.
Takeaways:
- Any rifle scope can be used on a muzzleloader
- Choose a scope with lower magnification for closer shots
- Consider the objective diameter for better performance in low light
- Be cautious of condensation and frost when transitioning between temperature extremes
- Consistency in loading practices is key for accuracy
- Trust in your equipment and have confidence in your firearm
Show Transcript
Dan Johnson (00:01.045)
All right everybody, welcome back to the Hunting Gear podcast. I'm your host, Dan Johnson, and today's episode is brought to you by Code Blue Sense. It's brought to you by the Feed Hub by Moultrie Mobile, and it's also brought to you by Reveal Trail Cameras by TactiCam. Today's guest is Ryan Muckinhern from Vortex Optics. Ryan, how you doing, buddy? It's Friday, yep.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (00:25.424)
It's a great day. It's Friday I learned. Yeah.
Dan Johnson (00:29.205)
It's Friday. Got big plans for the weekend?
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (00:31.976)
Tomorrow I'll be staffing the Beast Mode Archery Challenge, which is a really, really cool 3D archery slash fitness event. It's about seven miles from HQ. Sunday, I've got a couple of friends and customers that are coming up to my place. I'm going to do a full setup on their rifles. They drew some West River, South Dakota big game tags this year. First time, first time big game hunters out there. So we've got chronograph work to do, scopes to mount and have some fun.
Dan Johnson (00:59.852)
So you're in it 24 -7.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (01:02.31)
The best part about my job, and I mean this extremely sincerely, is I get paid to do what I do on the weekends.
Dan Johnson (01:10.286)
That's nuts. Well, I mean, I'll tell you what, that's what everybody should be aiming for in life, right?
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (01:11.409)
Yeah.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (01:15.942)
Yeah. Yeah. I've never, I've never worked a day in my life here at Vortex. So, yeah.
Dan Johnson (01:21.226)
That's awesome, All right, so hearing you say that now makes me wish I lived closer to HQ and you because I am struggling with my muzzleloader, okay? And this is gonna be a very specific podcast and I'm doing this podcast for one reason and that's for me. And so I'm hoping that you can point me in the right direction. the first question, so here's my
I am struggling sighting in my muzzleloader and I'm not sure if it is me. I'm not sure if it is the equipment. Maybe the gun doesn't match the scope or it's underscoped or overscoped or things like that. So I wanna talk specifically now about muzzleloaders. I have a CVA muzzleloader and my question is how do I know
if I have the right or wrong scope on my
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (02:23.848)
Sure. This is a really common question and we still get this, I would say weekly, maybe not daily, as we grow nearer to season, we'll start to see an increase in cadence in this. There's a bit of a mystery behind what is different about a muzzleloader than say a center fire rifle or a shotgun that fires slugs. And the short answer is nothing. So any rifle scope that you see can be used on a muzzleloader.
And then the selection of that optic is very personal, right? And I always love the fact that, you know, we in America have the ability to exercise free will. So if you wanted to put a 5 -25 Viper HD on your muzzleloader, you definitely could. I might debate the merit of that much magnification, depending on where you're hunting and what you're doing. But the reality of it, Dan, is any scope will work on your muzzleloader.
I, I do a lot of muzzle loading. I'll say I have more than a half a dozen, less than a dozen. It's somewhere in that ballpark. I'm not even really sure anymore. And I run the full gambit from a patch and ball gun, like a percussion ignited rig. I've got a whole bunch of modern inlines and then I have a smokeless muzzle loader as well. so I really enjoy shooting them. think they're kind of romantic and fun and interesting. And I have everything from our Crossfire II
which is our entry level to our Razor LHT which is at the top of our you know it's our flagship hunting riflescope on those muzzle loaders except for the patch and ball gun and yeah use them as I would really any other system.
Dan Johnson (04:02.594)
Okay. Okay. And so I don't know. So here is, here is what I was told when I bought this muzzleloader. Okay. I knew I wanted to partake in Iowa's late season, firearm, the muzzleloader season, late season muzzleloader, right. which is actually a primitive weapons type of season. So you can use your bow, you can use your crossbow and of course you can use a muzzleloader. So when I went in and I talked to the guy, he told
you're looking at a max accurate range of anywhere between 150, 150 yards and 200 yards for that. I've had guys who have told me if you practice a lot with it, that range could be extended, right? And so now I'm starting to think about the environments that I will be hunting in. And it would probably be close to that 100 yard range max, depending on how I set
Obviously if it's in the timber it's going to be a lot closer, but outside of that, you know that late season food source wide open field type of scenario where they're piling out of the woods I envision a shot happening between a hundred and a hundred and fifty yards if not closer and so I'm trying to figure out what is the best scope for what I just Told you that scenario
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (05:29.416)
Sure. So I look at that, we'll call that a math problem, and I'd probably pair you into an optic that is not highly magnified. So really nothing over 12, and even 12 is a lot.
I typically shoot lower magnifications on the whole across the board for even my Western big game hunts that I go on. And I'm very partial to a classic three to nine, which covers you down from a 30 yard shot to a 300 yard shot. A two to 10, somewhere in that ballpark, that's a really, really slick and safe play. And I don't think you need to go more than that. As we know, as deer hunters especially,
First light, last light, that's usually when we're gonna find that target of opportunity. And having hunted kind of that same season, but on the Missouri side, that midday part, that was when I was taking a nap back at the place. So what I'm looking for in an optic to really exploit that time of day and that shot opportunity is.
I'll be very specific on this one. On the entry line of things, the Crossfire 3 -9x50. I'm going to pick that optic because of its lower magnification range, but it's to objective diameter, which is going to definitely help you as a shooter in those lower light scenarios. We're going to allow more light to pass through the optic. You're going to see a brighter image. If you wanted to kick it up in a kind of a more premium category without going, you know, double the cost of the firearm, for instance,
The Viper HD 2 -10, it's a smaller objective, it's a 42mm objective and it's somewhat counterintuitive and in optics there's not a lot of rules to follow necessarily but as you increase optical quality inherent to a design you're going to appreciate the attributes that make a really good image. So while it has a 42mm objective as opposed to a 50mm it's actually a brighter scope.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (07:35.624)
bonkers field of view. So when you're at two X, if you're pushing through timber, or if you've got a stand shot that gives you a 20 yard opportunity, you're not going to be looking through the proverbial soda straw, to find a deer and you're going to be able to see the whole deer as opposed to just a very specific part of the deer. On what the last time I hunted Missouri muzzleloader, their primitive weapon season was January, it was very cold. actually shot a deer at 11 yards, with the predecessor to that optic.
Viper HS 2 .5 -10.
There were three deer that came out. was a doe and two older fawns, yearlings. And I had the optic backed off to two and a half and at 11 yards, all three of them were visible in my field of view. And it was right at last light. The next day I was hunting a brassica plot, a couple hundred yards from where I had shot that doe and I shot a buck at 200, I want to say it was 217 yards with that same scope, same gun.
I had it up at 10x and it was again probably the last 10 to 15 minutes of light and really good optical system and it paid me dividends in the end, right? I was able to execute an ethical shot and had positive target ID the whole time. But I think something in that range, a Crossfire 2, 3 to 9 to 40 or 50 or that Viper HD 2 to 10, that is a compelling choice.
Dan Johnson (09:02.472)
All right, so as I am now and this this might be more of general firearm question, but Is there anything that I should be? concerned about or in Hunting in maybe extreme heat or your average hunting season temperatures all the way down into like the negative 20s late season scenario that weather impacts how a scope performs on a
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (09:32.2)
In short, no, however, especially winter months hunting. when, and those really frigid hunts, like that particular hunt that I was on, we had an ambient temperature of negative 27, and it was horrendously cold. What you should be cognizant of, and this is actually a blanket statement for all of your optics. So binocular spotting scopes, rifle scopes.
what I call thermal shocking or when we're going from.
a very warm environment to an extremely cold environment or the inverse of that when we're going from the very cold outside to the inside. When you do that, just like when you wake up in the morning in the winter time, you turn your truck on your windshield's frosted over, you will have a very real situation on your hand where you're to have condensation form on that lens because of that incredible thermal dynamic or that delta between the two thermal regions that you're working in. And then if it's condensation
wet to introduction to cold, it's going to freeze and then you're going to have frost on the lens of your scope. So I always caution people during the fall and winter months when they're hunting and this isn't aside from muzzleloaders and we can touch on that if you want to but
Don't take your optic from the 72 degree acclimated temperature of your truck when you're driving out to the hunt spot. Yank it out into the cold and then immediately start walking around with it. There is an acclimation period that'll have to occur. Even better, if you have the ability to have that rifle and optic cold and leave it cold, you're gonna mitigate the condensation effect tremendously. Yeah.
Dan Johnson (11:15.928)
Gotcha. Okay. Great. All right. So now, now when it comes to siding in a muzzleloader, right? And obviously this is something that I've had to learn when siding in my muzzleloader. And that's just the amount of times I need to clean it during a siding period because I have noticed discrepancies in first shot out of a clean barrel.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (11:18.3)
Yep.
Dan Johnson (11:44.749)
versus tenth shot out of a barrel that hasn't been touched, right? So is there a way to consistently, maybe that's through the optic or maybe that's through the muzzleloader itself, try to be as accurate as possible knowing that shot one and shot 10 could have different outcomes?
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (12:07.876)
Yes, and there's nothing to do with the optic per se. It's more the system. And every fall and every
will see an uptick in phone calls and walk -ins and emails where shooters are in exactly your position. They get a muzzleloader, they can be very frustrating to work with in that exactly as you've identified, your clean bore, cold bore shot is rarely identical to the subsequent or any shot thereafter. And depending on the powder technology that you're using, even the bullet technology in your loading practice in a muzzleloader, like how you seat the ball
top of the charge and I'll say ball as a colloquial term will kind of dictate success or failure and what it will manifest as is just
not repeatable on paper, right? So as you're shooting, it looks like your group is either very large or it's wandering around the paper. And it is, but it's not likely your optic. It's actually probably the relationship between the propellant and your bore and the projectile and the propellant and your bore. If I could give you a pro tip on this, when you're, and I'm very particular about the propellants that I run in my muzzle loaders because I want,
clean and reliable. So I want to be able to reload my gun without having to swab it and scrub it because that's certainly not practical in the field. And when the temperatures dip below freezing, your solvents are starting to compromise as well. So I'm very particular about propellant use. And there's really only one that I'll run. It's a loose, like a granulated powder. And I weigh it as opposed to doing a volumetric measurement. Now, you can get a bang on volumetric measurement as long as you're consistent with it. This is going
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (13:54.814)
shrink your group sizes immediately and then you're going to have higher confidence when you're zeroing. When you're loading that gun off of like once you've cleaned it if you've gotten down to an absolutely fresh bore
I have a practice that I started employing probably 20 years ago when I really started muzzle loading pretty frequently that I will snap three primers, two or three primers in that barrel and I'll soot it. So I'm coating the barrel in just like a deposit, like a residue from the propellant inside of the primer itself. And that fouled bore, and this is something that translates into the center fire community too. It's I think a little bit exacerbated in the muzzle loader community, you'll see that.
two or three snaps down the bore with a primer to kind of soot it out. And also that helps burn off solvents that can kind of cross contaminate your powder charge. That's gonna vary your muzzle velocity and your ignition rate. And again, open your groups up. Anytime we start introducing those variables there, we're gonna see that downrange as a challenging group to predict or even pin down as to where it is on the paper. When you load,
nail the same load pressure every time. When you're pushing that bullet down that barrel and you feel it come to an at rest on top of the powder or on top of the carbon ring, I see a lot of guys get in there and they lean into that ramrod and they're very, the idea is that we want to make sure that that bullet is well seated.
Be very cognizant of that. And what I like to do is I bring the bullet down to the powder. I feel it stop at the ramrod. And this is like single hand load pressure. I take my ramrod out and under its own weight, the best I can describe this is I kind of flick it down the barrel to hit that projectile. Generally speaking, you're gonna notice that that ramrod stops dead. Like think of an arrow hitting a 3D foam target, just dunk.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (15:58.408)
pick it up again, give it that same little toss down the bore, you should see it bounce. That means that the projectile's seated. And then I give it one more flick and it bounces. And I do that same thing every single time I load my muzzleloader. actually, so I shoot CVA Acura MRs. I've got two of them. We probably have 25 here at Vortex amongst the people that muzzleloader hunt. I've never met a production muzzleloader as accurate and consistent as that gun.
period. And in doing that load technique, when you're particular about your powder charges and you're very particular about auditing either the volume or the weight that you pour down that barrel, they'll shoot as good as any center fire I own and phenomenally accurate, phenomenally consistent.
And if you employ the same loading techniques, just like when we're shooting archery too, it's a really good parallel. Your draw stroke, your anchor points, and how you break the shot. If you do it the same every time on your bow, you see good results downrange. Same thing with the muzzle loader. You know,
Backing up, install the optic correctly. That's paramount, right? Rings and bases need to be torqued accordingly and all that, just like we would on our center fire guns. We have to give a little more attention to the muzzle loader to make sure that the chemical component to accuracy is certified and correct, and then the mechanical component to accuracy with respect to the projectile is certified and correct, and the rest kind of takes care of itself. Yeah.
Dan Johnson (17:34.694)
Perfect, perfect. Well, I tell you what, I feel a little bit better about the issues that I've been having with my muzzle loader. And now I just got a, like last year, I didn't even start citing it in until like two weeks before the late season.
the late season muzzleloader. And now I think I'm gonna start within the next couple weeks, siding it in and getting it ready for that season. And so I have it ready to go. And so at the end of this, How should we feel? Like, see, I'm not a gun guy, right? So all I know is how I feel about my bow when I know like, dude,
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (18:01.565)
Sure.
Dan Johnson (18:22.137)
I'm ready for the woods. I'm ready to throw arrows. What should we feel like when we have, again, this is a general question about firearms, but what should we feel like at the end of sighting in a rifle or any type of firearm?
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (18:35.996)
The
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (18:41.062)
The best word I can use to describe it, and this is, I'm not gonna say it's a new thing for me, I am a gun guy to a fault in that.
for as long as I've been doing this, I change and move the goal posts and I get new ideas and I think like, maybe this is the next best solution, which is, I'm very thankful I'm not a bow guy. Like I own a bow, I shoot it well, I shoot it often, but I don't monkey with stuff. And in doing that, like I've settled on like a very consistent system. The word I use is trust.
So I trust that rifle and it is trustworthy. So when I take it to the range, and I only have a few of those in my safe, as many rifles as I own and utilize, I only have a few in my safe that when I pick it up, I'm like every time I just know. Like everything about it, the ammunition.
the optic that's on it, like I go out to the range, I do a validation, usually I have no amendment to make if I do it small and I walk into the field knowing that that tool that I have in my hand is ready, everything else is hinging on me, right? Everything else is my performance, it's not my rifle, it's not my ammunition. You should feel the same way about your muzzleloader. There should never be any ambiguity in it or like, gosh.
Is it going to go off or, you know, that's a, that's a big thing with muzzleloaders. Is it going to go off and then is it going to go in the right spot? The equipment these days, and especially with the gun that you're running.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (20:12.644)
It is capable of astounding precision and consistency. And if you meet it in the middle and you're doing your diligence on your loading practices and on your powder charges and you found the right bullet that your gun likes, you should have all the same trust in that piece of equipment as you would your archery equipment. When you pack up at the end of the day, you don't feel defeated and you don't feel nervous or you don't feel, you know, maybe still questioning whether it was right.
Dan Johnson (20:41.746)
Yeah.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (20:41.768)
It takes a little bit to get there and you're savvy to be starting now. I'll say this, like your data, it's going to be warm today. Your data that you'll collect on the range will be different at 70 degrees and it will be at 17. So it is important to take that out as you do grow nearer to season and validate and just make sure everything is happy honky -dory.
Dan Johnson (21:05.362)
Yeah, absolutely. Now instead of having to shoot 150 to 200 yards, I'll just try to get them into 50 and not really have to worry about it too terribly much. So there's that. Hey man, I told you when I reached out to you wanted to keep this short and sweet and dude, you did an excellent job nailing all of my questions and kind of putting my...
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (21:15.57)
She
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (21:22.844)
Yeah.
Dan Johnson (21:30.277)
worries to ease, to speak. So Ryan, man, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to hop on and talk about this problem with me and good luck this upcoming season,
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (21:36.177)
anytime.
Ryan Muckenhirn - Vortex Optics (21:40.658)
Thank you and you as well. want to see pictures.
Dan Johnson (21:42.967)
Absolutely.
