If anyone cares……. there was a reason scopes were allowed on ML in Utah. It was for vision issues accounted with older hunters. Go back to the Wildlife Board minutes if you’d like to fact check it.
A gentleman and hunter, by the name of Jerry Mason was a Wildlife Board member in his mid 70s. His eye sight changed and he could not focus his eyes on three points at the same time, that is he couldn’t see the rear sight, the front sight and the target all at the same time.
Mason asked the Board to allow a 1power score to be attached to a ML so older hunters eye could focus on two points, the cross hairs and the target. In as much as there is no magnification with a 1 power. score, it offer no increased advantage to the hunter, so the Board approved it. Because the 1 powered scope was very frustrating to sight in and hold a dependable setting, many hunters disliked it and found it a nuance. As the technology for more accurate barrels for the muzzleloader was developed, and because “the scope” was already legal, but annoying, a new Board responded to arguments made by “new age” muzzleloader enthusiasts, to allow magnifying scopes, one of their argument was hunters were now attempting to kill animals at longer ranges and the potential for misplaced shoots was not in the best interest of the big game animals. Regardless of the validity of that part of the rational, in as much as a scope was already legal, the Board went ahead and approved the magnified scopes on ML.
I have always objected to modern muzzleloaders for hunting big game, even though I own one and hunt with it, it’s not what we intended when we advocated for a muzzleloader hunt back in the 1970’s. I would gladly go back to the original muzzleloading style rifle, if that was the current recommendation from the technology committee, However, to elkassassin’s point…….. if the Board is going to go back to earlier technologies on muzzleloaders, for whatever reasons they have, I believe the same logic should be applied to all weapons and not just the muzzleloader hunters.
Having said, that, I don’t expect that will be what happens because I believe the bureaucrats are cowards and won’t take the heat from the larger population of sportsmen.