I don’t hunt muzzy, and really haven’t thought about this. Where are you headed with this? I believe you’re referencing pushing back toward a round ball? What do you think about in-lines? Aren’t they basically a single-shot modern rifle any more?
Archery hunters get the best season because it is the most limited weapon. Muzzy in the middle and so on. Hunting elk in the rut with a bow is a challenge, but late season with a bow would be harder than hell.
Hunting is hard, and it should stay that way.
Also, “I’ve always felt it was my job as a hunter to make the most accurate shot producing the cleanest kill possible. I feel i owe it to the animal. I use the best equipment available to do that” is interesting to ponder. I agree with wanting a clean kill for the animals sake. I want it to be a quick death with as little pain as possible. I think it’s critical to consider the season and maintaining fair chase within it.
Most people, for some odd reason, think scopes are the range-limiting factor. And higher power scopes will allow you to shoot further. But that's not really where it works. For 150 yrs, people have been shooting muzzleloaders to 1000 yds with astounding accuracy and iron sights. So the technology has always been there, but few of us learned about it. If the intension is to reduce a hunter's effective kill range, then iron sights won't do it, at least for those with younger eyes (<60 yrs).
When muzzleloader seasons were introduced, the idea was a short range rifle. Roundballs certainly, but mini and maxi balls were also basically 100-150 yr projectiles. They lost energy fast, and the trajectory was enough that most people couldn't and wouldn't shoot them much further. A hunter with 100-yd kill radius leaves a lot more animals in the woods than a hunter with a 200-yd radius, which covers 4x more territory. I believe Colorado requires that projectiles be no longer than 2x bore diameter (and eliminate sabots). If that is correct, it puts limits on effective range that are going to be in the 100-150 yd limit. Bigger calibers will carry better, but there are limits to what hunters can carry and recoil they can withstand, so no one is likely build a 200, must less 300 yd capable rifle that uses short-for-caliber bullets.
The same goes for archery. Above someone say bows should be limited to 50 yds! Make everyone shoot a recurve or longbow and it falls to 25, maybe 30 yds, again cutting the kill range by 75% or so.
And last of all, part of hunting was being skillful with one's tools. I shot thousands of arrows back when I was a kid and bowhunting with a recurve. Not only did I enjoy that, I got good at it. Today, few can be troubled to do more than sight in their rifle (maybe) or the bow at the range once or twice and they are good to go. Crossbows - god help us - are even worse that way.
With the huge number of hunters/acre of land, the acceleration of technology has to result in fewer tags and/or shorter seasons. I don't know about the rest of you, but I would like my seasons to be long and tags to be available. If we got back to the spirit of hunting in ways that our ancestors did at least when hunting seasons were first conceived, then maybe we could all be out there longer, more often, and get more time in the timber.
Anyway, the short bullet limits range much better than iron sights. If you really want to pull in hunters' kill radii, deal with projectiles, not sighting systems.
How many elk tags would there be to go around if everyone had 25 yd bows, 100 yd muzzleloaders, and 200 yds rifles? It is interesting (at least to me) to contemplate.
