The 25th Annual CLA Show | 2021 Overview | Muzzleloading Art and Accoutrements
Each year, thousands of contemporary long rifle association members convene on to one location for a two-day show that encompasses really the best artisans and craftspeople of long rifle culture.
Big list of Artists and Craftspeople in the middle of this page, please follow and support their work!
At the show, you'll see everything from original muzzle loaders and original pieces, all kinds of accouterments, bags, horns and things all the way up to the namesake being the contemporary made long rifles and their accouterments. The show hall is filled with artisans and craftspeople and historians.
It's really a one stop shop for anything that you love about muzzleloading culture. If you want to learn about muzzleloader building, learn about bag making, leatherworking, knife making, tomahawk making, talk to the authors of books that have done firsthand research on all this stuff. It really has everything.
The CLA Show is the kind of event that you don't see everywhere. It's a really special event. This is my first time back in a few years now, especially with last year being canceled and I'm really happy to come to you today and report that from what I've heard from everybody that I talked to you there, the show went really well and they're really excited for next year's event.
A little insight into the show here. It's housed in the Rupp Arena, really at the center of Lexington, Kentucky. It's attached to a very nice hotel that you can stay at or there's a ton of hotels in a 10 minute drive around the hotel center.
There was free parking this year, which was great or right by the Rupp Arena. So really, once you got into the center of Lexington, all you had to do was park and walk into the show. Your car was no more than five minutes away from you at any one time.
So if you needed to go stash some goodies after some shopping in your car, it's really easy to do so. This was the first year that we were in the Grand Ballroom here for the show last year. The hotel was going under some extreme renovations and there's still ongoing.
As of the 2021 show, we were in a different location and you'll see some of the photos and videos from past shows kind of inside the hotel itself. So the show this year was housed in more of an expo hall which went back in, you know, depending on who I was talking to went back and forth on if people liked or not. To me personally, the show is great. There's a lot more space, a lot more room to walk around. And for my eyes, personally, there was great lighting. Some fresh white led bulbs really made it easy to see all of the craftsmanship that went into each and every piece on the tables at the show.
To get into the show, you do have to be a CLA member. It's a twenty-dollar for one-year fee and for me coming in, I just renewed right at the door and that got my wife and me into the show for the weekend. Split across the two of us only ten bucks for the whole weekend. Really not a bad deal and it goes to a good cause, the CLA, so they can plan and prepare for next year's show.
Once you pay your entry fee, you get a nice little name badge and you're ready to go into the show and spend all weekend kind of oohing ahhing at everything that's there.
B Ricketts, Blacksmith
Robert Scrivener III, Handcrafted hunting pouches and leather accouterments
Matthew J Fennewald, Folk Artist
@always_feral on instagram
Joseph Casey McClure, Scaffold Cane Forge
Jay Blain, Springfield Mountain Accoutrements
Springfield Mountain Accoutrements on Facebook
Nate Moore, 357 Leather
357 Leather on Facebook/Instagram
Scott Musick, Builder of fine muzzleloading rifles
Dave Burkitt, Handforged Knives
Buck Ridge Flintlocks
jrice@buckridgeflintlocks.com, BuckRidgeFlintlocks.com
Michael McHugh, Tamahaks & Firelocks
Jerry Eitner, Builder of fine Iron Mounted southern muzzleloaders
765-798-3525
Eric Ewing, Functional, historically-styled folk art bags and accoutrements
https://www.ericewingmaker.com/
Joe-D Baxter, Fine Powder Horns
Jeff Luke, Po Boy Gear, Fine leather pouches and accoutrements
J Mitchell Yates, Colonial American Artist - Silversmithing, Engraving, Tradsilver, Longrifles, and Accoutrements
Dan Boehringer Handmade Contemporary Period bags and pouches
Kenneth Gahagan - Maker of fine 18th century reproductions- Guns, knives, furniture
Clarksville, VA - kgahagan4@gmail.com
Daniel Boling - Hornsmith and Scrimsander - Maryville, TN -
Elizabeth Ashlee Knives
Capall Mara Forge - Fine 18th and 19th Century Knives- Todd Butler
Curtis Plank, Broken Arrow Forge and Rifle Works
facebook.com/BrokenArrowForgeIronworks
Midget Forge - Jonah Cain
Wool and Weeds - Spinning, dying and knitting - Emily Burns
Mike Miller - Maker of fine Colonial and Golden Age Flintlocks with Southern Flavor Riflemaker@aol.com - Edmonton, KY
Maria Freed - Fine Artist
MariaFreed.com - mariafreed72@yahoo.com
Valorie Skinner Fine Artist
Eli Froedge
@elifroedge on instagram
Ian Pratt
@ianpratt360 on Instagram
Chambers Flintlocks
The recreations of the S & A C flintlock rifle are handmade by Greg S. Murry
Ken Scott - Fine Artist
I got there about 10 a.m. on Friday and by the time I took a break for lunch to meet up with some friends, I hadn't even seen 1/4 of the show because we were stopping and talking with so many people. That was kind of the theme for the entire weekend for me here at I Love Muzzleloading. I just like to extend a thank you kind of a blanket statement here to everybody that stopped and talked to me about muzzleloading and living history. It was really a great time to chat with you. This was really the first event that we were able to get out and talk with people in person. The reception was just really overwhelmingly positive.
Looking at the show, as we came in and walked around over the weekend, the attendance was really great. I think some folks online saw individual tables and were concerned about the attendance at the show. But really, even though the hall was larger and there's a lot more room, there are still times during the peak hours of the show where you were kind of bumping into people as you went from table to table.
Walking around the CLAshow, it is really like you are a kid in a candy store if you like muzzle loading and the accompanying history and accouterments here. What I like about the CLA show is they spread everything out. So you're not you know, one section isn't just for muzzle or builders or bag makers or toolmakers or anything stacked together making it so you're looking at the same thing all the time.
I really think that it's unless you know what you're going in for, you know, you know where the artists that you're looking for is at. It really behooves you to go and walk through the show one or one and a half times if you're not worried about the item that you like disappearing in your walk-through.
But just to see the entire show, I spent most of Friday walking around and chatting with people before I even got my wallet out, because there was so much to see. And even by the end of the day on Friday, I don't think I saw most of it.
So on Saturday, I came in a little earlier. The doors opened at 8:00. I got there about 9:00 and really booked it through the show, you know, kind of waiting to talk to people until it was close to my time to leave, just so I was sure I could see the entire show.
If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. You can write a comment, shoot me an email. I'm happy to answer that. Really just want to make it as easy as possible for people to get to a show, like to see CLA show and support the artists and craftspeople that work really hard to come up with a display and a bunch of items to bring