There were those who wondered at the beginning of the Black Powder Turkey Shoot last weekend if it was safe to have a youngster competing, and those who jokingly asked the question at the end of the event after Cody Jensen outperformed most of the 40 other shooters.

The annual Turkey Shoot at the Holladay Gun Club serves as a fundraiser for Mountain Men of the Wasatch, a group formed in 1958 to give muzzleloader enthusiasts a place to talk about, display and compete in their passion. Held the weekend before Thanksgiving, the Turkey Shoot includes 10 target shoots, with the winner of each receiving a frozen turkey.

Competitors do not shoot at real turkeys, although one of the participants recalled live animals being used in the 1970s. Officials also used frozen turkeys for targets for a short period of time, but the winners complained there were too many lead balls in the meat, so now paper targets are used.

Amid the grizzled veteran shooters was Cody Jensen of Magna. The 8-year-old had already scored a pack of sausage and a can of cranberries when he sat down to test his novelty shooting skills.

Using his father's legs for back support, Cody set his sights on an ax blade stuck in a log about 20 yards away and pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared, clay pigeons on each side of the blade had been shattered.

Cody had split the lead ball fired from his muzzleloader. One individual - who must be considered a seasoned veteran in the sport - had made half a dozen attempts to split the ball but had only succeeded in frustrating himself.

"I always go with family and friends so I can learn from everybody else," Cody replied when asked about his sharpshooting secret.

Many said camaraderie is what the club and hobby are all about.

"I come for the prizes and the competition, but it is mostly just getting together with all my friends," said Jay Howells, who claimed the first of the turkeys.

Like many competitors, Howells also shoots more accurate modern rifles, but he enjoys taking a step back in time with percussion and flintlock models because it is "laid back and historical."

"It makes you concentrate more because you only get one shot. I tried deer hunting with my flintlock, but I wasn't good enough," he said. "It's about getting out and knowing what your ancestors did and having a good time."

Some competitors dressed in traditional buckskin outfits or fur hats reminiscent of the mountain-man days of the West, but they all used rifles based on weapons from about 1770 to 1830. Muzzleloader shooting, also commonly called black-powder shooting, involves using a replica rifle, shotgun or pistol that requires the gun to be loaded by stuffing the bullet, usually a lead ball, down the muzzle of the rifle rather than loading it from the side.

This day, the shooting was limited to rifles, some of them handmade by the shooters.

"I love going to the shooting range and seeing guys with modern guns with a bench rest and standing up to the line holding my gun in hand shooting almost as well as they do," said Jeff Streba, president of Mountain Men of the Wasatch. "Being independent enough to go out into wilderness [as mountain men did] and being able to survive is real appealing to me."

Men and boys were not the only competitors at the Turkey Shoot.

Carolyn Thompson has been firing muzzleloaders for almost four decades. She, too, enjoys the camaraderie of the shooting events.

She wasn't sure how to answer the age-old question, "Are women really better shooters than men?"

"Not today, that's for sure," she said with a laugh. "It's fun to shoot, but I really come for the people."

All shooters have an excuse when the sights don't line up. Thompson's had something to do with winning a new muzzleloader at a rendezvous in September.

"I'm shooting a new gun, trying to break it in," she said with a wink.

But no one went home empty-handed. At the conclusion of the event Streba looked down the list of "nonwinners" and awarded each a bag of sausages for Thanksgiving breakfast.

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* BRETT PRETTYMAN can be contacted at brettp@sltrib.com or 801-257-8902. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

More online

Watch turkey shoot video and see a slide show from the event at www.sltrib.com/outdoors. For more information on Mountain Men of the Wasatch, visit www.mountainmen.biz.