Black Powder? Get Ready to Shoot Again

 

There’s this thing about muzzleloading for deer that both the new to the game as well as the old (that would be me) forget. Black powder does not produce one-half the knockdown power that modern smokeless powder does. “Dead deer” get up and run away all the time during black powder season.

The biggest part of a black powder firearm’s knockdown power comes from the weight of the bullet coming out of the end of the barrel. Even at that, the “stopping” power of even a seemingly overlarge bullet is not to be trusted. The minimum legal bullet size of a muzzleloader in Oklahoma is .45 caliber. Most use fifty cal. as an absolute minimum bullet choice, and it does an adequate job. Most of the time.

During the American civil war, many rifles, on both sides, were launching .68 caliber bullets, horrendous junks of lead when held in the hand and looked at dispassionately, in the direction of soft tissue lined up in unwavering company fronts. The results were devastating. Ask General Pickett.

The results of using a fifty cal. bullet in bringing home some deer meat ought to be satisfactory. Ought to be. Should be. Might be.

One time hunting a beautiful October afternoon down yonder in Hughes County up on Demon Mountain, I shot a fat young buck, a six pointer, coming to me at twenty yards where I sat on the ground, my back to a small post oak. The shot was so close, I opted for a shot I almost never take, a shot to the neck. The deer was close. Very, very close.

It was before my eyesight changed from youth to old man, so open iron sights were good for me. I liked them and shot them all the time.

The gun was a striped-maple-stocked exact Hawken fifty cal. replica made for me by Willie Cochran of Tulsa from old museum drawings and specs Willie had researched. It took him a year to build the gun, and was exact in every museum detail, even to the absence of any brass fittings, all iron, just as the original mountain men demanded so as not to alert distant eyes. It shot one inch groups at fifty yards from the bench, powered by ninety grains of FFG old fashioned black powder. Mountain man, me.

The deer dropped in its tracks. I walked up to it and noticed immediately the lack of blood on the ground, not unusual in a neck shot, but there should have been some, even if just a little. There wasn’t even any around the entry wound, easily visible, and about the same diameter as my thumb. I have a fifty cal. thumb. Looking at it, you would agree.

I leaned Willie’s gun against the same post oak that had supported me, took my hands and rolled the buck over to examine the opposite side. Not only not any blood, but no exit wound, either. Hmmm.

Then I noticed on the ground smack at my feet, while staring at and contemplating the end of day activities, my gun’s perfectly round bullet (yes, I was using original round balls, poured by me from my own mold) on the ground at my feet. It was apparently deposited there by falling out of the entrance wound when I rolled the deer over. Hmmmm, again. In fact, double hmmm. Hmmmm, hmmmm.

I do not know to this day exactly what killed that deer. A broken neck? I autopsied the neck while butchering and could not find a single broken vertebrae. Neck meat, by the way, is either burger or stew meat when butchered in the Vollertsen’s kitchen.

Is it remotely possible that deer was still alive when gutted in the woods? Hmmm. I wondered about it, while not mentioning it at the table (the kids were small) right up to the first hot spoonful of deer chili, and, later, a stew.

The bullet, which I kept, told its own story, as well as that of black powder and its killing power. Believe me, even modern Pyrodex powder, used in modern internal ignition “black powder” guns, does not produce the penetrating power hunters have become accustomed to from modern, smokeless powder guns.

I have other “penetrating” stories involving this subject and my experience with it from Alaska to Mexico, but I sense some of you are beginning to think about turning over to the Police Report section of this paper where all powder used is modern smokeless. Can’t have that. Attention wandering I mean.

My point is this: During this coming black powder season, when you get your deer on the ground, don’t just stand there admiring your handiwork; reload, as fast as you can, and get ready to shoot again.

© 2015 Conrad M. Vollertsen