LLCranford3
36 Cal.
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2011
- Messages
- 253
- Reaction score
- 289
The Brown Bess Squirrel Hunt:
I was very quite excited when my friend Richard told me to meet him at his property at 7 am, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I arrived at his place at the appointed hour, and donned my possibles bag, power horn, and priming horn. Then I uncased my Pedersoli Brown Bess (bought second hand but unfired). We greeted one another and I noticed that he was carrying his 32 caliber flintlock long rifle "little darling". A name coined by the rifle's builder Mr. Walter Mabry.
We exchanged greeting, then began to load our Charcoal burners. I reached into my possibles bag and with drew a vent pick and my powder measure. I filled the powder measure with 120 grains of GOEX FFg powder, fiber wad, then I withdrew a paper cartridge from my possibles bag. Tearing the tail of the paper cartidge, I then poured two ounces of shot down the bore and rammed the paper onto of the shot, primed the musket with Goex FFFFg and off we went.
We walked of towards the think part of his property and had been walking about 10 minutes when we came a cross a tree full of squirrels! The 5 squirrels scattered. I drew a bead on one that that had run to the ground and was headed toward the brush. As I pulled the trigger, the Bess belched forth the most evil hollow boom and cloud of grey smoke. Before the smoke cleared, I could hear Richard laughing to the point of losing his breath. I walked over and picked up my kill and asked him ...."what's so funny?" He replied, I saw the whole thing, your shot landed short but just engulfed that squirrel like a tidal wave of death." I reloaded the bess, he walked off to my left into a hardwood thicket, and I settled in at the base of an oak, waiting for my next fuzzy tail.
I stayed like that for about 45 minutes and then I heard Richard coming back. Not much was moving. So we pressed on to a dried swamp (in the summer you could be carried off by cotton mouths where we were headed but in the winter it was dry as a powder keg). As we eased in we could see several squirrels about. They must have senced a distubance in the force as they beat retreat. Again we settled in. After a while Richard called me over, he has spotted a large grey squirrel, but the squirrel had zipped into a large nest. Richard looked at me and said, " I don't like shooting into nests, so you get ready. I am going to bump the tree a couple of times and that squirrel should come out." "Alright!", I exclaimed as I got into a shooting stance and thummbed the cock back to full cock on the Bess. He bumped the tree a couple of times and sure enough, that big squirrel ran out of the nest; straight up to the top of the tree, then out on a branch, and jumped. Just as he lept from that branch, I pulled the trigger and the Bess erupted into a sheet of fire and smoke. I couldn't see anything but I heard a solid thump. I looked down and there was the squirrel. Richard exclaimed "Oh my God you wing shot that squirrel.... right out of the air!"
We stood there and talked for a couple of minutes, I reloaded, and we spread out in the dried swamp. However, that would be our last kill of the day. After an hour more of hunting, we called it a day and headed back. On he way back, we crossed one of Richard's deer plots, and saw lots of Coyote sign. I would love to unlease Bessy on a Coyote. That was it for the day :thumbsup:
I was very quite excited when my friend Richard told me to meet him at his property at 7 am, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I arrived at his place at the appointed hour, and donned my possibles bag, power horn, and priming horn. Then I uncased my Pedersoli Brown Bess (bought second hand but unfired). We greeted one another and I noticed that he was carrying his 32 caliber flintlock long rifle "little darling". A name coined by the rifle's builder Mr. Walter Mabry.
We exchanged greeting, then began to load our Charcoal burners. I reached into my possibles bag and with drew a vent pick and my powder measure. I filled the powder measure with 120 grains of GOEX FFg powder, fiber wad, then I withdrew a paper cartridge from my possibles bag. Tearing the tail of the paper cartidge, I then poured two ounces of shot down the bore and rammed the paper onto of the shot, primed the musket with Goex FFFFg and off we went.
We walked of towards the think part of his property and had been walking about 10 minutes when we came a cross a tree full of squirrels! The 5 squirrels scattered. I drew a bead on one that that had run to the ground and was headed toward the brush. As I pulled the trigger, the Bess belched forth the most evil hollow boom and cloud of grey smoke. Before the smoke cleared, I could hear Richard laughing to the point of losing his breath. I walked over and picked up my kill and asked him ...."what's so funny?" He replied, I saw the whole thing, your shot landed short but just engulfed that squirrel like a tidal wave of death." I reloaded the bess, he walked off to my left into a hardwood thicket, and I settled in at the base of an oak, waiting for my next fuzzy tail.
I stayed like that for about 45 minutes and then I heard Richard coming back. Not much was moving. So we pressed on to a dried swamp (in the summer you could be carried off by cotton mouths where we were headed but in the winter it was dry as a powder keg). As we eased in we could see several squirrels about. They must have senced a distubance in the force as they beat retreat. Again we settled in. After a while Richard called me over, he has spotted a large grey squirrel, but the squirrel had zipped into a large nest. Richard looked at me and said, " I don't like shooting into nests, so you get ready. I am going to bump the tree a couple of times and that squirrel should come out." "Alright!", I exclaimed as I got into a shooting stance and thummbed the cock back to full cock on the Bess. He bumped the tree a couple of times and sure enough, that big squirrel ran out of the nest; straight up to the top of the tree, then out on a branch, and jumped. Just as he lept from that branch, I pulled the trigger and the Bess erupted into a sheet of fire and smoke. I couldn't see anything but I heard a solid thump. I looked down and there was the squirrel. Richard exclaimed "Oh my God you wing shot that squirrel.... right out of the air!"
We stood there and talked for a couple of minutes, I reloaded, and we spread out in the dried swamp. However, that would be our last kill of the day. After an hour more of hunting, we called it a day and headed back. On he way back, we crossed one of Richard's deer plots, and saw lots of Coyote sign. I would love to unlease Bessy on a Coyote. That was it for the day :thumbsup:
