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- Aug 13, 2017
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I recently completed a Colonial Rifle Kit by Jim Kibler in .50 - well almost completed it, anyway, as a I still have yet to finish the lock. I wanted to hunt with it in PA for the late season Flintlock, though, so I chose to finish everything on the rifle except the cleaning up of the casting marks on the lock and bluing it, since I was running out of time before I had to leave for PA and something was going to have to wait.
I posted a thread with a question about oil finishing the stock in the Gunmaker’s Bench section a couple weeks back, and got a lot of very helpful replies from a bunch of folks here. Thank you all for that!
Anyway, I was excited to test fire my new rifle, sight it in, and get hunting. So on January 1st, I shot the first two PRB’s through it, at 50 yds with 90 grains of fffg. That seemed to be about as perfect a way to start off the new year as I could imagine.
Here is the target showing the results.
The first shot was 3 1/3” low, but pretty perfect left to right, and the 2nd shot was Just under 1” high and about 1 1/4” left. I was pretty happy considering those were the 1st two shots ever through this rifle, and while I have quite a bit of experience shooting modern smokeless cartridge rifles and pistols, I had only ever shot about a half dozen balls through a friend’s flintlock about a year and a half ago. I’m pretty sure this rifle is capable of better groups than that. I’m sure I just need to practice with it, play around with powder loads and do my part!
The morning of the next day my buddies and I headed out to some public game lands, and I found a nice spot to sit close to two heavily traveled deer trails through some thick brush that included a bunch of that Rosiflora stuff. That is a hateful plant if ever there was one! There was a lot of fresh scat and tracks, and I had a feeling I might just get lucky.
Well I wasn’t wrong, as about 45 minutes after I settled in to a nice spot where I could keep an eye on both trails, two deer came down through some thick brush on one of the trails at a fairly brisk pace. They were startled to see me, sitting about 15 yards away from them, and one doe bugged out, and immediately changed her course and hightaied it out of there. The 2nd deer began to follow the first one, but chose to stop for a couple of seconds to look at me while slightly quartering towards me. Well it was a second or two too long, and the 3rd PRB shot through my new rifle tore through it’s left front shoulder and perforated both lungs.
It tried to run, but that front left leg was useless, and it only managed to get about 20 yds give or take before collapsing. While that was happening, I loaded another PRB, but it wasn’t necessary, because as soon as I finished re-loading and tracking the heavy blood trail for a minute through some thick brush, I found the motionless deer. It turns out that it was a button buck.
That proved to be the only deer I took on this hunt, although I had two other tags, but I’m not complaining. On the contrary, this was such a fantastic gift to start out the new year.
There were several firsts for me on this hunt...
It was the first PA deer I’ve ever taken, although I did hunt this past November with my bow, but did not harvest a deer.
It was the first Whitetail deer I’ve ever harvested. I have taken a couple of Mule deer over the years, and several Red Stags in Scotland.
And, of course, it was the first deer I’ve harvested with a flintlock... and one I built, no less!
It may not be a trophy by most people’s standards, but it is to me, and while it’s certainly the smallest deer I’ve ever taken, the memory of this hunt will stay with me a long time.
I posted a thread with a question about oil finishing the stock in the Gunmaker’s Bench section a couple weeks back, and got a lot of very helpful replies from a bunch of folks here. Thank you all for that!
Anyway, I was excited to test fire my new rifle, sight it in, and get hunting. So on January 1st, I shot the first two PRB’s through it, at 50 yds with 90 grains of fffg. That seemed to be about as perfect a way to start off the new year as I could imagine.
Here is the target showing the results.
The first shot was 3 1/3” low, but pretty perfect left to right, and the 2nd shot was Just under 1” high and about 1 1/4” left. I was pretty happy considering those were the 1st two shots ever through this rifle, and while I have quite a bit of experience shooting modern smokeless cartridge rifles and pistols, I had only ever shot about a half dozen balls through a friend’s flintlock about a year and a half ago. I’m pretty sure this rifle is capable of better groups than that. I’m sure I just need to practice with it, play around with powder loads and do my part!
The morning of the next day my buddies and I headed out to some public game lands, and I found a nice spot to sit close to two heavily traveled deer trails through some thick brush that included a bunch of that Rosiflora stuff. That is a hateful plant if ever there was one! There was a lot of fresh scat and tracks, and I had a feeling I might just get lucky.
Well I wasn’t wrong, as about 45 minutes after I settled in to a nice spot where I could keep an eye on both trails, two deer came down through some thick brush on one of the trails at a fairly brisk pace. They were startled to see me, sitting about 15 yards away from them, and one doe bugged out, and immediately changed her course and hightaied it out of there. The 2nd deer began to follow the first one, but chose to stop for a couple of seconds to look at me while slightly quartering towards me. Well it was a second or two too long, and the 3rd PRB shot through my new rifle tore through it’s left front shoulder and perforated both lungs.
It tried to run, but that front left leg was useless, and it only managed to get about 20 yds give or take before collapsing. While that was happening, I loaded another PRB, but it wasn’t necessary, because as soon as I finished re-loading and tracking the heavy blood trail for a minute through some thick brush, I found the motionless deer. It turns out that it was a button buck.
That proved to be the only deer I took on this hunt, although I had two other tags, but I’m not complaining. On the contrary, this was such a fantastic gift to start out the new year.
There were several firsts for me on this hunt...
It was the first PA deer I’ve ever taken, although I did hunt this past November with my bow, but did not harvest a deer.
It was the first Whitetail deer I’ve ever harvested. I have taken a couple of Mule deer over the years, and several Red Stags in Scotland.
And, of course, it was the first deer I’ve harvested with a flintlock... and one I built, no less!
It may not be a trophy by most people’s standards, but it is to me, and while it’s certainly the smallest deer I’ve ever taken, the memory of this hunt will stay with me a long time.
.
