Capper said:
Not sure how old you are Dan, but i've been hunting longer than you've been living. If your post/rant is any indication of your age.
I am 61 and have seen/done everything I stated and more.
I just get tired of people who have never done something telling me it can't be done when I know better.
Have you EVER shot a game animal of any size with a flint or percussion pistol?
Do you KNOW anyone that has?
I HAVE done it and I have a friend who has as well. He once dragged a MD buck into hunting camp that the hunters could find no bullet wound in. Asking what he had shot it with he pulled his Ruger Target 22 pistol from under his coat. He had was coming back to camp and had walked close enough to shoot it in the forehead. He had done a similar shot a couple of years prior with a 50 cal FL pistol on a cow elk that was about to stomp him after a hunter he was guiding shot a front leg off it. He had killed other game with this belt pistol as well.
I had the chance to kill a deer with a pistol last year, walked to within FEET of a young WT buck in soft snow but passed because I was packing a S&W as back up and other than shooting him with a flint pistol I had no interest. I could not believe how tame he was. But there is a Church Camp just down the road.
I take the time to examine the wounds and since the advent of small digital cameras I take photos if its of interest.
16 bore rifle entrance at 90 yards.
This is the upper leg bone of a grown MD doe shot at 20-25 yards with a 54 percussion pistol with a 8" (IIRC I sold the pistol shortly after killing the deer could ask the guy who owns it if someone thinks its important).
This was a 72 twist barrel that was cut off a rifle barrel I built a Hawken from. The accuracy load was 70 gr of FFF. Ball broke the bone going in, broke a rib took out the heart and was under the hide far side. Deer collapsed in less than 40 yards.
As a comparison a few years later I shot a deer at almost 300 with a 6.5x55 with a 140 gr. Doe was a WT this time. Deer ran at the shot, farther BTW, piled up just as she was disappearing behind terrain. I waited a few minutes for other deer to clear the area in she was not dead and would rise and run off if the buck she was with paniced. I approached and she was behind a sage with her head up so I head shot her at about 50 yards.
Bullet had broken the same bone but had only holed the pericardium just behind the arteries.
I shot a deer with the same load in her bed at about 250. Identical bone break since as she lay the leg bone covered the vitals. This one got the heart, deer got up made it about 50 ft and collapsed.
The velocity at the muzzle is about 2650-2700. The 140 grain carries out very well and still produces good expansion, but not excessive to 300.
This so which kills better? You tell me. Obviously its easier to place the shot with the 6.5...
This is the shoulder blade of the MD doe shot at 60 yards (lazer) with a 50 caliber RB from a rifle.
Ball broke shoulder and passed through. Deer struggled about 30 yards down a steep slope by the use of her hind legs died before I could get a follow up shot with my swivel breech.
Lungs looked like this
This is about what the ball was doing velocity and
energy wise
This is why I say ENERGY IS IRRELEVANT as a measure of killing power when low velocity soft lead projectiles are used. In this case the energy was likely between 600 and 750 fp. Not enough for deer in many jurisdictions. But its effective despite its anemic energy levels. While its possible this load makes 2000 fps the difference is not significant.
What is significant is that a friend reports 1300 fps from a 54 flint pistol with heavy powder charges. This will degrade at 25 yards but not enough to make it impotent on an elk.
Broke the front leg bone on a large cow elk at 80 yards with a 54 FL rifle RB backed by 100 gr of FFF Goex, this will produce about 1100 fps impact velocity since this rifle gets 1900+-. Broke the leg,(breaking the bone is not a favorite shot makes skinning and butchering more difficult) took the aorta off the heart, knocked the cow down, she got back up as I was about to seat the ball and ran down slope toward me to pile up in dead fall. Impact velocity would have been 1100-1200 fps max at 80 yards (it could have been 100, hard to judge with the terrain involved).
Aside from one instance my shooting of deer and antelope with flintlock pistols has been as followup shots.
The one I intentionally hunted with a pistol was really curiosity I wanted to see how it worked.
Elk can carry off a lot of lead if its placed badly, as can a mule deer. But placed right most animals are easy to kill.
IF the CIRCUMSTANCES allowed it, if I were afraid the movement of my rifle would spook the game due to the range being short and the pistol was easier to get into action I would shoot an elk with a FL or percussion pistol with complete confidence. But I would not stretch the range either. Nor would it be my first choice.
Benched this is the first group fired at 25 yards with a 54 Fl pistol I built about 3 years ago.
Its good enough for head shots on elk if one had the confidence. Chest shots at 25 yards would be easy. Pick the spot and put the ball in it.
Penetration, based on striking velocities of rifles at distance that brings the velocity into the pistol velocity range, would be SUFFICIENT. A term used often in "The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles" by James Forsythe and all that is needed.
How much penetration? We have a description from the Rev-War by Col (then Capt) George Hanger of a Patriot Rifleman shooting at him and his commanding officer from 400 yards. A range Hanger was sure of having been over the area several times.
Hanger states that he saw the flash of the powder and the ball passed between him and his CO and KILLED THE BUGLEMAN'S HORSE behind them.
Where did it strike the horse? Probably at the base of the throat if the bugleman was facing the same direction as the officers, as he likely was. So a great deal of penetration was not needed if it struck the right spot as is obviously did.
What caliber was it? Probably no larger than 54 caliber. Hanger states that he never saw an American Rifle over 36 to the pound (about 52 caliber) and claimed to have examined many hundreds. He was one of the most experienced riflemen in England BTW.
His comments on calibers are borne out by other descriptions, such as JJ Henry's book and surviving rifles of the time that have seen little use.
Rant?
I state that the 54 pistol with a heavy charge of powder will kill an elk at close range. I state that 54 pistols and even the 44 Dragoon Colt was used to run buffalo as a citation of effectiveness. The buffalo after all is much tougher than an elk. Much heavier hide, ribs and everything else.
Then its inferred that I am irresponsible and unethical for mentioning such things by people who feel animals are somehow bullet proof I guess.
I say that ENERGY is a poor way to judge killing power (something that has been known for some time thus various knockdown and other formulas being devoloped). That energy figures do not translate properly when the firearm is used on game. This comes under attack.
This has been widely known since the advent of HV smokeless cartridges and is addressed in old ammo catalogs. But folks here have apparently never heard of it.
I am in very good company in believing that energy is a poor way to judge killing power if people will do some research by reading a few books on the subject of hunting rifles.
Far too many people here have bought into the BS that has been promulgated by writers whose only concern is to promote products for companies that buy advertising.
I never hunted with the Maxi-Ball for example. By the time it came out I already had experience with the RB and saw no reason for it. But it was easier for figure out than patches and balls for people buying a ML at Walmart.
I HAVE done testing with it. I know from my tests and comments by other shooters I know that it will move off the powder if the gun is carried muzzle down. The Minie has a track record for this going back over 150 years. So when someone recommends the minie in a pistol which are INVARIABLY carried muzzle down I call it dangerous. Such a radical I am. Relying on the past to make statements on old technolgy, horrors. Toby would be outraged I am sure.
Things of this sort disagree with people's modern mind set.
The vast majority of what has been written since the advent of the modern ML bullet about the RB is pure BS.
Lacks adequate penetration, BS
Won't kill cleanly, BS
Is not accurate, BS
Hunting with the RB is unethical, BS
But since some paid shill writes this drivel people believe it never mind the ethics involved in the incestuous relationship between writers and editors and advertisers that prevails in the vast majority of firearms magazines and books.
Writer pisses off a maker of powder or bullets and the flow of
FREE STUFF DRIES UP. I bet some of you think that gun writers BUY bullets and powder. Sometimes, but if they write for a major magazine. The companies send stuff to writers so it appears in the articles.
So when I state things that I have found through experience to be true or at least possible and people have to jump on their keyboards and display ignorance that indicates a lack of significant experience sometimes I get put out.
Fed up might be a good word.
While I am sure that the people that post here, for the most part, think its a really cool site there are several friends of mine who have a lot of experience with powder making, fouling characteristics, perc revolver/pistol use, hunting all sorts of game and competition shooting who won't even come here.
Too many "experts" who like to attack people for stating something that the "expert" has little or no knowledge or experience with but has an opinion that he just has to post.
Probably so other "experts" will think he knows what he is talking about.
I never said that people HAD to shoot elk with pistols. There was a question asked. I answered it based on 40+ years of ML experience with a wide variety of calibers and game shot.
I backed this up with historical citations that ANYONE CAN FIND if they can tear themselves away from Guns & Whammo or the "ML sites" on the WWW.
I suggest people read Taylor's "African Rifles and Cartridges" and "Pondoro". In "Pondoro he describes shooting African Elephant and Rhino with a 10 bore percussion gun using about 25% of the ball weight of powder, 167 grains.
Forsythe's "The Sporting Rifle and its Projectiles" is a classic and should be read by anyone hunting with a TRUE traditional ML. The entire volume of "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865" By Garavaglia and Worman should be of interest to anyone who shoots 18th and 19th Century firearms. Its full of excerpts from journals and letters from people actually doing things.
There are others. Sir Samuel Baker's writings for example.
Accounts of MTN men and their contemporaries killing all sorts of animals with 50 to perhaps 58 caliber rifles at ranges that would produce impact velocities equal to or even far less, than a pistol would generate at 25 yards.
In the west of the 1830s getting close to animals was not all that easy out here. Tougher than now since we now have far more trees and bushes than at that time. So the ranges were often long. But they still needed to eat.
OOPS! I forgot these guys were unethical because everything they shot did not drop at the shot so we should not mention such things. Not PC I guess. But then I have been told Buffalo shot with 300 magnums very often run off like rabbits and require a lot of chasing to get a followup so I guess 300 mags are unethical too huh?
I have guns to build.
Dan
