Thank you, all.
I am blessed in many ways, very much so with my family. My boy is fantastic and does love to shoot. He is still a little young, and doesn't yet have the patience to spend a day out on a deer hunt. He has a Cherokee .32, and a small .50 cal caplock, bought from a member here on this forum. I think within a year or two he will grow into one of my flintlocks alright.
My rifle started life as a TVM kit. It is a .50 cal, straight 7/8" barrel, 36" long. My shortest rifle. I have over 160 hours into that rifle, being my first build. I have to say that it came out better than expected, but I call it "mutt" for a reason. Once you see it up close, you can see all the things that should be fixed on it. But............
Man does that thing shoot! She'll clover leaf all day at 50 yards from a bench. I have some very nice, well made rifles in my closet, but this one seems to be my go to for deer hunting. It just works, and I'm not as afraid to scratch it, as my nicer ones. This is the fifth deer with that rifle, and my second this year, taking a doe during the regular season.
My high shoulder shot was a bit of a mistake, as I am a double lung guy, all day. I have a ritual of cocking my rifle silently as deer approach, and when I use the set trigger, they usually hear it, it stops them for the shot, and kapow. Well, in anticipation of this buck, I set the trigger early, because I didn't want the sound to blow him out of there. Well, he stopped in a small hole in the brush, again quartering on. I wanted to put a ball through the point of the shoulder, right through the lungs, but I knew as the rifle went off, my front sight was just a little high in the rear sight. I didn't have to wonder long, because he went right down, but again, I hit him about 3" higher than I wanted to. I think in the future, I will stick to my normal routine, which has worked well for me... set the rear, and transition to the front, Boom! Its almost not fair.
Thanks for listening, guys.
