Just like you can tell a New hunter by the length of his belt knife, you can tell a new MLer by the length( size and weight) of his powder horn! :grin: :shocked2: BTDT.
The older I get, and the more times I take to the woods with my gear, the less I carry, and the smaller the horn that goes with me. Oh, I still have the older, BIG horns, but I keep them for the club shoots, where we may have to survive an endurance contest!
For horns going to the field, you only need it big enough to carry the amount of powder you are likely to shoot. Game laws and bag limits pretty much limit the amount of shooting you CAN LEGALLY do. Pressing schedules that keep the bills paid limit how long you can be in the field.
My next horn will be a small, FLAT horn, that I can carry in a large pocket, and will hold, at most about 500 grains of powder. Even that is too much for most hunts. We are talking a horn that is usually no longer than 5", small in diameter( 1.5")before flattening, and less than half full.
May I suggest that you do a little math :shocked2: , and then use a cleaned out salt shaker, to get an idea how much powder you can put in such a small container. If you are shooting a Brown Bess, or some other large gauge, or caliber gun, with powder charges of 70 grains and more, then check out larger containers than a salt shaker.
An ounce of powder weighs 437.5 grains. Even at 70 grains per shot, you are getting 6 shots to the ounce. If you are hunting deer, do you really think you are going to get even 6 shots? Do you really need to carry 1/2 lb. or a pound or more of powder in a huge horn??
No one has to agree with my habits, or way of thinking about this, but "packing light" seems to me to just make more sense. The real work begins when you kill your deer, and now have to get it out of the woods.
There are some states where the daily bag limit on squirrels is large- allowing a lot of shooting. But most MLers will use a .32, .36, or .40 caliber rifle, shooting PRBs, to kill squirrels. Powder charges are less than 50 grains- 20 for the .32, 30 for the .36, and 40 for the .40. Some use much less powder to keep from destroying meat. Even with a bag limit of 15 squirrels, how many shots are you going to fire in one day's hunt? If you missed one squirrel for every one taken, that would amount to 30 shots. ( That's pretty poor shooting, and you probably will see the sunset long before you fire 30 shots, BTW. Squirrels don't exactly sit around with bullseyes on their chests, saying, " Shoot me!" after that first shot is fired! :shocked2: :rotf: :idunno: )
I would rather carry two small horns in my pockets( to have enough powder for that kind of poor shooting), than one large horn hung from a strap around my neck, all day long. BTDT. Carrying a small horn in a pocket also gives it better protection in case of rain, compared to carrying a large horn on your hip.
I use a Poncho when hunting, to keep the rain off my gun and gear. But, your hands get wet, and if you don't take a towel along to dry them, that moisture gets transferred to everything you touch. I found I am constantly adjusting my horn's position on my hip as I walk through the woods, so it gets almost as wet from handling as it would if I didn't keep it under the poncho.
