Looking for a Nice Muzzleloading pistol as a gift to my Father

[Rawhide67]

I've heard that Kodiak bears have been killed with 22rf too. I think I'll avoid shooting at a deer with mzl loading pistol. To each his own.

 

[Brokenbear]

If you were to treat your pistol like you would a bow ..meaning short yardages..practice practice practice ..making sure of the deer's body angle to catch both lungs/heart/boiler room ...
I'm a thinking .45cal and up with 40 grains and/or up will do the job ..true you will do a bit of tracking ..true a bigger bullet would mean a better blood trail and likely shorter tracking distance ..
I also respect the game ..but if you do your part in training and bullet placement we are talking a recoverable dead deer

Merry CHRISTmas everyone
Bear

 

[FishDFly]

"If you were to treat your pistol like you would a bow"

If a frog had wings.

 

[Brokenbear]

..Some folks DO have the determination and the patience to do it right ..I agree the scale might tip more towards the don't than do ..but aren't we all better off to encourage doing it right ..stating the obvious should give an intelligent man reason to counsel himself if he is going to attempt something on the edge of conventional wisdom ..just as we would suggest to a fellow forum member that a 250 yard shot with .54 and 120 grains of black ..yes you can kill it but will you have done the hours on the range and in the field to know exactly where your bullet is at that 250 yards ..or do we suggest a max yardage that places man and gun in reason of each others capability ..and do it nicely too?

Bear

 

[cynthialee]

I will point out that most areas have laws dictating what you may or may not use to hunt.

ML Pistols are legal to hunt with in my area so long as you are using a minimum of 40 grains of powder. (and it has to be a single shot pistol, no hunting with a Walker as much as I would love to do so) Other places have their own rules.

Pretty sure most of us who would hunt with such a gun are acutely aware of the limitations of the technology. Personally I wouldn't shoot past 35 yards with my hunting pistol, and I would prefer 25....Not much different than bow hunting in a lot of aspects.

 

[ZUG]

As an ethical hunter I would only use a ML pistol as a back-up to a rifle of sufficient caliber for the game/state I am hunting in even if my distances are within pistol range.

 

[torpedo]

Plenty of deer have been harvested with BP pistols. I have hunted with my CVA Hawken Pistol a few times. While I never got my shot I felt confident that so long as I stayed at 30 yards or closer that pistol would do the job in spades.

There have been posts in this forums hunting forum demonstrating clearly these pistols are up to the job. Shot placement is key like any other gun.

Shot placement and yardage is the key!

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

Deer don't care if the bullet is being propelled by the Holy Black or smokeless... or if the bullet was loaded from the muzzle or the butt-end of things. Pedersoli has the best selection of mass produced pistols which could be used for hunting, otherwise you may have to buy custom (not much more $ than a pedersoli).

 

[user 48679]

The Patriot can hold 40 grains. Most of the cracks in the stocks probably came from a bad loading technique…

Correct - The patriot should be loaded via holding it in your hands, and not using one of those wooden loading stands that position the barrel straight up and the butt in a recess in the bottom of the stand.

When using the stand, all the loading pressure goes directly to the gun's butt, causing the stock to crack @ the wrist

 

[Brazos John]

When using the stand, all the loading pressure goes directly to the gun's butt, causing the stock to crack @ the wrist.

Thanks for pointing out what should be obvious to us, but wasn't something I had considered.
I loaded from the body and shot my Queen Anne .50 FL pistol once, when the flint went flying.
Now I get to learn about knapping flints!
But I will certainly remember this advice.
Thanks.

 

[Acorn Mush]

Correct - The patriot should be loaded via holding it in your hands, and not using one of those wooden loading stands that position the barrel straight up and the butt in a recess in the bottom of the stand.

When using the stand, all the loading pressure goes directly to the gun's butt, causing the stock to crack @ the wrist

My Patriot had never seen a loading stand...always been loaded holding it in my hand just to avoid cracking the stock. The stock cracked anyway. Go figure. I guess I am just lucky that way.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Anyone found caps lately? Nope dont exist any more.
dont think Id be buying a cap gun. But what the heck, some one just gave me one.
and now I know why.

 

[Coinneach]

Correct - The patriot should be loaded via holding it in your hands, and not using one of those wooden loading stands that position the barrel straight up and the butt in a recess in the bottom of the stand.

When using the stand, all the loading pressure goes directly to the gun's butt, causing the stock to crack @ the wrist

Maybe if youre using a hammer to drive a Ball down, I've used a wooden loading stand for decades with nary a problem.

 

[stikshooter]

That sounds like a nice pistol but for my state's hunting laws a pistol is required to hold at least a 40 grain powder charge. Will look into it though to see if it would a nice target gun.

Day late but my TC scout 50 cal is in the mail going to a new home . They are said to be (rugged) !/Ed

 

[stikshooter]

I'm curious, lots of input on what pistol to get, what about the issue of shooting a deer with muzzleloading pistol. A colt Walker, maybe, but I don't think I would shoot a deer with my patriot, or either of my Lyman pistols, 50 and 54 cal. Too much respect for the animal and not interested in very likely wounding it and having it wander off to die a slow and miserable death. Just my 2 cents.

If you can shoot it and put (LEAD) where its supposed to go @ yardage your sure of (NOTHING) walks away from a 50 cal in and out ,and it sure doesn't need to be at warp speed ! Done it with pointy arrows for to many (not enough) yrs/Ed

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

Anyone found caps lately? Nope dont exist any more.
dont think Id be buying a cap gun. But what the heck, some one just gave me one.
and now I know why.

Kid's roll caps, heavy duty aluminum foil (you could splurge and buy brass or copper foil, if you wanted to), nail polish, a punch the diameter of the end of your firing cone, and a die (a piece of metal or wood with a hole drilled in it the depth of your caps) ... never understood why people buy caps for plinking around

 

[Darto]

Murph, sounds like a Xmas your Grandad will remember, a Mortimer target!

Since you also want to help your father choose as well, maybe you have already decided about that too.

Anyways, it seems a long barreled flintlock bounty hunter are period correct and very historical, which is something I did not know. They were called 'bear guns' apparently, which I did not know.

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/historically-correct-pedersoli-bounty-16-barrel.133097/
flintlock:
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1023107852?pid=212528caplock:
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1022199524trapper flintlock:
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1015810268?pid=882749