Muzzleloader Game Size

[musketman]

Everyone has a story about large game taken with their muzzleloaders, but what is the smallest animal you have taken with your shootin' iron?

Squirrels?
Doves?
Smaller yet?

I was trapping and got the pajingles scared out of me by a 10oz. weasel, it was in a muskrat trap and caught by it's hind leg...

I thumped it with the butt of my unprimed T/C .32 cailber Cherokee and proceeded to remove it from the small trap.

Well, it regained itself and ran up my pants leg...

So here is a "grown man" jumping around trying to dislodge a small fuzzy critter from his pants, only to loose it in the autumn's leaves below...

That's when I got really scared...

I tucked my pants cuffs into my boots and started looking for the little weasel...

I never did fine it...

 

[TwoShadows]

Smallest game?....hmmmmm.
Big Sam and I used to go around saying "the onliest way that gun would be prettier is to dip it in Elmer's glue and roll it in sequins".
He showed up at my place one nite with a CVA pistol, bottle of glue, and a sack full of sequins. After coating the pistol in glue we threw it in the sack and shook it all up good. When dry we tied a string of plastic pearls to the triggerguard and the other end to a cork that just fit the bore. A percusion cap would expel the cork with enough force to kill flys on the awning of our tent.
So I guess that would qualify as game? Sure was a lot of laughs I expect to see two big old hairy men shooting flys with their purty pistol. ....proof that it doesn't take a lot to occupy a shallow mind does it?


...it ain't how ya pick yer nose....it's where ya flick tha booger!

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by TwoShadows:
Big Sam and I used to go around saying "the onliest way that gun would be prettier is to dip it in Elmer's glue and roll it in sequins".I guess the real question here is, what color sequins did you use...

I'm guessing RED.

 

[TwoShadows]

naw....multicolored...we is equal opportunity folks...

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by TwoShadows:
naw....multicolored...Could you imagine the looks you'd get if you showed up at a Rendezvous with that tucked in your belt...

 

[TwoShadows]

Heck, we DID take it to Rendezvous....and yep, folks snickered and chuckled, but there were no off color remarks, Ya see, I'm a fairly good sized fellar, and Sam...well, Sam's hair plaited hangs down past his belt, and his beard, plaited,can be stuffed in his belt. His arms look like the ones on a baking soda can. Add to that his being a head taller than my 6'1" and together I suspect there is upwards of 500 pounds of ugly varmints thet talk slow southern...Sam, he knows "Karate, and Kung Fu and that kind if stuff"...'n me, I knows "Tennessee Jackhandle" and "advanced cussin" and stuff like that....Shucks, t'were all in good fun...and a good time was had by all.

 

[BrownBear]

Don't know if it qualifies for your list, but my GPR 54 has been whacking snowshoe hare heads with some regularity. At least the heads are pretty small in relation to the ball. Not much left above the shoulders, but eases the dressing chore.

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by BrownBear:
Not much left above the shoulders, but eases the dressing chore. So that means you won't be making everyone in this forum a JACK-A-LOPE?

 

[Stumpkiller]

Every year after deer season I go back into the hemlocks and find them little red squirrel b@$turd$ that chitter and chatter and carry on when I'm trying to sneak through the woods all quiet like. The best thing about nailing them with a .54 ball is that I don't feel so guilty about not eating the nasty tasting little snots when all that's left is a tail and some fur.

Heard 'em called 'pineys' in some locals.

During bow season I carry blunts so I can quiet 'em down a little sooner.

[ January 12, 2004, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: musketman ]

 

[musketman]

They're called faerie-dittles, reds, chippers and road kill over here in Ohio...

 

[Stumpkiller]

HAW HAW! Faerie-dittles? "Durned faerie-dittle kept fussin in the tree over me." He-yuck! "Storm comin' Maw. The faerie-dittles is out thick." Folks'd think I been tastin the mushrooms.

Wouldn't want to call them 'chippies' hereabouts. Folks might think I was whompin chipmunks and I'd be strung up by a lynchmob.

This season I was watching a red squirrel work the ground about 15 feet from where I was sitting and a goshawk came in from behind me and nailed him. Durned near filled by breeches.

 

[Buck Buster]

Smallest critters I've taken with a muzzleloader are armadillas(possum on the half-shell). These pest dig holes everywhere. Seen them jump as high as 8 feet sometimes when shot with smaller calibers.

 

[Chuck Deaton]

My momma used to call armadillos, "Hoover hogs". We were so poor that anything tasted good.

Never wasted powder and lead on one though. We just ran em down and clubbed em.

 

[Haggis]

Here's one for ya Stumpkiller. You use blunts out of your bow, how about out of your gun? What whould a fella call that? A blunt ball? This is an account from the Journals of Lewis and Clark about a man using a "blunt ball"

[Clark, September 11, 1804]
Sept. 11th Tuesday 1804
"..., the man who left us with the horses 22 days ago and has been a head ever Since joined, us nearly Starved to Death, he had been 12 days without any thing to eate but Grapes & one Rabit, which he Killed by shooting a piece of hard Stick in place of a ball-."

 

[Slowpoke]

I love to feed the birds around where I live. I put out whole corn for the squirrels and cracked corn for the sparrows, doves, etc. Well that cracked corn attached a brown rat that my daughter named Templeton after the rat in Charlotte's Web.
Well, two days ago I took care of "Templeton" with 10gr of powder and a 320 round ball. The thing was that every time I would sneak outside the rat would run in it burrow. I ended up shooting it out of the 2nd story window. My wife just today started talking to me again.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Now that would be an interesting thing to chronograph (iffen I had one). A bore size piece of stick with a patch. Might have to experiment with that one.

Maybe a wad o'toothpicks and call it a flechette round. Hmmmmm? Overpowder wad, cushion, toothpicks overshot wad. Sure would keep the squirrels from comin back to the bird feeders.

 

[Haggis]

Shor would be a garunteed way 'o barking the squirrel, if'n ye shot the bark out 'o the gun.