Keep your hunting skills sharp throughout the (hopefully soon) summer by muzzleloading for groundhogs...
I have taken many groundhogs (a.k.a. whistle pigs, pasture poodles, ground grizzlies) with the ol' smokepoles.
My favorite load with my .58 cal Zouave is a .560 diameter, 260 grain round ball w/.015 pillow tick patch lubed with Crisco on top of 70 grains of FFg...
This gives me 1077 fps and bullet energy of 376 Ft/lps at 100 yards, more than enough for the wild groundhogs on North East Ohio...
Let's also remember that, as groundhogs are hunted in the summer around hay fields, muzzleloaders could set the farmers fields on fire.
(Flintlocks and dry hay)
I have taken many groundhogs (a.k.a. whistle pigs, pasture poodles, ground grizzlies) with the ol' smokepoles.
My favorite load with my .58 cal Zouave is a .560 diameter, 260 grain round ball w/.015 pillow tick patch lubed with Crisco on top of 70 grains of FFg...
This gives me 1077 fps and bullet energy of 376 Ft/lps at 100 yards, more than enough for the wild groundhogs on North East Ohio...
Let's also remember that, as groundhogs are hunted in the summer around hay fields, muzzleloaders could set the farmers fields on fire.