By that time it was down to myself and ol' Iron Chest (Mike) who was shooting "Pooter," his .62 caplock. Mike loaded that iron so light it sounded like a cap pistol in an empty oil drum when he shot, hence the name.
I’d have had to change my shorts if that happened to me.Iron Chest earned his name at a TAB rendezvous. It was an "under the table" shoot. You sat in a chair at a table, held a hand of aces and eights and shot under the table at the target about 10 yards or so away. Iron Chest's first shot hit the stump we used to hold the target, came back and hit him in the chest and knocked him and the chair he was setting on to the ground. We thought he was dead at first. He finished the contest after we set up a stand to hold the target for the rest of the match. He was Iron Chest thereafter.
Mike once told me he used 35 grains as a load for the .62 rifle. Beware the man with one gun. He was deadly accurate with that thing.
I had a Navy Arms Charleville that would do about as good. It's just one of the guns I wished I still owned.I once watched a man shooting a silhouette target offhand and hitting it each time at 100 yards with a Brown Bess. And to those who say it can't be done, they're wrong. I saw it with my own eyes.
Other than a very few nice targets with tight groups, actually nothing special, I did make a great shot once on a running doe with a flintlock smoothbore (me, not the deer). The range was only just under 25 yards so maybe nothing worthy of mention.
I once shot a clay bird out of the air at about 70 yards with my .54 cal hawken. It was not planned. The guys to my left where throwing birds, I had just shouldered my rifle to shoot a steel target at 75 yards. A bird that they missed popped into my view so without thinking I shot it out of the air.
In AU a few years ago at the World long range ML match's one of our team mates shot a magpie out of the air. He was shooting at I think the 900 yard target and at around 400 yards the bullet hit the bird as it was flying by. The guy scoring saw it happen. He did get to shoot another shot for score.
Fleener
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