Remember your First ML kill?

[rickpa]

My first ML kill was also my first deer kill. I never hunted till I was 27 because no one in my family did but I had been shooting since I was 8 and shooting BP with an original .36 percussion rifle since I was 14. In 1976 I was hunting the Pa. ML season after Christmas with 3 friends on game lands in Bedford Co. Pa. We split up, two and two. My buddy was carrying a Bedford style rifle he had built the year before and I was carrying my second build, a flinter using a Doc Haddaway lock, Douglas .45 barrel with an exceptional piece of maple I bought off Griff Smith in Ligonier for the grand price of $45.
We had followed an old game trail across the side of a ridge when Harry spotted two deer walking towards us. We had separated about 40 yds apart and using hand signals he told me to shoot first then he would shoot. I did but his gun misfired. He had used a W.G. Suter lock he built from a kit. At that time Mr. Suter lived about 5 miles outside of town, in Ruffsdale Pa. and Harry had bought one of his lock kits. Of course it failed at a crucial time but this was not his first hunt. He had been going since he was 12 and was the impetus for me to start hunting myself.
I was happy as could be thinking I had shot a doe but upon getting closer to the deer I saw that I had shot a button buck with about 1 inch long spikes. I still have the small rack sitting around here with some of my others and even though it is the smallest, to me it is still the best.

That was a good year for me. I also met my future wife that summer. I still have her too.

 

[Dave Dworshak]

I shot a rooster pheasant out of the sky that exploded out in front of me when I walked an abandoned gravel pit after vocatational class in 1981. It was an 1851 .44 navy colt revolver. Not a lot of good eating left. First deer was a mature doe 50 yards with a CVA .45 mountian rifle. .440 rb. a kit built in 1981.

 

[nc12215]

First ever was a gray squirrel. Original flintlock (unknown maker) .45ish cal. 20 yards 70gr ffg. Second was a 2pt forked horn mule deer at 25 +/- yds, same 70gr charge.

 

[wojciste]

Late December PA Flintlock season standing by a tree. 4 pointer comes walking through and was standing in a depression. I could only see from his belly up. I fired and as the smoke cleared I see him running away. I quickly reloaded and he sees me doing this and walks back looking at me and stops in the depression. I fired again and as the smoke clears I see nothing. I walk up to the depression and there he lays.

 

[nkbj]

Probably something I ate but was it furred or feathered? Reckon it's been too long to know for sure.

 

[Ninering62]

My first muzzleloader kill was a big body hatrack 6 pointer. Nuthin even close to impressive, but I wanted my first ML buck mounted anyway. The local hack of a taxidermist butchered the mount so badly, that I didn't want to pay him for it, he dang near got his a$$ whooped for it & I didn't want it displayed in my house either. It got hung in the spare bdrm & ignored until I moved & actually gave it away to a complete stranger.

 

[Slinginslugs]

Like it was yesterday....I was 12. 50 cal TC White Mountain Carbine. Grandpa gave it to me for my birthday. It was opening day of muzzleloader. He knew where a boar had been bedding up and after a uneventful morning waiting on deer he put me on a trail leaving a pond and looked at me and said he's gonna be close, be ready and don't miss. I had been practicing quick shots and close ranges for weeks. He went around the opposite side of the pond and next thing I knew I heard something coming my way and before I could realize what was going on it was over. But in my head it all happened in slow motion. He popped out the palmettos at about 25 feet and I put a 275 maxi hunter about a inch above his right eye. He went stiff legged and convulsing and kicking and blood spraying and all I could do was watch in amazement. I was still standing there in shock when I realized Grandpa had walked up. The toothless smile on his face was priceless. He pulled his old buck 110 out and cut his nuts out and gutted him and we headed to the truck. Looking back in memory he was probably around 150 lbs but I swore he was huge back then

 

[JB Books]

180 lb. 6 pointer. Shot in the last two minutes of legal light.
Problem with dark and old age, every time I pulled the barrel up, I could see the front sight. Whet I steadied, the sight disappeared. Soooo.... I sat there with the gun up, making small circles with the barrel. As long as it was moving, I could see both sights. It just became a matter of touching off the shot as the circle passed by his shoulder. 85 grains of fff, 50 cal.

I read somewhere that; that is exactly the what the guys who compete with "race" guns do.

 

[Newtire]

If you guys can remember your first kill with a ML, let’s hear about it. Remember, we love pics so if you have a pic of that first kill share it with us if you would.

The only thing I’ve killed with a traditional ML is a few squirrels. I can say that I vividly remember it though. Punched a perfect 50 ca hole thru him. Killed a bunch of squirrels with that first rifle, killed a bunch of deer with a modern ML, but not a traditional one. Hoping to change that this season. Should changed last season, but I kept coming up with new and exciting ways to screw it up.

Only thing (s) I've ever killed was a mess of doves with my 11 bore double and an ounce of #7-1/2's. Been deer hunting with my .50 but no deer appeared those times. The dove hunting was pretty fun. Doves and gun shown in my icon picture.

 

[Texas Gil]

1981 on my lease in NC mountains near Laurel Springs, mountain top named Tiresome Knob. Just completed and test fired my Sharon Rifle Works 54 cal percussion Hawkin kit on a Friday. Went to the lease with my 12 year old son that night. It was the coldest day I’ve hunted. 10 degrees and wind about 25 mph. Saw nothing early so at 8:30 I decided circle the pasture in the edge of the tree line. After I got about halfway around the pasture 4 deer walked out of the tree line 150 yds on the edge ahead. I kept walking to them and stopped when they looked down at me. Then I saw spikes on the 3rd deer all broadside at close to 100 yds.
Sat down with New rifle rest on my knees , aimed center lungs , set the trigger and fired. Deer exploded running back from where they came. Found the buck double lung shot about 100 yds away. Wow !
Load was 110 gr 2f, 54 cal Maxi ball.
Still have that rifle.

 

[tenngun]

Grew up in Aztec New Mexico. Great rabbit hunting on ‘Ruins Road.’ Shot a bunny sitting under a sage brush, all hunkered down.
.50 cal morey rifle
He tasted so good

 

[flintlock75]

Boy, long time ago, my first ml rifle was a flintlock in .45 cal, shot my first whitetail deer, a big doe at 30 yards, prb with 70 gr of 3f, I remember she ran after the shot, was gone when smoke cleared, found her 50 yards away piled up under a tree. That was 1976. Sorry no pictures

 

[Rifleman1776]

Yes, it was a small doe in the Sylamore WMA in 1976 with my flint lock longrifle. Nearly had two more kills that same day when two guys, who looked like they had just stepped out of the movie Deliverance, tried to steal it from my camp. They changed their mind when I showed them the no-no pistol in my belt.

 

[Stykbow]

Lovin’ the stories, guys. I was hoping this thread would get some traction. Keep em’ coming.

 

[appalichian hunter]

I read somewhere that; that is exactly the what the guys who compete with "race" guns do.

Its called the wobble area. Now back to your first M.L. kill.

 

[MLZ]

Investarm's Bridger Hawken, in 1979. A small whitetail in the woods behind my parents place.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Yes I went on a doe hunt in south Texas. I was the only one using a muzzle loader No one expected me to get anything. Two does came out the first morning about 80 yards from my assigned blind. I shot high and hit her in the spine and she immediately went down and started screaming.After the smoke cleared the other doe came back so I had a ramrod going out the window of my assigned box and made much better shot on the second doe. 1981 Johnathan Browning Mountain Rifle 50 cal 1/60,90 gr 490 ball 18 patch. I still have the rifle wish I would have bought more.

I have the same in .45 with brown hardware bought in 1983 in Michigan, I took my first a roe deer (a European small deer) 2021.

 

[GeronPG]

The Fall after I got my first M-L, about 2001, was my first M-L harvest. In those days in NC, regular gun season was buck-only in our area, and M-L season allowed you to hunt 2 weeks earlier and harvest a doe. 2 does stepped out into the edge of a clearing about 40 yds. away, I sighted my T-C hawken loaded with about 60 gr. of ffg and a 44 mag bullet of about 280 gr. and a sabot (because I thought that's what you needed) and pulled the trigger. The deer ran about 25 yds and flopped; no bullet recovered, it was through-and-through. After a couple deer harvested that way, with no recovered bullets, I thought "I could probably use a patched round ball". I harvested a couple more with a prb until I got my inline and was spoiled by having a scope.

 

[Dave Dworshak]

First deer was a mature doe 50 yards with a CVA .45 mountian rifle. .440 rb. a kit built in 1981.

 

[JBird]

I quit hunting before I got into Blackpowder over a decade ago after years of no success, My interest was finally renewed last year as I've always wanted to tote a flintlock around the woods. My first kill with a ML was also my first big game period, It took most of the season but i finally found a legal deer on state land with the Kibler Colonial in .54 in hand.

I've been working hard this season with a bow, Looking forward to next weekend when Primitive weapons season starts