I bought a .36 for squirrel hunting, but went back to shot. A head shot at twentyfive yards should be easy but I had more then one miss or blew out shoulders or just couldn’t get a good shot.I don't think I could force myself to shoot a squirrel with a shotgun, even a muzzleloader. When I was growing up, .22 shorts were $.25 a box of 50, long rifles were $.35 a box, and shotgun shells were about a nickel apiece. If I had "wasted" a shotgun shell on a squirrel, both my dad and my grandpa would have lit into me! Squirrels were to be shot with a .22, in the head, or left in the trees...period! The same was true for cottontails, although one taken on the run with a shotgun while pheasant hunting was tolerated it was not encouraged. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I guess we were kinda poor. I do remember times when meat on the table was something we'd shot, but I just thought that's the way it was. Fish and game were a large part of our diet, which just seemed normal to me. Once Dad bought our 80 acre "farm" where we could raise cattle, chickens, and hogs, wild game became more of a treat than a staple, but the hunting "rules" never changed.
Anyway, it's really hard to undo what you grew up with. Sorry if I hijacked the thread. I always liked #5 shot in my 16 gauge for pheasants and the occasional rabbit, BTW.
Howsomever that brings up a good point. We see lots of shot sold on the frontier. They were shooting this in the old days on the frontier.
At an ounce of shot you get sixteen shot for a pound of lead, and your using a rifles worth of powder. Your payoff is one meal, or less. For the same amount of powder and less lead you get a deer yielding lots more meals.
That’s not going to effect us today, but when you might be several months or a year between resupply one would think this counted a lot.
Yet lots of shot went on to the frontier.
