Only the second year I was muzzleloading, I showed up to join a large group of guys for a day of late-season deer driving. Looking back I don't know why we did that so often, we had terrible luck.

Anyways, we all piled in three cars and drove to a parking spot about 1/2 mile from the woods we wanted to drive. All the way there, the 3 guys in my car ribbed me for showing up with a ML (they all had shotguns). I took a ton of flack for showing up with a "one-shooter", though the exact insults escape my memory now. I just shrugged it off and said "my one hit is better than your 5 misses".

As we got out, my gun was in the back of the trunk so I was the last to get to it. Guys were ramming in slugs when someone called out "Hey! Look at that stupid deer!". Sure enough, there was a doe tearing toward us at full speed, obviously spooked out by someone else. She was on course to cross about 100 yards in front of us.

Four guys opened up with their shotguns offhand once she was within 200 yards as I slipped my Traditions Deerhunter from its case and calmly reached for a speedloader to cap it. I looked up and gauged the range she'd cross as 110 yards, and looked down to cap the gun. By now at least a dozen slugs had been launched at her with no hits. I took a knee, pulled back the hammer, and found the deer in my sights as the last of the four guys emptied his shotgun with the deer still running. By now she'd cut away and was crossing at about 140 yards. There was a moment of silence, then the crack of my ML and smoke. Half a second later the deer tumbled over on her left side and was still.

I calmly looked up at the nearly dozen guys staring silently at me, blew the smoke from my barrel and said "five shots don't help if you can't shoot worth a damn".

I got a hell of a lot of respect after that -- I'm still running on the mileage from that one, more than fifteen years later.

I have to say I would not take that shot today, but back then I got a ton more practice with shots like that and had no problem taking running deer. I would not trust myself to do it today.