OK, here's the deal.

We use our magical time machine to reach back to the year 1831 and pluck a Mountain Man from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. We take him to the range and set him up to shoot a scoped TC Hawken with a variety of bullets - patched balls, Powerbelts, XTPs with sabots, and Hornady FPBs.

Now we're ready to send him back to 1831, and we tell him he can take only one thing back with him. Either the scope or a lifetime supply of any one of those bullets.

Which would he likely choose?

(I told you I was bored.)