cayugad

We all have shots that we brag about. Shots that by some standards seemed almost impossible or at least extreme. But what about the shots you made that did not turn out so well. Now I am not talking about a miss. I am talking about a verified hit, you recovered the animal, but the shot you made on that animal WITH A MUZZLE LOADER was far from stellar.

I will start it out. I once had a sure shot. I mean I could taste the venison in the pan, this shot was so easy. 35 yards away. Broadside buck. Weapon was a .54 caliber renegade with open sight. Load was Pyrodex RS, bore butter patched round-ball.

I was in a blind. Rifle rested on the window ledge. Set trigger on. BOOM!! Down it goes. Up it jumps. And I see a huge red spot on the side of the deer we commonly call the gut area. Deer runs off. Long story short.. lots of tracking, help with friends, and recovered the deer over a mile away.

The rifle was checked at the range back at the hunting cabin. It was shooting four inches low and left. Boiled the barrel with water. Chunks of bore butter (yes I was a bore butter user then) came out the barrel. Scrubbed the bore clean. Back to the range. Touched holes dead center bull at 50 yards.

I never used bore butter again in my rifles as a patch lube or as a protection from rust.

alleyyooper

Got a brand new Remington 700 ML in 54cal for Christmas from my wife about a year after they came out. not my first ML as I had a T/c Hawkins 50 cal and a T/C plains rifle 50 cal.
I shot it all summer long I was using 100gr of Clean Shot and a 250gr XTP bullet in red MMP sabots.
Got an invite to go ML hunting in Sothern Michigan for does. Fellow who invited me put me in a deer blind with a hay field to the front and woods to the rear hay field on both sides.
I was there about an hour when a small heard of does showed up in the hay field to the right. I pick out the biggest body one about 40 to 50 yards out. Set the cross hairs on the spot just behind the shoulder and squeeze off the shot. When the smoke cleared all the deer had disappeared. I had to step out of the blind to reload so I decided to go see if I saw any blood in the 4 inches of fresh snow. Yup there is blood a lot of it. I track it to the edge of the woods, Don't know if I have permission to be in there or not so look up the fellow who invited me. He has permission so we start tracking it. It goes about a half mile to a gravel road does not cross but angles deeper into the woods. Track it a half mile back to just behind where the blind I was in was. Fellow tells me that he thinks he knows where it will go so I am told to go stand by a fence post a corner where that woods meats the corner of another woods. Pretty soon I see deer coming but hold fire as the one I had shot should show blood as she was bleeding real well. Finally I see a lone does sneaking to the fence. once there she turns and heads back the way she came I still am not sure it is my doe. Soon a boom sounds and a call from the fellow who invited m. I get there and he had shot her when she came sneaking back with his T/C renegade 54cal and Maxi ball.
I had shot her in the brisket about 4 inches off in my aim. figure she had traveled close to 2 miles after being shot.

Mine you this is not the first deer I had ever shot in my life. In fact I had just returned a week earlier from our UP deer camp with two nice bucks.
I don't have a clue what I did wrong.

Al

lemoyne

The first year I hunted deer with a muzzleloader they did not post a minimum caliber where I lived then; and I had just started using a .40 caliber , I hit the deer right behind the shoulder about half way up the body she ran for close to half a mile and was hard to track. She excellent eating and I was hooked. The next year I used a .45 and was not completely happy with it, to make a long story a bit shorter I tried every caliber up to a .62 and then went back to a .54 as the best round ball caliber for dropping deer on the spot. I still use the 34.5 inch barreled Hawken rifle I built then some years; it drops deer on the spot with a greater regularity than my inlines, and I have only had one run a 100yds after being hit with it and that was on a 150 yd shot. The load for it is 130 grains of RS with a .535 ball.

cayugad

A friend I hunt with shot at a doe. He was using a Traditions .50 caliber Kentucky percussion cap rifle. And without doubt, he is a great shot with that rifle. He was so sure of the shot that he tried a head shot. He explained... he did not want to waste meat. Needless to say the deer dropped where it stood when shot. And he was sure it was a behind the ear type shot. But as he reloaded, he could not believe his eyes when that thing got up and began to stagger off... he tells, I panicked. And I never would have believed that deer was alive. The next shot was a Wisconsin backside heart shot as we call them. Right up the hind end. To this day, he's never tired another head shot on a deer that I know of. He had blown that lower jaw clean off.

falcon

Yep, i've made some bad shots. Went through a period in about 2008 where i rushed some shots and gutshot a couple deer and a couple hogs. Recovered them all, but some of that was luck. Had some long deer and hog dragging jobs.

oldsmellhound

Worst shot was several years ago- was still hunting and came across a group of does that had been spooked by some other hunters. They were about 80 - 90 yards away. I didn't have anything to brace on, so I attempted an offhand shot at the lead doe. They were moving, and I waited until they stopped - or so I thought!

At the shot, they all spun and ran the other way, the doe I had shot was limping noticeably. I made the fasted reload I've done in my life, and jogged forward to try and reaquire the deer. I saw it right away standing quartering away from me at about 70 or 80 yards. The only shot I had was a neck shot, and since it was already wounded I decided to take it. The offhand shot drilled it right through the cervical spine and killed it instantly. Both shots were with the 200 grain SST and 80 grains T7.

Upon field-dressing the deer, I found my first shot had hit way back in the pelvis area - breaking one of its hips and severing the femoral artery- it was bleeding a lot. It probably would have bled out pretty quickly, but it was a terrible shot. Luckily I was able to follow that terrible shot up with a great neck shot. The first shot felt good, the only thing I can figure is that the deer had not completely stopped moving when I took the shot- this would make sense based on her direction and where the shot hit.

Buckhunter46755

Several years ago I took a shot on a doe I should have passed on. She was walking down an old atv trail that ran 30yrds front of my stand and started to veer off to the left back into the briars. She was about 40 yards and just starting to change direction. She stopped so I took the shot. Though I could still see her clearly she was just off the open part of the trail where there was some very light brush at the edge. I was still convinced I had a clear line on the shot but nicked a small branch and hit low. I got lucky and found her like 500 yards from where she was standing when hit. No snow yet and only some light blood and tissue where she was standing. Waited a couple hours then started looking in the direction she ran. After looking for a few hours of backtracking, starting over, and repeating, I finally found her laying in the root depression of a big blowdown. Definitely learned from that one.

hubby11

I once misjudged the angle a doe was quartering away from me and the result was a shot that nicked the stomach. The Deep Curl still put her down within 50 yards. The plus side was that I had an opportunity to see what she had been eating (grass and corn). The down side was the smell - that sharp rancid stomach acid funk that stuck to my hands and the inside of my car for quite some time.

bronko22000

Although not with a ML, had a doe coming toward me I could hear from a long way off. She finally came down the side hill coming straight on. When she got about 50 yards away she saw me and knew something wasn't right. She turned and bolted running broadside. I threw the rifle up, got her in the scope and fired. She did a flip, kicked a couple times and expired. When I went up to her I found I had hit her square in the hind quarters severing the femoral artery on both sides. Horrible shot but very lucky and a quick kill.

Blackpowdersmoke

oldsmellhound,

I had a similar instance about 12 years ago during our late ML (flint only) season. I was hunting on a friend's property one afternoon from one of his stands and about 20 minutes before legal shooting time ended, I had a group of six or seven does come by me at about forty yards. They were walking a pretty stiff pace, not quite trotting, but not far from it. I was hunting with my T/C .45 flintlock stoked with 75 gr. of FFF and a 240 gr. Maxiball bullet. That rifle shoots that maxi very well so I had all the confidence in the world.

I picked out a decent sized doe and concentrated on her. I settled the sights on her boilerworks and took the shot. Well, they all took off and the one I shot at broke from the group and started heading downhill, so I'm thinking....yep, I got her. I get to where she was when she broke away and there's no blood, and we had snow on the ground so I'm thinking #%@$#!! I hope I didn't gut shoot that deer!! I tracked another fifty yards or so and began finding blood, a little at first, but the farther I went the heavier it got. I found her about 110 yards or so from where she broke from the group stone dead. I had hit her through both hams and severed her femoral arteries...the last thirty yards or so it looked like someone was spraying blood from a pump sprayer.

I got the deer, but I never felt right about it, and to this day, if I'm hunting with one of my flintlocks and I can't get them to stop or don't catch em' standing... I don't shoot.

BPS