To each his own. A quick clean ethical kill is more important to me than authenticity of the bore. In that case you could eliminate everything I put down the bore as they had none of it.
I enjoy hunting. I enjoy hunting with flintlock guns. I'm not opposed to stepping out of period though. I just don't get hung up on that. I know some people do and that's great. Even more of a challenge.
I have never patterned a true smoothbore. I don't know that it would do what mine is at 30 yards or not.
Interesting point about the flash of the pan spooking game....I really never considered it..But turkey especially have great eye sight. And deer are known to have a very quick reaction time. They've been known to duck out of the way of arrows. I've never thought about it with a Flintlock though. There's definitely a bit of time from when the flint impacts the frizzen to when the projectile actually impacts it's target.
I'm counting down the days. Season will be here soon!!