Small Game

[Roxie_L]

Thanks for the warm welcome!  I don't recall what forum the post was on, it was perhaps about four years ago because I had the .32 underhammer built shortly after making the change.  If not for the good results I had in the flintlock, I would not have even considered another smallbore.  The 2f has worked great except when the humidity is low, then I have to wipe more frequently. 

[Kermit]

Re light dueling loads: I think I recall reading something that said the idea was just to hit your opponent, wounding him. Apparently it wasn't necessary to kill the guy, just humiliate him. Squirrels, on the other hand......

[blunderbuss]

3/4 of a dram will kill a person one has only to read the history of dueling. They didn't have a bunch of powder salesmen telling them about foot pounds and velocity that's necessary to get the job done. That was apparently a sufficient load without over doing it. Farmers around here use a .22 to kill whitetail it's illegal but go try telling that to one of those old German farmers. Where I hunt there are allot of wild hogs really big ones when the old farmer who's land I hunt on found I hunted with a muzzleloader he said that;s fine but here take this .22 in case a hog comes along.(I was thinking more along the lines of a howitzer) I ask him what if it doesn't kill it well he said shoot him again.

[northmn]

Back in the days of dueling and before Pasteur, more people died of infection than anything.  A hit with a dueling pistol, even if the hit was not fatal in itself, often caused infection.   I do not live in any country where I have to worry about hogs (kind of wish I did).  I have only seen a few black bear while walking or sitting and its been the their hind feet and related views. When I carry birdshot or the 25 I have sometimes wondered about carrying my 45 Colt in case I see a coyote, although I admit the 25 would kill one I just might not find it easily.   Where one encounters other types of game that might be on the venue, some of the larger bores do work.  I have a 40 cal barrel and a 33 that are both begging to be built into a rifle, when I finish up what I have.  The 40 can be loaded light enough so as not to tear up smaller game but still impress a coyote.  Mostly when I hunt for small game I am hunting pretty specific.  For ducks  I am generally in a boat with my Golden Retriever along, for pheasants and grouse I sometimes will try to hit a pot hole.  Pheasants require non toxic shot in a lot of areas I hunt so that is not a big deal.  I have some bismuth and can load steel which works up close.  The steel in smaller sizes like 3 and under works OK for me.  I have taken a few grouse with #6 steel, which hits about like my #7 lead. The 2 shot size rule is mostly for a small range of shot sizes.  #5 steel works very much like 6's, but #2 performs more like 4's.  #5 steel is one of my favorites for uplands and works very much like lead.  Bismuth, Nice shot and others, are so blasted spendy that I adapt to steel.  They are not giving lead shot away anymore either. 

DP 

[northmn]

Actually, if hunting in an area where you might have to take out something kind of mean, I would suggest you test a shotgun at under 10 yards and say at 10-20 feet.  I have heard more than one source claim that at those ranges a shotgun is much more effective than a pistol.  Good arguement for hunting small game with shot.

DP

[blunderbuss]

My dad always said that the best use for a pistol was to keep your antagonist's head down until you could get to your shotgun. The sudden loss of blood pressure will put any thing down in it's tracks and when 12 .34 cal lead balls goes whistling through something it's going down. Another old Texas saying is "Never draw on a shotgun"
 I've hunted whitetail for some time now with my 12 ga ML shotgun 12 .34 lead shot and 100 gr ffg. In the other barrel I use a solid .715 ball with 90 gr ffg. The shot at say under 40 yards will put a deer down faster than the ball will,even if you shoot the deer through the heart with a ball.

[northmn]

Birdshot at very close range is also quite effective.  Imagine a pattern of 2 inches or less hiting something.  I remember shooting a rising grouse one time and all I found was the backbone and two wings.  I shot too quick too close.

DP

[blunderbuss]

I was at the range once with my son who at the time was about 8 he had been shooting his .410 ML . On this occasion we were watching the men shoot their 10 and 12 ga. shotguns shooting trap. He ask if he could do that too and I told him when the men got finished he could. Pretty soon they left and I loaded the trap and threw a couple which he let go to far for his little shotgun. I told him Look son you need to shoot closer because your shot gun is just to little to shoot that far. So I loaded the trap and threw another one. That bird cleared the trap house by about a foot and he powdered it. Then turned around with his little cherub face and said'' Like that daddy?'' Uh yea like that

[Dphariss]

3/4 of a dram will kill a person one has only to read the history of dueling. They didn't have a bunch of powder salesmen telling them about foot pounds and velocity that's necessary to get the job done. That was apparently a sufficient load without over doing it. Farmers around here use a .22 to kill whitetail it's illegal but go try telling that to one of those old German farmers. Where I hunt there are allot of wild hogs really big ones when the old farmer who's land I hunt on found I hunted with a muzzleloader he said that;s fine but here take this .22 in case a hog comes along.(I was thinking more along the lines of a howitzer) I ask him what if it doesn't kill it well he said shoot him again.

There are people a long time dead from shooting their opponent with a "duelling pistol load" of powder or other unpowered loads.  Here is one.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/aj7/about/bio/duel.htm
A heavier load would have provided more penetration and may have prevented Jackson from becoming president. Especially if he were standing in the typical dueler stance.
 
But then a determined man can be very hard to stop with any handgun with one shot.
Thompson and LaGarde stated that nothing smaller than a 3" solid shot could be completely relied on.

Dan

[Dphariss]

Actually, if hunting in an area where you might have to take out something kind of mean, I would suggest you test a shotgun at under 10 yards and say at 10-20 feet.  I have heard more than one source claim that at those ranges a shotgun is much more effective than a pistol.  Good arguement for hunting small game with shot.

DP

Yeah but carrying a shotgun and a rifle is far more trouble than carrying a rifle and a pistol . The rifle is generally at hand so using a pistol is just for backup.
The shotgun is extremely effective inside buildings or at other close range encounters. But as the range increases it becomes less and less effective, this especially true of open bored guns.

If you have a small game rifle, use head shots. This can make a wrist rocket a fight stopper.
Since an armed society is a polite society having a life threatening encounter at close range with a human is unlikely while hunting.
Unless you stumble on  a meth lab or pot field. This is apparently not uncommon in some areas.

Dan

[blunderbuss]

I deer hunt west of San Antonio and apparently it's on some kind of migration path and I don't mean ducks. Deer are plentiful but so are large wild Russian hogs,some 300 lb + and they will eat you. So human encounters and large pigs are a distinct possibility. The only reason I carry a double barreled shot gun is cause I can't find a three barreled shot gun

[northmn]

There have been those that have mentioned the possibility of encountering wild hogs while small game hunting.  In those area I would prefer to hunt with a fowler as at very close range the fowler is more effective than a pistol or a small bore rifle.  Even a 20 bore with a one ounce load is darned effective.  Use of a little heavier shot like 5 or 4 shot would give a little more penetration.  The fowler is also the gun in hand and one would not have to lug a heavy pistol around.  They use campers for portable meth labs, but they likely would not want to set up in areas where hunters go through.  I usually avoid campers parked on trails anyway as they ahve the trail messed up for hunting that day.
I hunt with a fowler more and more anyway as it permits increased chances for both fur and feather.
A double barrel as Blunderbuss mentions would also give a bit more peice of mind, with bird shot in one barrel and buck in another.  
DP

[blunderbuss]

Some small game hunting is done in pairs ,this isn't all the time .Depends on where you are . We know where the hogs generally run .I still carry a .45 71/2 inch Colt SA. Even the little hogs will come after you if your not careful. Knowing there are large Russian hogs in the woods gives a whole new meaning to going to the stand before daylight. The biggest rattler we've seen was about 7" Coyotes sound bad if they follow you after dark but I've never heard of anyone getting hurt by one.
I was in East Texas hunting once when I was 17 and coming back in after dark I had a panther scream very close Gut Gott in Himmel! That was scary.

[BrownBear]

I live 40 miles from town in SERIOUS brown bear country.  We literally have them in our yard from time to time, and it's unremarkable to run into them in the field.  And yeah, I've had my fair share of charges too.

Truth time?

If the bears are bad in one area I go to another.  My all time favorite snowshoe hare grounds is a bonified hotspot for bears.  So I don't hunt it until January when most of the bears are snoring.

When carrying small bores for hares, I carry a handgun as well earlier in the fall, but pretty much leave it at home come December.  If I see bear tracks, I bail.  If I see a bear, I'm polite and I bail, too.

But there's always the sudden, unexpected encounter.  And in my experience it has resolved itself one way or the other before you can drag a handgun from its holster.

My most startling encounter was on a ptarmigan hunt in the tundra high above tree line.  You could see miles in any direction.  I was carrying a 28 gauge double and topped a little rise, no more than a fold in the tundra.  And less than 10 feet away was the hind end of one of the largest bears I've ever seen.  He was grazing and never heard me.  I felt the shotgun shrink to a toothpick in my hands, and that isn't all that was shrinking.  

I was exceptionally polite and backed off before he ever knew I was there.  If he'd been pointed my way and took exception, I'd have been lucky to raise the muzzle in time, much less get off a hip shot.  My handgun might as well have been in New York.

[blunderbuss]

I understand the shrinking to a toothpick I got to go to sunny southeast Asia once had an M 16 do the same thing.
We have a draw close to the cabin with San Geronimo creek running right through it fairly steep on eather side Pecan trees are very thick and tall in there it's a good place for squirrel and I've never seen any hogs  there .That's where I hunt with my .25 flinter but I still pack the .45

[northmn]

I live in a prime black bear hunting area in MN. Upon very rare occaisions we encounter black bear.  Once when taking a walk down the road with my wife we saw a cub and then a sow cross ahead of us.  We turned around and went the other way.  Had we kept going they very likely would have been long gone, but encounters are best avoided.  A game warden told me that they had to trap an old one hanging around my place.  He shot the old fella and felt kind of bad about it, but it was getting to be a real pest and hanging around houses.  I think it was the one I saw through the house door eating dog food the wife left on the steps.  Last spring one totaled out the wifes bird feeders.  Encounters out in the woods are extremely rare.  The standard hunting procedure is to bait them as they are rarely seen otherwise.   I just do not carry anything extra to worry about an encounter with one.  Mostly, like when putting up wood, I carry something to eliminate a varmint like a coyote should I see one.  I kind of agree with Brown Bear, in that in an extreme situation with a wild critter you would be lucky to get off a shot.  If they are far enough away so that a close range shot load would not work, then you may not need to shoot them.  Were I to lug around a pistol, (I used to do so all the time), it would be for the possibility of getting something larger like a coyote or something.  I like to keep coyotes honest around the place as they can be pests.  We have a couple of pet cats and a rat terrier that could be coyote feed.  If I shoot at them or shoot one close to the house they stay honest.  As mentioned on another thread, the 25 squirrel rifles are best used for the smaller game like squirrel.

DP

[hanshi]

We have a lot of black bears here in Va and the county I live in is one of the bear-ist.  Though we've had only one attack I'm aware of it was NOT unprovoked.  I don't worry about them, in truth, I just stay aware.  They have broken into a number of houses here.  I don't get out into the woods that much but normally have a handgun with me.  Bear season overlaps deer season so I often carry a flint pistol along with my long gun.  This is also true on days out with the squirrel rifle.  I just need a smaller flint pistol for easier carry.

[blunderbuss]

Best small game hunting I ever did was down around what is now NASA,near the coast and Clear Lake TX .That was back in the good ol days we'd get on out motor scooters and put our rifles shotguns what ever we were shooting that day over the handle bars and putt of until we hit open prairie. Looking back there was more small game there than anywhere I've ever been. If a cop saw you he'd just wave ,now if a cop saw a kid on a motor bike with a rifle he'd call a swat team and a helicopter. If a cop ever stopped us which was seldom he just wanted to know what we shot. There were no small game licences. Oh we'd say here is a couple of cotton tails a couple of quail and a prairie chicken. I don't know if there were a licence to hunt quail back then or not but we never got in trouble for taking them.
I told a lady about shooting prairie chickens and she took me to task about it .She said they were endangered,and what a bad person I was etc etc I wondered if her tirade had an end. I explained that every year we went there and shot prairie chickens and every time we went back there were plenty until one time we went and there were no prairie chickens. She said why did you kill them all? No I said they built your neighborhood there.

[Dphariss]

I live 40 miles from town in SERIOUS brown bear country.  We literally have them in our yard from time to time, and it's unremarkable to run into them in the field.  And yeah, I've had my fair share of charges too.

Truth time?

If the bears are bad in one area I go to another.  My all time favorite snowshoe hare grounds is a bonified hotspot for bears.  So I don't hunt it until January when most of the bears are snoring.

When carrying small bores for hares, I carry a handgun as well earlier in the fall, but pretty much leave it at home come December.  If I see bear tracks, I bail.  If I see a bear, I'm polite and I bail, too.

But there's always the sudden, unexpected encounter.  And in my experience it has resolved itself one way or the other before you can drag a handgun from its holster.

My most startling encounter was on a ptarmigan hunt in the tundra high above tree line.  You could see miles in any direction.  I was carrying a 28 gauge double and topped a little rise, no more than a fold in the tundra.  And less than 10 feet away was the hind end of one of the largest bears I've ever seen.  He was grazing and never heard me.  I felt the shotgun shrink to a toothpick in my hands, and that isn't all that was shrinking.  

I was exceptionally polite and backed off before he ever knew I was there.  If he'd been pointed my way and took exception, I'd have been lucky to raise the muzzle in time, much less get off a hip shot.  My handgun might as well have been in New York.

We don't have bears as large as Brown Bears here. But it does not take a 1000 pounder to hurt you. 600 pounds vs 900 is moot in this context. Smaller bears might be less bullet resistant.

I am familiar with the shrinking gun phenomenon, however
GBear numbers are up since the "re-introduction" of the wolf. Probably from all the dead elk left lying about.
So encounters are also up. Had a minor chewing of hikers about a week ago.

Dan

[northmn]

A lot of things have changed for small game hunting.  Although I admit that there was a time when I quit duck hunting as there were just darn few ducks.  You would go out, st up and maybe get a couple of ducks to decoy.  Lately there sems to be more coming through again.  Last fall the weather was just too nice, but the year before I actually saw ducks.  The grouse trails (forest access roads) used to be a tight fit for a pickup, now the loggers and forestry have widened the trails so that two pickups could meet.  The narrow trails held more grouse.  The one forest has walking trails only. trails for ATV's and for dirt bikes.  The ones for dirt bikes have a groove cut in them that should be the start of rivers.  they really do not need to steer them.  I got spoiled and could walk on a trail and get a lot of grouse.  Now have to brush bust for them.  Whole different game.

DP

[blunderbuss]

There have been those that have mentioned the possibility of encountering wild hogs while small game hunting.  In those area I would prefer to hunt with a fowler as at very close range the fowler is more effective than a pistol or a small bore rifle.  Even a 20 bore with a one ounce load is darned effective.  Use of a little heavier shot like 5 or 4 shot would give a little more penetration.  The fowler is also the gun in hand and one would not have to lug a heavy pistol around.  They use campers for portable meth labs, but they likely would not want to set up in areas where hunters go through.  I usually avoid campers parked on trails anyway as they ahve the trail messed up for hunting that day.
I hunt with a fowler more and more anyway as it permits increased chances for both fur and feather.
A double barrel as Blunderbuss mentions would also give a bit more peice of mind, with bird shot in one barrel and buck in another.  
DP

I wouldn't shoot a Russian hog with anything less than 00 buck and would prefer a solid ball. A friend of mine shot a hog with a .58 I think about 60 gr ffg in the head and it knocked the hog out and in a few minutes it came to and ran off. If he'd of taken a side shot he'd have done OK but they have hard heads

[stone knife]

It's been one month since I place my order for my TVM Tennessee rifle, I'm hoping to have it for the early squirrel season here in NY. I'll hunt deer in the archery season and squirrel in the gun season, I always see more squirrel than deer when I'm sitting in the woods.

[northmn]

It always amazes me how much small game I see during deer season.  I see more squirrels, but think that it is because I sit in the stand longer and they need quite a bit of time to start coming out of cover again.  I don't even like to talk about the number of easy shots I have seen on grouse while carrying a deer rifle.  Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't go out in blaze orange during squirrel season.  I used to bow hunt and may go back to it.  My daughter likes to hunt with a rifle and we have kind of a family thing at my brother in laws for deer hunting.  While I like to deer hunt, I admit that a good deer season would be to get the deer opening day and then go back to small game.  Some years I can do a bit of pheasant hunting after Thanksgiving, but lately the snows hae started coming earlier and have made that impractical for me. Hope you enjoy your TVM rifle.  What caliber?   

DP

[stone knife]

40 cal flintlock  42' barrel

[Mike R]

been a small game hunter all my life [since Granddad took me quail hunting with him at age 2; and Dad, after the war [WWII] took me along on many rabbit'squirrel/quail hunts as a toddler].  Early years I used a .22 for squirrel and rabbits and a scatter gun for birds.  So, when I took up muzzleloading in earnest some 40 years ago my 1st choice was a small game caliber [.36 then].  But, always impressed by what the little .22 can do and the .32 is the closest BP equivalent-- I switched to a .32 Tenn rifle for squirrels and rabbits.  I had traded off my .36 for a deer rifle anyway.  When after larger varmints I pick from my litter of .45 through .54 rifles or my 20 gauge smoothie.  Ramblings in  the woods and fields have always thrilled me more than sitting in some blind or treestand.  Small game hunting is still my favorite outdoor sport...