Hunting with a flinter

[Pukka Bundook]

Dennis,

Your cold sounds like the type we had back in England.
I would be ploughing with a canvas cab on the tractor in winter, no back in it,  Get off tractor and into the house at six, and shiver 'till 9PM!
Cold went right through you, yet only around freezing point.
Then we also had "lazy winds".    Lazy winds are too lazy to go around you, so they cut straight through.

Hope the gloves help!

R.

[kentuckyrifleman]

Reading this thread makes me want to go on a flintlock bear hunt. It's a bucket list item for me.

[Dave Patterson]

Mr G:

Working horseback for years in SoID & NoNV, I've found goretex lining, in ANY glove, to be the key to warm hands, even in sub-zero/high wind weather.

In ID, I'd worn as many as three pairs of gloves at a time (wool, military-issue helo pilots' gloves; heavy thinusulate ski gloves, with nylon mittens on top), and still thought I was gonna freeze to death.   My sons bought me a pair of light leather, fleece-lined roping gloves with a goretex lining from a saddlery in Elko; despite my misgivings, suddenly, my hands were warm and dry.

Goretex, boss; whatever you choose, fork-over for the goretex version.   

[Davemuzz]

"They aren't toys!"

No more true words!!  About 20 years ago there was a well know fellow who loved to flintlock hunt. One morning, quite early as it was another 2 hours or so before daylight, this fellow was putting his gear and flint rifle in the back of his truck. Now, he already had the rifle loaded, not the pan, and this was his "usual" pattern of going out in the early morning.

Something went amiss this day. From the reports of the police, the fellow was placing his flintlock rifle into the back of his truck. He was doing this with the buttstock going in first, thus leaving the muzzle pointed in his direction. Well, apparently when he was "jockeying" the rifle in the truck.....the rifle either cocked, or partially cocked, and then the flint hit the frizzen. The spark set the charge off in the rifle and sent the 50 caliber RB right through his chest.

He managed to make it to a neighbor's front porch, rang the door bell, and then collapsed. An ambulance was called and he was rushed to the hospital.....but he did not make it.

The entire event was sad as he was a good man.

Treat these flinter's as you would a high power rifle. It can prevent such incidents.

FWIW

Dave

[oldtravler61]

  Davemuzz, why some people load a gun into there vehicle or anything else. With the muzzel pointing at them or someone else just flat out amazes me.
When teaching hunter safety I always pounded into everyone's head. Keep the muzzle pointed away from you!  NEVER  ever trust a mechanical safety.
   These kind of incidents are so very sad an so preventable with common sense .    Oldtravler

[Davemuzz]

  Davemuzz, why some people load a gun into there vehicle or anything else. With the muzzel pointing at them or someone else just flat out amazes me.
When teaching hunter safety I always pounded into everyone's head. Keep the muzzle pointed away from you!  NEVER  ever trust a mechanical safety.
   These kind of incidents are so very sad an so preventable with common sense .    Oldtravler

OT61...I only post that true story to inform. Not to "scare" or to dismay anyone getting into flintlock shooting. (Or any shooting for that matter)

Your post is on point.

Thanks

Dave

[MannoDinny]

Wow, I've never heard of this kind of hunting. Why don't you use a standard rifle to know for sure that everything will be fine if you meet a deer? Although I think hunting like you is much more enjoyable. Still, you need more experience, which unfortunately I do not have. I have recently joined the hunter community, and I am very interested in reading more and more about it. The more I read, the more I wonder how exciting animal hunting can be. So here I want to buy a rifle one of these days and try to hunt animals already.

[EC121]

Due to limited space to hunt, I have to use a tree stand on the food plot in my field's west corner.    I don't have room to walk around.  Unless it is getting toward sundown, I don't usually prime the rifle until I see a deer walk out.  I have a burlap skirt on the stand.  It lets me move around to cock/prime the rifle unseen.  Holding the trigger back when cocking keeps the noise down.  Because the deer are feeding, I don't have to try a moving shot.

[flinchrocket]

This fall I want to hunt with the rifle I built last winter/spring and this will be my first attempt at hunting with a flintlock.

I don't like sitting in one place for a long time so my approach to deer hunting this fall will be slowly walking my way through the woods, pausing frequently and glassing around for deer. That could mean quicker shots required if I see a deer in the woods. (I'll be in Wisconsin this year).

That got me thinking about what folks do when it comes to powder in the pan. I don't completely trust my lock on half-cock as even Jim Chambers told me clearly "It is not a safety". But it also seems quite unlikely I'd have time to load the pan and get a shot if I jumped a deer out of its bed. Now I do have a small brass pan primer that I will hang around my neck so maybe it won't take that long.

What do the more experienced folks do?

Don't wear that pipe bomb around your neck. A spark in the right spot from a little wind and you will get a lot uglier real fast.

[Hungry Horse]

Thank you Flinchrocket, I was about to say the same thing. Every time I see one of those brass primers hanging around somebodies neck I have a flashback to a time I witnessed one explode. The only thing that saved this guy was the soft soldered seam on this pipe bomb.

  Hungry Horse

[Dennis Glazener]

Carry the rifle loaded with a leather stall on the frizzen.
Mark

Leather frizzen stall and round toothpick in vent hole.
On stand cocked with frizzen stall, usually too cold form me to trust pressing trigger to cock without loud CLICK!
Dennis

[Stoner creek]

I find these newfangled power windows in the F-150 trucks are mighty handy for elevation adjusting! The only thing I don't like is fogging up the cab dirty windows ain't no fun neither 

[Craig Wilcox]

Been hunting, mostly with a single-shot, for over 60 years now.  Always a still hunter.  It is amazing what you can walk up on!  It transferred over to my career job, working as a wetlands and wildlife biologist.

I have walked up on deer, elk, bobcats, foxes, wolves, any manner of snake.  And you see and feel so much more as you go.  I have seen turtles mating (!), deer delivering babies, snakes MAKING babies, and on and on.  Found dead people bodies, and some souls that were just lost.  Always enjoyed things I saw and learned.

My first whitetail was with a .45 "Kentucky pistol" that I built from a kit a girlfriend gave me.  Buck at 15'.  Dead right there.  Three years later, I heard that it was not legal to hunt there with a ML pistol.

Over seas, sometimes the quarry was the type that would shoot back.  Makes for an "interesting" hunt.

BUT - and there is usually a "but" in there someplace - I can still move slow and quiet in the woods.  For maybe 100 yards.  Old Agent Orange is doing it's worst for my spine and legs.  Given me the trembles.  Neuro Doc is trying some new injections for the legs, hope it works.  But I WILL still be out there, maybe not far out there though!  It is the hunt that I love, don't mind if I do get game or don't.

The only "accidental" discharge I ever had was when I was doing gun repair work out  in Oklahoma.  Trying to get a stuck 12 ga shell out of a pump gun.  But keeping the muzzle in a safe direction made it just another day at the workshop.  Don't trust cartridge guns, don't trust ML guns.  I do trust me.

Now to go do some work on these pistols I'm building - it's not hunting season yet.

[OldMtnMan]

Craig...........I'm guessing it didn't take much sneaking to sneak up on dead people?

[alacran]

I find it very easy to sneak up on all sort of critters when the season is closed or don't have a tag.

[Craig Wilcox]

Nah, Pete, it's always more of a surprise to you than it is to them.  One time it was an old guy who had outlived his time, another two teens that had been killed by another.  I didn't get within about 20' - didn't want to ruin the scene.  Just called it in, one of the few times I have been glad that cell phones had been invented.

[Daryl]

I find it very easy to sneak up on all sort of critters when the season is closed or don't have a tag.

I agree 7 it's the best time to carry a camera. That's when you can get closeups of most critters we like to
have packaged and in the freezer by winter time. The closeups I don't like much in the summer time, are the
bear-type. The bush is so thick (like early Sept. bear hunting), they can be only feet away & you not see them.

[Nessmuck]

Best thing I saw while trapping ...was 2 mink fighting on a frozen pond...now that was entertaining!....until they let their musk glands fly,and I was down wind .......

[Daryl]

Thanks Fred I thought probably that was the case. Virginia has a different kind of cold. I had an aunt spend the last part of Feb and most of March with us one time. She was a Buffalo NY native. She said it was the coldest place she has lived in! She would look at the outdoor thermometer, shake her head and say that thing has to be wrong! Even in the winter we have a lot of dampness. It gets cold but usually low of the mid 20's then up to the mid-30's. I assume never cold enough to dry the air out.
Dennis

That is the same type of cold in South Western Ontario - high humidity due to the "Great Lakes".  -10 in that area feels colder than -40 here in PG.

[bob in the woods]

If minus 10 here feels colder than your minus 40, what do you think it's like when it is actually minus 40 here !!!!!   Here's a bunch of us who spent the night under the lean to in the photo !

[Hungry Horse]

You guys need to come hunt A and B zones in Northern California. A zone starts the second weekend in August, and if you’re lucky it’ll only be in the mid nineties. If you’re not lucky it could pass the hundred mark, and get into the teens. I know it would be nice to hunt in shorts, and a T-shirt, but the Buckthorn, and whitethorn would rip you to shreds in a hundred yards. You’ll need to carry all the water you can, so you have some for the pack out.
 I took a friend from New York hunting once. When we got back to my house with our buck, he barely had enough cloths left to be considered decent, and that’s a stretch in California. The buck we killed was a nice three by three, but he only field dressed 116 pounds, that’s pretty hard work for not a lot of meat.

  Hungry Horse

[bob in the woods]

I just can't take the heat. Anything more than 75 deg  F and I'm not happy. Honestly, I'm not particularly bothered by the cold. Never was.   There are still a few of us who camp out in winter using 18th C equipment . When hunting for deer during a cold snap of around minus 35 , I had a main spring snap as I was going to full cock on seeing a buck. I now try to slowly exercise the spring a few times before bringing the cock all the way back when it's that cold. I also carry a spare.
Although I use my flintlock guns during the main deer season, we also have a muzzleloader only season in December, so you can be out in some nasty stuff at times.

[OldMtnMan]

I'm ok in the cold. I can't stand the heat. When it gets past 65 i'm headed for higher altitude.

[Bob McBride]

Born in South Texas, raised in Alaska, and living my working life again in South Texas I’m good between -65 and 115 degrees and 50 to 100 percent humidity but I’ll admit 75 degrees and 45% humidity is pretty sweet. That said, my personal preference is warm during the day and cool enough to stand around a fire at night which is the weather around here half the year.

[Daryl]

If minus 10 here feels colder than your minus 40, what do you think it's like when it is actually minus 40 here !!!!!   Here's a bunch of us who spent the night under the lean to in the photo !

Over the 20 years I lived in South Western Ontario, Bob, -10F was the coldest it ever got.
-40 sounds like some severe "global warming", to me.