Small game and the muzzleloading rifle?

[Brutus]

Does anyone here hunt any kind of small upland game, (or even varmints) with their old timey smokepole rifles?

Please share your experiences here.

Looking forward to this one......

 

[Goldenlakepete]

I've hunted/shot squirrels, snowshoes, groundhogs, porcupines, raccoon, skunk with various muzzle loading rifles. Calibres .40, .45 and .50. A load of 50 grs of FFg and a patched round ball is a great small game load. Kills without blowing up any meat.

Also shot a lot of upland game birds and animals plus waterfowl (before steel shot laws) with various smoothbores.

 

[antiqueguy]

I knocked the heads off a few squirrels with my .50 and a patched round ball

 

[seanmp]

I picked up a 32 cal "squirrel gun" from TOW just for this purpose

Great fun!

 

[Silverback]

I shot gophers with a 50 caliber CVA Hawken, it worked very well.

 

[chasseur]

My small game hunting with muzzleloaders has been lately with my Pedersoli Baker shotgun, this seaso I ll be using my Pedersoli Mortimer flint shotgun for rabbits.

 

[Brutus]

Keep'em coming guys.........

 

[Goldenlakepete]

This thread has brought back some memories. A friend had a .40 cal Dixie percussion and his regular load for squirrels etc was 20 to 30 grs of FFFg but one day he thought to go "magnum" and used 60 grs of FFFG with a .395 patched round ball. The 1st squirrel he shot was hit too far back and was blown to bits!