Sportsmen searching for an additional hunting challenge sometimes turn to old-style black powder rifles, hunting deer and other big game at a deeper range, with a one-shot limit. It’s a test of a hunter’s patience and skill – you’ve to actually know the overall game you’re hunting, you have to be more conscious of the wind, and you need to manage to get much closer. It’s a primitive weapon, but many hunters find that it gives them a great sense of accomplishment, and makes them feel more connected to their ancestors, who used weapons like these to search for food.
Black powder trying to find deer requires you to transport to carry more accessories than you do when hunting with a modern rifle. The black-powder shooter needs to transport powder, balls, patches, a ramrod, cleaning jags, patch lube, solvent, and a ball pulling worm Primers in stock. Even although you have a case that stores all this gear comfortably, you’ll still must be extremely organized. Additionally, it ups the challenge of hunting big game at a deeper distance, since those powders, lubes and solvents add to your scent, increasing your must be conscious of what sort of wind carries.
Interestingly, the main reason that black-powder hunting is performed at this type of close range isn’t due to the power or accuracy of the weapon but due to the limitation of one’s sight. A modern hunting rifle with a scope enables you to see for countless yards – but the open sight of a black-powder gun doesn’t give you that advantage. Some hunters choose to mount rifle scopes on their black-powder rifles, but the traditionalists say this removes from the goal of black-powder hunting.
You also have to patient and accurate with a black-powder gun, since you only get one shot – something that’s a genuine novelty for hunters used to autoloading or bolt-action rifles. And it’s a very different type of hunting, one that numerous hunters have difficulty adjusting to. With a multiple shot rifle, a hunter will need whatever shot is presented to him when he spots it, figuring that when misses he is able to take another shot. With muzzleloaded black-powder gun, however, the hunter has to wait for his one good shot. Even if the deer’s right out in the open in front of him, if he doesn’t have that one good shot, he just has to wait it out.
There’s a great deal of skill and knowledge that adopts this sort of deer hunting – you have to find out how close you will get to the deer, what you range is, and whether you will get that one shot. Nevertheless when all of it comes together, black-powder deer hunting can be an accomplishment unlike any other.
