Deer Hunting: Whitetails and White Smoke
Deer hunting while carrying a flintlock rifle When you’re stillhunting---which seems to be a dying art, nowadays---you don’t look for deer. Rather, you look for parts of deer---a leg sticking through the brush, a tail flicking flies; an antler tine looking like just another stick. Even so, it took me awhile to realize it wasn’t a waving leaf, but a deer’s ear showing from behind an oak. Freezing in place, I waited to see what would happen. Step by stealthy step the eight point emerged from behind the tree. I knew if I kept still he wouldn’t see me. It was a scant 35 yards, and I found it hard not to hold by breath as the centuries crept by. Finally, he was in the clear, browsing on fallen acorns. When his head was down I slowly mounted the rifle, lined up the sights, and squeezed the trigger. There was a flash of light, a loud explosion, and the world disappeared behind a pall of white smoke. No, the gun hadn’t blown up. I was deer hunting primitive style, walking in Daniel Boone’s moccasin tracks, carrying a flintlock rifle, and dressed in eighteenth century attire. The flash/bang effect was expected. Muzzleloading hunting is the fastest growing of the shooting sports. Most states now have special primitive weapons seasons, providing an extra week or two of deer hunting. Thousands of hunters have responded by taking to the woods with front-stuffing firearms.
The casual muzzleloader---one who only takes advantage of the special deer hunting season---gravitates to the in-lines. Serious black powder hunters---those who use a muzzleloader as the sport arm of choice---more often opt for a traditional side-hammer rifle. Most of the time that means a percussion system. Those who really want the challenge of deer hunting as our pioneering forebears did, go with a flintlock. Many of them, in fact, opt for smooth-bore muskets rather than rifle-guns. Flintlocks are the oldest reliable ignition system. Matchlocks, wheel locks, and several other systems preceded them, but it took the flintlock ignition to provide a firearm that fires quickly and accurately against enemies and game. The major difference between flintlocks and other muzzleloaders is in the lock. First, instead of a hammer there is a jawed “cock” which holds a piece of beveled flint. In front of the cock is a powder pan, covered by a spring-loaded metal plate called a frizzen. When you squeeze the trigger, the flint drops against the steel frizzen, producing sparks. Simultaneously, the frizzen springs away and the sparks ignite the priming powder in the pan. The fire thus created jumps through the touch hole in the barrel and ignites the main charge. If you think this sounds slow, you’re right. There is a very perceptible lag between touching the trigger and the gun firing. On rifles with poorly tuned locks this can stretch to several seconds – which can seem an eternity when deer hunting. Tuning the lock, however, can reduce lock time dramatically. My .50 caliber deer rifle started life as a slower Tennessee Mountain rifle. After many hours of honing, polishing and adjusting the lock parts by my buddy Jimmy Dale, the gun fires as quickly as any percussion gun I’ve ever used. Not all of us have that kind of patience. I sure don’t. But even a modicum of work with a hone can speed up any flintlock. There’s another cause of long lock time that’s easy to fix. When the main powder charge is dropped, powder often fills the touch hole as well. This creates a fuse. Instead of arching through the touch hole, the pan flash has to burn down this fuse until it reaches the powder. To prevent this you push a pick through the touch hole before priming the pan. Old timers used to keep a small feather quill in the touch hole while dropping the main charge to prevent the formation of such a fuse. Powder flowed around it into the breech. When the quill was pulled it left the touch hole clear of powder. They’d leave the quill in the touch hole until priming the gun, which served as a warning that the gun was fully loaded. Although flintlocks have a bad rep for misfiring, they really aren’t that hard to fire. The difficult part is teaching yourself how to shoot them. Problems arise from having the priming pan catch fire by the side of your face. When you see the flash, you believe the gun has fired. You must train yourself to follow-through, and hold on the target until the gun actually goes bang. Still and all, flintlocks can be fussier than other muzzleloaders. Here are some possible problems and their solutions:
One thing you’ll notice about flintlock hunters is their dedication to the old-fashioned ways. This applies to their deer hunting gear as well as their firearms. Most flinters are living history enthusiasts whose hobby is recreating the lifestyles of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if you run into deer hunters carrying flintlocks who are dressed in buckskins and moccasins. It’s all part of the game. You may find yourself dressing that way too, once you succumb to the fascination and challenge of deer hinting with a flintlock.
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By and large, this has meant in-line systems. With these, the percussion cap or equivalent is centered in the breech-block. A bolt or hammer drives a firing pin forward which causes the cap to explode and ignite the main powder charge---which often consists of pellets instead of loose powder. Other than loading them from the front, they look and behave just like a modern-day deer rifle.
