Sportsmen looking for yet another hunting challenge sometimes turn to old-style black powder rifles, hunting deer and other big game at a closer range, with a one-shot limit. It’s a test of a hunter’s patience and skill – you’ve to actually know the game you’re hunting, you need to be more conscious of the wind, and you’ll need to be able to get much closer. It’s a primitive weapon, but many hunters find so it gives them a great sense of accomplishment, and makes them feel more connected for their ancestors, who used weapons like these to hunt for food.
Black powder looking for deer requires you to carry to carry more accessories than you do when hunting with a contemporary rifle. The black-powder shooter needs to carry powder, balls, patches, a ramrod, cleaning jags, patch lube, solvent, and a ball pulling worm Primers in stock. Even though you have a bag that stores all this gear comfortably, you’ll still have to be extremely organized. Additionally it ups the task of hunting big game at a closer distance, since dozens of powders, lubes and solvents add to your scent, increasing your have to be conscious of the way the wind carries.
Interestingly, the main reason that black-powder hunting is done at such a close range isn’t due to the power or accuracy of the weapon but due to the limitation of your sight. A modern hunting rifle with a scope lets you see for countless yards – however the open sight of a black-powder gun doesn’t give you that advantage. Some hunters elect to mount rifle scopes on their black-powder rifles, however the traditionalists say that eliminates from the purpose 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 an actual novelty for hunters used to autoloading or bolt-action rifles. And it’s a different kind of hunting, one that lots of hunters have difficulty adjusting to. With a multiple shot rifle, a hunter will take whatever shot is presented to him when he spots it, figuring that when misses they can take another shot. With muzzleloaded black-powder gun, however, the hunter has to hold back for his one good shot. Even when the deer’s right out in the open facing him, if he doesn’t have this one good shot, he just has to hold back it out.
There’s a lot of skill and knowledge that switches into this kind of deer hunting – you have to know how close you may get to the deer, that which you range is, and whether you may get this one shot. However when everything comes together, black-powder deer hunting is definitely an accomplishment unlike any other.