Posted by Bill Rooks on December 22, 1997 at 08:08:18:
In Reply to: the hunt posted by Jo's LOTM husband on December 21, 1997 at 23:43:31:
:
I am becoming quite a prolific poster here. Hope nobody minds?
Mary has been kind of quite of late, so I figure SOMEBODY has to
fill her shoes (or moccasins).
Regarding Jo's other half's comments regarding the hunt...I had
a similar underlying impression while watching that scene. At first I thought somebody was pursuing or being pursued by somebody else....and in the end when the elk appears it kind of
jarred me. No way a man could run down an elk or deer. It is
hard enough when you have hit the deer once and then have to
trail him to finish it...assuming he wasnt hit hard enough....more likely when bow hunting than with muzzle or modern gun.
On the other hand, I agree with the statement concerning the
expected accuracy of the longrifle when properly sighted in,
tuned, and the owner is fully familiar with shooting it under
all conditions. Hitting a man sized target at 200 yards was
not unheard of at all. To put it into modern terms, I took a
shot at a deer with a 12 guage slug aiming for the heart....
hit in the heart region, missed by only 1/2 inch....and that
shot was over open ground and walked out to be 150 yards. Course,
when you open up a hole that size in almost ANYTHING it goes down hard. And I might add, 12 gauge shotgun is roughly the same
bore size as the Brown Bessie .75 calibre musket, so one can
imagine the world of hurt getting hit with a ball that size!!
Nasty wounds. Couple that with the pre_Geneva convention of
some folks driving NAILS through the ball before loading it
and you can imagine the horrible wound resulting. War is NOT
a nice pastime. It gets ugly. It was ugly then, and it is
ugly now. (To clarify.....I meant the practice of driving a
nail through the musket ball of course, NOT the rifle ball!)
Bill Rooks