Josh First's Blog

Flintlock season recap

Writing a blog is a delicate walk, because as much as I want to write about the righteous boss daddy treatment President Trump gave to weasel rat dictator Zelensky the other day, I have to stay focused on what our audience of exactly One Person has requested. If I turn off my one reader, then I will literally be writing solely for the air and the stars.

For the record, just because you or I call Zelensky (Ukraine) the weasel rat dictator he is, does not mean that you or I automatically like or support dictator Putin (Russia). Both of these men are in power because they have subverted their nations’ elections, amassed wealth and power at the expense of their countrymen, etc. Yes, Putin is responsible for the war in Ukraine, and yes, Ukraine can and should negotiate a settlement that ends the bloodshed. And yes, Trump should demand and expect to receive rare earth metals in return for all of the taxpayer support Americans have given to Ukraine. This is all normal.

Wanting the war to go on and on with greater bloodshed and destruction on both sides and with more powerful rockets is not normal. That is warmongering.

Anyhow, the late hunting season here in Central Pennsylvania was exciting, but had no filled tags. I used to rabbit hunt a lot, but gave up when the rabbit populations showed signs of vaporizing due to abundant fishers and bobcats. For five or six years now I have hardly seen one rabbit in places where I have created the best habitat, and where rabbits should be swarming. So for many years I have just hunted the late flintlock season for deer, instead, just about daily.

And also trapped for predators, including fishers and bobcats. Not this season, however. On the December flight back from Florida, a man behind me kept coughing and sneezing. He never covered his mouth, and made no attempt to keep from infecting everyone around him. Sure enough, a week later I was showing signs of the same horrible illness half the country has now had, a persistent dry cough and a close brush with pneumonia. Lots of people are getting the pneumonia. So, I was sick as hell during the time I normally set traps, and my kit and steel just sat and sat.

Instead, just about every day after Christmas, I would go out for a couple hours and try to intercept a deer with the new flintlock, coughing quietly into my clothes to muffle the bark. I got off a lot of shots, collected blood and hair, but filled no tags. A new white checked Filson wool coat helped me blend in with the snowy woods.

Made for me by Mark Wheland, the new flintlock is a 62-caliber rifle based on the English Sporting Rifle design, which I have come to admire. It has a 28 inch decently swamped octagonal barrel by Getz from about 15 years ago, a beautiful patent breech made by Jason Schneider at Rice Barrels, a RE Davis late-flintlock era Manton-style waterproof lock, and a gorgeous stock of highly figured and irridescent English walnut. Wheland turned a perfect ebony ramrod, as well as its horn end and its threaded steel connector end.

The Manton-style lock has a roller frizzen, which is both very fast and also very touchy. Hunting in brush without bumping the heel of my hand up against the back of the frizzen would result in some blade of grass flicking it open and dumping the priming powder on the ground. So it requires some special handling, because it is so sensitive.

I also struggled with this gun’s sights all season long, probably also slowly acclimating to the short barrel. This barrel is ten inches shorter than that on my long-time go-to 54 caliber flintlock barrel, that is 38″ long, and my eyes have not yet made the transition. Moreover, the new gun has classic British rear sights, one standing and one folding leaf. The rear sites were conveyed to me with only the most rudimentary and shallow “V” filed in the standing sight, and the front sight was about a half inch high. It was up to me, in a short amount of time, to get this gun sighted in just days before bear season began, which is just days before deer season started.

So I just struggled to get the gun sighted in, and by the time actual flintlock season began, the day after Xmas, it was printing dead center and 2.5″ high at 50 yards. With 130 grains of FFG Swiss pushing the 335-grain lead round ball about 1500 feet per second, I reckoned it was probably dead-on at 100 yards. Or minute-of-deer chest within 100 yards.

I lost track of how many shots I took at deer. Mostly at does. One probably legal buck I let walk past me. Some deer I literally just walked right up to in the snow, and missed, maybe forty yards away. Others I ambushed from concealment on trail crossings, from fifty out to about 95 yards, while sitting. Each miss resulted in a little more blacking being put on the rear sight, a little more color added here or there, and by the end of the season the front sight was filed down to about 1/8″ high and painted bright neon orange. The rear sight has a bright neon yellow inverted V wedge under the V aperature, surrounded by black. I am thinking about scrapping the entire arrangement and going to front and rear fiber optic sights. Old eyes…

One doe was flattened by what seemed like a perfect broadside at 75 yards. I saw her go down through the cloud of smoke, and when I walked up I expected to find her stone cold dead. But while there was a perfect outline of her body in the snow, with plenty of blood, the actual deer was nowhere to be found. With dusk fast approaching, I used my headlamp to follow as far as I could in the snow and the thick brambles, and then went home. The next morning I returned and took up the trail, which resulted in three deer fleeing from fresh beds, one of which had some fresh drips of blood, but not much. Not even the coyotes would end up eating her.

My last shot of the season was taken like a mortar, at the biggest buck I have ever seen in the wild. He was just a bit over 200 yards away, and had been spooked out of his hidey nook by my prowling. When I snuck back towards the anticipated cut-off, he was indeed standing right there, looking all around, on high alert. While down wind, I was as close as I could get without being seen. So I took some pictures of him, which of course did not come out well, and then took careful aim with plenty of “Kentucky elevation” and let ‘er rip. At the shot he flew away with wings, and on my follow up I found where the big lead ball had hit the ground at plane, leaving a 20-foot-long long streak through the snow and dirt directly in line with the buck’s shoulder, but about 20 yards too short. His tracks were among the biggest I have ever seen. Guessing a 200″ buck.

The doe was flattened, and leaked some hydraulic fluid, but was gone and lived on

I have a lot more practice to do with this gun.

What looks like a shallow white “W” is just the higher visibility part of the huge buck’s enormous rack

Overnight beds, tiny amount of blood, a mere flesh wound and a long-lived lucky deer

The long path cut by the 335-grain round ball on its way towards the big buck

Nice view down into the woods, perfect for a flintlock. Yes, the barrel key is loose, which accounted for two missed shots

Hunting around an enormous buck capable of leaving big rubs like this one is excitement enough. Actually seeing him and getting a shot…even the miss is the highlight of the season