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American hunters need an accurate round ball shotgun

Lt. James Forsyth wrote a fabulously prescient and useful hunting ballistics book in 1861 from his unique perch in Colonial India, “The Sporting Rifle and its Projectiles.” Using single shot and double barreled muzzleloading rifles, with mere black powder as the propellant, Forsyth squared off against the most dangerous wild animals modern humans have met in battle since the end of the Pleistocene, when our forbears wiped out all of the even more dangerous and ill-tempered megafauna with mere stone tipped spears.

Hold this thought for a minute.

Today’s hunter thinks he needs a soulless, faceless, characterless Three Million Magnum plastic and stainless steel rifle getting 1/8″ accuracy at three miles when topped with the Hubble Telescope, capable of blasting a twelve-inch gaping hole in a steel plate at that same three miles. But the truth is these modern gee-whiz gizmos are dumbing down, blunting, ruining and corrupting the most beautiful, honest, and pure hunting instincts and abilities we have inherited from our fur-clad ancestors.

Sniping animals from impossible distances with weapons they cannot possibly detect or withstand is nothing more than aerial bombing or target shooting at vulnerable living creatures who deserve our greatest respect and admiration, and upon whom we should only inflict our will when we are offensively at their own level of defense.

That is, what honest sport is there in assassinating an unsuspecting wild animal whose honed instincts protect it from every other natural predator, whose own predatory skills must be equally or better honed in order to close the distance and survive another day on the flesh of the prey animal?

What honor is there in these long distance assassinations? I say none.

You say you like to hunt? Okay then, hunt, dammit. Actually hunting means: Get outside on the landscape of your choice  and perfect your actual hunting skills. Learn to play the wind, move quietly, use the topography to your advantage, be patient, be attentive, coordinate well with other hunters, and understand the life and habits of your quarry. Then and only then will you be an actual hunter worthy of the honorable name of hunter.

Enough of this hochsitz heated shooting box overlooking a planted field while waiting for some pet buck to step out five minutes before shooting light ends crap. This is not hunting, it is sitting on your lazy ass and relying on high technology to do the real work for you. Unless you are physically disabled or elderly, a status I myself am approaching and fighting hard every step of the way, do not dishonor yourself with this beyond early morning and late afternoon times. Or at least do not dishonor real hunters who actually hunt by calling yourself one of them when you do it exclusively.

Back to Forsyth, who though slight of stature was of immense bravery and manly stoic British character. (Oh, the British…a great people, once, and with some yet living among them who remember the old ways and who could lead their people forward through these dark days…if they would but will it.) Anyhow, Lt. Forsyth was a small but tough little bastard who faced down 8,000-pound rogue elephants, 3,000-pound gaur bison, and 600 pound male tigers, with mere black powder muzzleloading rifles at powder-burn distances.

Regardless of how fatal his shot might be, or not, Forsyth’s hunting adventures were very often enriched by the smell of burning fur as locomotive-powered horns and fangs sped close by him on their way to trying to stamp him into a little red puddle. Gunpowder that is still burning as it exits the gun’s muzzle is likely to catch something on fire if it is close enough, including the hide of charging Death. Forsyth embodied the spirit of the hunter, at least the truly manly hunter willing to take a real risk to gain a genuine and truly earned prize. We who are hunters today must all admire Forsyth, and we must seek to emulate him as much as we can in today’s sad world of toxic femininity and low testosterone. Sniping unsuspecting animals with magnum firepower is gay, or lame, or pathetic; choose your own appropriate adjective, but don’t do it. If Forsyth could trust his life and limb to a round ball, then we can trust our tame deer hunts to it, too.

The singular principle of Forsyth’s sporting rifles (not military weapons, which operate on different principles with different goals) was the use of the round lead ball. Like Sir Samuel Baker in Africa and Ceylon, Forsyth found that large round lead balls sufficiently propelled and accurately placed would utterly crush the life force out of dangerous animals, as well as more demur animals one might simply bag for the pot. Bear in mind again that these two men, in particular Baker, discovered the effectiveness of the round ball by literally shooting dangerous game at such close distances that any small mistake would probably mean life-changing injury or death. They got this close in order to ensure the proper placement of their ball, not to test themselves and see if they could cheat Death.

For mere deer and elk, Baker used a shortened Claymore sword. Yes, he hunted and killed deer species of all sizes (including Highland red stag) by hand, at close quarters combat. So, again, do not lower yourself to shooting unsuspecting animals at long distances with gigantic magnum calibers. Be a man and a hu-man, and get out on the landscape within spitting distance and earn that critter. Archery hunters know and do this innately, and are thus justifiably proud of their kills. Same for traditional muzzleloading hunters, spear chuckers, atl-atl launchers, and handgun hunters.

Today, to implement both Forsyth’s hunting spirit and technological advances in ballistics, so that we might be the best firearm hunters we can possibly be and also be the most practical hunters we can be in an increasingly regulated environment, we need a modern firearm that achieves multiple goals simultaneously.

To that end, I propose the single shot and double barreled shotgun, rifled with Forsyth rifling. Any well made utility grade shotgun will do just fine. Most of the old but trusty utility double barrel shotguns like the Savage Fox Model B or the Stevens Model 311 should take a slight rifling just fine, because their ridiculously thick barrels could be just as easily used to club baby seals as seal the explosive gasses of fired ordnance.

OK, pump and semiauto shotguns could have Forsyth rifled barrels, too. It’s just that our skills improve when we are challenged by (self-imposed) limitations.

Forsyth rifling is specially designed for the round ball at black powder velocities between 1,100 and 1,900 feet per second. This rifling has very shallow depth grooves, like 2/1000 of an inch to 3/1000 of an inch, as well as a very slow twist rate. Like one full turn of the cut rifling in 72-90 inches. With appropriate powder charges in modern steel barrels, either black powder or smokeless powders can be safely used, and both fabulous accuracy and devastating knockdown power achieved. The perfect “brush gun,” at the least.

Using black powder, Forsyth satisfactorily tested his rifling and round balls out to 250 yards, saying that within 150 yards it was exactingly accurate. Probably consistent  1-2 inch groups. With big lead balls. Imagine what can be done using smokeless powder.

To my knowledge, nothing like Forsyth rifling is employed in modern shotguns today. Despite or perhaps because of the ongoing craze for shotguns accurately shooting massive slugs (like TarHunt), sabots, and conicals, it seems the lowly but easily obtained and highly effective round ball has been shelved because too many of them were ineffectively shot at deer and bear out of smoothbore shotguns, or shot out of tightly rifled shotgun barrels designed for conical bullets and sabots.

Round balls have received bad press because here in America they have not been correctly matched with proper rifling except for smaller deer and bear caliber-sized single shot muzzleloading rifles. Time for a change!

One constant and legitimate knock against “punkin balls” is that they were terribly under powered, meant more for imprecise point blank shooting at animals in thick cover. This problem can be easily fixed by correctly loading round balls into shotgun hulls for use in appropriately rifled barrels that will give deadly accuracy and destructive force to round balls. Meaning, add more powder!  Pap’s old “punkin balls” would have actually shot incredibly accurately had they gone through barrels with Forsyth rifling.

So let us return to a simpler, cheaper, and frankly more manly and effective firearm: The modern shotgun with Forsyth rifling, designed to very accurately and effectively propel a 20, 16, or 12-guage round lead ball (only 350 to 600 grains weight 😳) around 1,500 feet per second. Put these velocity-times-mass kinetic energy numbers in your pipe and smoke it! You will smoke every deer and bear you hit with such powerful projectiles!

And for those hunters concerned about the cost and availability of hunting projectiles and reloading, there is nothing simpler than pouring your own lead round balls and reloading shotgun hulls. Push come to shove with components, you can most easily obtain lead and black powder, and shotgun hulls are reloadable about twenty times each.

Shooting round balls might feel like going backwards, but in many ways the simpler ways and days were better.

Today I submitted a written request to Henry Repeating Firearms, makers of sturdy, accurate, no-frills shotguns perfect for employing Forsyth rifling, that they please consider undertaking such a project. Let’s say to start, manufacture 100 Forsyth rifling single shot break-action shotguns, tested with correct diameter round balls fired from common shotgun hulls with commonly obtainable smokeless and black powders.

If the 100 single shots sell well, then try a few dozen double barrel shotguns that have received some elementary “regulating” whereby the two barrels are brought into pointing harmony with one another. Each barrel should place its ball at or near the landing point of the other barrel, fully converging together within a 75-120 yard distance.

In conclusion, let us say we pursue this particular goal if not for efficiency, effectiveness, and ease of reloading, then to restore our rightful place and reputation as American riflemen, long hunters, frontiersmen with pluck and the best hunting skills on Planet Earth bar none. Shooting round balls within 200 yards is true fair-chase, ethical hunting.

Lieut. James Forsyth of the British Bengal Riflemen Corps posing with some of his well-earned Asian hunting trophies in about 1860. All of which he took with the black powder round ball. Look at the tiger skull that is the size of Forsyth’s entire chest. Note the tiger skin into which quite a few full-sized Forsyths could be stashed all at one time. We hunters today would do well to use Forsyth’s properly arranged round ball technology.

Sir Samuel Baker, gentleman, ultimate stud, patriot, hunter, fearless adventurer and most tender, devoted, and loving husband to a slave woman he liberated. We should all yearn to be like Sir Samuel in some way or another. Maybe it will just be hunting with a powerful round ball instead of a hyperkinetic missile.

 

The beautiful power of a free market guitar

A lot of the recent discussion and reporting about the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is how hard the participants there are trying to centralize decision making, to aggregate power into as few hands as possible, and to control the choices that individual people have available to them all around the world. This effort to concentrate power and decision making in the hands of elites runs opposite and directly against the democratic forms of government that many people around the globe have fought and died to achieve.

Places like India, France, Britain, Israel, South Korea, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, the Philippines, and of course my home country of America, have all offered their citizens a maximum amount of personal freedom and opportunity. People living there can make all kinds of choices about what they want to read, to say, to wear, to eat, what kind of job they want to try, what kinds of products they want to try and create and sell. And that last part, the creating and selling part, is really at the heart of democracy. Because free markets offer choices not just in economic spheres, but which naturally blend into our own personal lives.

When a person, you the reader here, for instance, feels personally fulfilled by fully following your natural talent and curiosity, and by fulfilling your creative spirit, often also followed by greatly improving your physical living conditions, then you become a maximally happy person. This pursuit of happiness is one of the main reasons that America exists, and it is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. A nation filled with happy people is a miracle, because it is so rare in human history. So we see that free markets create the most happy, most fulfilled individuals, who are creative, educated, and opinionated.

And we also see with the WEF that the wealthiest people on Planet Earth are now scheming and trying to take that happiness away. The WEF people do not want “little people” individuals to make their own decisions. Instead, they want centralized decision making for all of us, by a very small number of ultra wealthy people. They do not support democracy or free choice or you having an opinion that threatens their power.

I want to share a neat related video with you. To me it is powerful because it touches on this subject of an individual who follows his dream to make the best guitars possible within the free markets that the world allows. He succeeds within the international guitar market, but because of a natural resource constraint – the almost complete loss of ebony trees, necessary for making guitar necks and frets – he takes a big risk, makes some big sacrifices, and ends up playing an even bigger and more positive role in the world.

Bob Taylor, of Taylor Guitars, uses careful market-driven management of rare ebony trees and their surrounding forests to create the conditions necessary for conserving the vast African rainforest jungle those trees grow in. When the local people no longer need to poach ebony trees to sell on the black market, they become protectors of the ebony trees. Economics and free markets keep ebony trees alive, and growing for the future, as well as the richly diverse jungle habitat in which ebony trees grow. This is powerful stuff only achievable by free markets.

The same dynamic is also at play with trophy hunting in Africa, where wealthy hunters pay much more to kill wild game than that same animal is worth as bush meat to the local populations. Because the locals get the meat from the trophy animal (99% of the trophy animal is immediately donated to locals, the hunter and the safari camp getting the other 1%) anyhow, and they also get the hunting and tourism-related jobs from the international visitors who want to see and hunt wildlife, the incentive shifts away from poaching and market hunting to the locals then protecting and conserving the wild game they once saw only as a meal. Again, powerful natural resource conservation as a direct result of free markets.

Long live free markets, personal choice, personal accountability, and personal reward for hard work and risk taking. May the World Economic Forum fail in its effort to end our choices and to make us “own nothing.”

Here is the Taylor Guitar video. I hope it speaks to you like it speaks to me.

(and here is the ten years later video, which is about ebony tree planting and husbandry)

Primitive hunting techniques are more important than ever

In this day and age of popular stainless steel and plastic hunting rifles and Hubble telescope-sized rifle scopes, primitive hunting techniques and weapons are more important than ever. Something in the bad age of video games and instant gratification happened to the American character in the past thirty years or so, and so many young Americans have become lazy and even a bit heartless, as a result. Hunting culture has suffered from this, too. Really badly. Today’s focus seems to be predominantly on the kill, and much less on the process of the hunt.

Those curious about the distinction here should look up some neat videos from real hunters in the big woods of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and the Adirondacks.

Hunting should never be just about, or mostly about, killing an animal. Especially if the hunter wants to call it a trophy and put it up on his or her wall as a representation of his skill.

People trying to justify 300, 400 yard long range shots (or farther) on unsuspecting animals are not hunting, they are assassinating. Their wood craft often sucks, their field craft is limited to wearing camouflage, and their knowledge of the game animal is negligible. They are not really hunters, but rather shooters. Their high-tech guns, ammo, and rifle scopes are a crutch diminishing their need for good woodcraft, and it also results in a lack of appreciation for an actual hunt, and a lower value placed on the animal.

Culling oversized wild animal populations for the benefit of the environment is one thing, but hunting wild animals for pleasure and clean meat should be accomplished with skill. Age-old skills that everyone can respect. Hard-won wild animals taken with real skill under fair chase conditions are all trophies.

An unsuspecting big game animal assassinated at long range (or worse, inside a high fence, or over bait) requires very little hunting skill, and can never be said to be a trophy that is reflective of the hunter’s skill set. And yet isn’t this why so many hunters want big antlers and broad hides? They see these big animals as a reflection of their hunting prowess, of their manhood, their chest-thumping status within the outdoors community. As a result, America has developed a hunting culture driven by bigger-is-better trophies, at any cost, all too often achieved through long-range assassinations of unsuspecting wildlife, or over bait. Fair chase, which has always been at the heart of hunting, has been tossed away in favor of quick gratification and unfounded ego bragging rights.

The primary reason why primitive hunting weapons are so important today, is that someone has to keep the culture of hunting alive. What is a primitive hunting weapon? Pretty much any legal implement that requires the hunter to work hard to develop unique field craft/ wood craft skills, including the ability to penetrate within a fairly close range of the prey animal’s eyes, ears, and nose: Any bow (compound bow, stick bow, self bow, longbow, or other hand-held vertically limbed bow), spear, atl-atl, open-sighted black powder or centerfire rifle, any large bore handgun with or without a scope, should qualify. Flintlocks, percussion cap black powder muzzleloaders, and traditional bows are especially challenging to master and to harvest wild game with.

All of these primitive weapons require the hunter to actually hunt, to rely upon his woodcraft to carry him quietly and unseen across the landscape, and into a fair and close range of his prey animal. Animals taken with primitive weapons and techniques are earned in every way, and therefore they are fully appreciated.

Few experiences bother me more than watching some internet video of a fourteen year-old hunter running his hands over the antlers of a recently deceased buck, and listening to this inexperienced mere child discuss the finer aspects of this rack, its inches, its points, its relative size, and its (barf on my feet) trail camera name. Usually the child has shot the deer from an elevated box blind that conceals all of the hunter’s scent, sound, and movement. Whoever has taught these kids to hunt this way exclusively, and to then look at deer harvested this way as so many bragging rights, has done a huge disservice to these kids. These kids are going to grow up into poachers and baiters, always trying to prove how great of a “hunter” they are, and how studly and manly they are, at any cost. They will end up doing anything to score the next “record book” animal. These young kids who are being warped right now with this trophy nonsense are the future of America’s hunting culture, and what a crappy culture it will be if it is dominated by big egos and even bigger mouths armed with sniper rifles and no actual hunting skill.

Moms, dads, grandpas and uncles who are beginning to teach kids to hunt right now can do two simple things that will ensure their little student grows up into an ethical, responsible, high quality, law-abiding hunter: Make them use open sights on single-shot firearms and bows.

The skills that young hunters develop from having to rely on open sights and single shots (primitive weapons) will force them to achieve a high level of field craft, wood craft, and fair chase values. Developing skill requires a person to overcome challenges and adversity, often making mistakes along the way. And that results in better character.

Forcing kids to get close to their prey animal, and to take only carefully aimed shots with just open sights, will result in people who become really  excellent hunters. Adults can always opt to add a scope to their rifle as their eyes age, but the lessons learned early on in concealment, controlling movement, playing wind direction, and instinctive shooting will keep the respectable art of hunting alive and well.

This Fall, get your little one started on a flintlock or old Fred Bear recurve bow from the get-go, for squirrels and deer, and watch as a true hunter is born.