My similar experience was with an original M1861 .58 Springfield rifled musket. In the woods adjacent to the Antietam Battlefield, I figured it was apropos for the occasion. (Said woods have since been absorbed into the National Battlefield Park, so no more hunting there.) Sitting on a stump after sneaking in a couple hundred yards over the course of from daybreak to mid-morning (I remember getting a late start because of stopping for breakfast at Denny's and not being able to take position well before first light - sometimes you're forced to still hunt whether you want to or not) the bushes rustled and out stepped a dandy buck. From about 30 feet away I leveled that thing on his front-facing chest and drove that big chunk of lead out his off side behind the leg, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. I never saw so much blood sprayed into the bushes before, or since. My only thought as I field dressed the creature was "they used to shoot people with these things...."
"You can lead a man to logic, but you cannot make him think." Joe Harz "Always certain, often right." Keith McCafferty
