Muzzleloader Muley

With a traditional side-lock percussion rifle

Thompson-Center 50 caliber White Mountain Carbine. My hunting rifle for a few years long ago.

Four of us worked together, hunted together and fished together. This year one of the guys had brought his teenage son. I had only hunted with them once, for mule deer a year before. Here we were at it again in the northern part of Washington’s Cascade mountain range. We’d set up the canvas wall tent near the dirt road, and a stone’s throw from a year-round creek. A wonderful setting, but we weren’t alone, there were similar camps elsewhere along the road, some not far from ours.

Our standard routine was breakfast in the tent, Swammy was a wizard at cooking on the wood burning stove and had his much better version of the sausage and egg sandwich ready for us early. Pretty nice to wake up on a cot in a tent that’s warming up to the smell of breakfast cooking!

After breakfast we laced up our boots, grabbed our muzzle loading rifles and headed out. Three of us were carrying traditional muzzle loaders, two favored patched round-ball loads and I was using 385 grain 50 caliber conicals, the “Great Plains” bullet by Hornady. It’s made of soft lead with a cavernous hollow point and expands readily on deer sized game. The other two fellows were using much more modern “inline” muzzle loaders although still equipped with fairly basic sights.

The components I used on that short hunt for the mule deer buck. Once again the 385 grain Hornady Great Plains bullet proved lethal. It’s always been accurate for me as well.

In the pre-dawn darkness we headed out, hiking up a long finger, seeking to be about halfway or more up the ridge by dawn. This was a serious struggle for Swammy whose strength was betrayed by a debilitating disease. The man struggled but never gave up. That would put us in a good area to glass two different deep draws for mule deer. As the sky gradually lightened, we could see a lantern light far below and wondered if we’d left a lantern burning or if someone was in our camp. There was a bit of a discussion, and I volunteered to slip on back down the ridge and check on our camp.

Before I got there, I could see that the lantern was clearly in a camp 50+ yards from ours, and that there was no problem at our camp. Alone I started quietly working my way back up the finger, through the sagebrush and bitterbrush. I was about 2/3 of the way back to the glassing position. I could see the father-son duo a couple of hundred yards higher than my location. Hearing something I noticed there was a muley buck coming up behind and to my right! I froze in position, largely concealed by brush. On his present course he might pass within 40 yards of me!

I held completely still and waited until he had passed me, heading uphill. He hadn’t noticed me but I’d been eyeing his rack, not huge, but not bad… As I raised my rifle, the rising sun caught his antlers and they seemed to glow. My concentration shifted and I lost my focus on the front sight and boom! A cloud of smoke, a vanished mule deer… Oh my, I’d shot and I wasn’t sure of my sight picture… I thought the sights were on the buck but… As I reloaded, I quietly chastised myself for looking at his antlers again.

My friends with their traditional muzzle loaders were slowly heading down towards me and shouted that they thought the buck had dropped off into the deep ravine behind me. That wasn’t encouraging. Still, I had doubts. I thought that the front sight had still been on the buck…

As they headed towards the ravine, I slowly moved ahead, rifle ready with another 385 grain bullet, powder charge and a fresh percussion cap in place. Sure enough, 30 or 40 yards in front of me lay the buck. He’d dropped at the shot and vanished in the brush when he fell.

Whew! I was smiling as I signaled by pards that the buck was down. They started coming my way to assist. As they approached, I took a silent moment with the buck and thanked him respectfully.

My friend confided a bit wistfully that he’d almost hoped I’d miss the buck and his son would be able to get it. Sigh… Not this time. Our friend Swammy, is not only a great cook but a wizard at field dressing and was right there to help with the buck. He looked a bit and not finding a bullet wound, he asked “Where’d you hit it?”

That led to a detailed search for the bullet impact - well it turns out that when I shifted my glance to the antlers, the front sight followed my eyes and raised up too. The big bullet literally went in just behind the left ear and exited out the right eye socket! No wonder the buck dropped instantly. I had almost missed because I let my focus shift and glanced one more time at those sun-lit antlers. Only by luck had I hit the buck at all. Lesson learned.

Hope you enjoyed the story! I’m a lifelong hunter and angler, a USMC veteran and a retired law enforcement officer. Catch more of my stories and videos about handloading on Ultimate Reloader.com

Shoot well! Guy