I found this forum early in 2016 when I bought my first Muzzleloader in preparation for hunting the ML deer season for the first time. I'm a long time rifle hunter, but wanted to hunt ML with some friends that had switched over a few years ago. A big THANKS to all that helped me with my purchase decision and learning all about shooting my new Knight Disc Extreme!
Opening day brought my biggest concern about ML hunting to life. I saw 12 bucks that day and wasn't able to get a shot at any of them. The worst (best?) was a bachelor group of 6 bucks at 200 yards with a couple bruisers in the bunch. I would have had one down with my normal Browning A bolt topped with a Leupold scope, but 100 yards is pushing it for my abilities with open sights. Of course, seeing deer is always a good thing, so I was happy about that. And a bonus for the day was when I bumped a nice color phase bear to my buddy who took it with his ML. I attached a picture of the bear to this post.
The next morning we headed out again and saw a couple bucks and ran over to intercept them where we thought they would go. My bear killing buddy was swinging around a ridge in such a way that it could very well bump a buck up hill to me, so I took a seat and waited. Sure enough a little 2 point and a doe came out and then a little while later a 3 point appeared. The Willilams peep sight setup (thanks for the recommendation Sabotloader) worked great to get the Hornady SST into the buck at about 90 yards. He dropped in his tracks and then got up again to my surprise and started walking where I couldn't see him anymore. I quickly reloaded and watched, but he never reappeared.
After waiting for a short while for him to hopefully die out of sight, I headed downhill to find him. He was laying just out of sight, but was still moving his head up and down. A finish shot to the back of the base of the neck finished him off. It was a good hit, but obviously a ML bullet doesn't have the same devastation as those Barnes TTSX bullets I load in my '06.
Now I'm excited about the upcoming Muzzle loader season.
