Several years back, I was hunting the early muzzleloader season in TN. I was in a stand in a big white oak in the corner of a field with woods to my back & a wooded ridge to my left, with a big field out front and to my right.
Shortly after daylight I see a nice buck walking along the edge of the wooded ridge to my left, heading towards me. I figure I will let him get as close as possible before shooting. About 175 yards out, he decides to make right turn and enter wooded ridge. I stop him just as he turns broadside and take a shot, but I could tell that he wasn’t hit, as he bounded out of sight into the woods.
I begin the process of reloading my CVA Optima Pro as I replay the shot in my mind. I drop in 150 grains of pyrodex pellets, place the bullet and sabot in the muzzle. About the time I finish pushing the bullet in with the bullet starter, I hear a stick break and look down to see the same buck I missed staring up at me from about 10 yards away.
As we lock eyes, he turns and starts walking casually away from me. At this point, I know I have less than 10 seconds to take another shot before he is too far in the woods. So I break my barrel open and stick a primer on, close the barrel, and quickly shoulder the rifle. As I find him in the crosshairs, I settle just behind his shoulder as he quarters away.
I wish I knew the right words to describe the sound that my rifle made as I squeezed the trigger. Instead of a thunderous boom, I hear something that sounds more like a large cork gun firing, and watch the buck walk away none the worse for wear.
Obviously, I was a little confused as to how this deer had escaped such a chip shot, and why did my rifle sound constipated? After replaying the events leading up to the shot, it occurred to me that I had never seated the bullet with the ramrod. So basically when I pulled the trigger, I had 3 unrestrained pyrodex pellets and a bullet seated about 2 inches from the muzzle. Upon realizing the error of my ways, I just had to laugh and be thankful that my barrel didn’t rupture.
