Lost ramrod

Gil Martin · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:46 am Post subject: Lost ramrod

A hunting buddy sent an email yesterday about losing a ramrod while hunting in the flintlock deer season. Seems he shot his .54 Lyman and then could not find the ramrod. I was not a witness, but I suspect he launched his ramrod into the woods near his hunting camp. No problem, I sent a replacement by priority mail. The flintlock deer season may be over before he gets the replacement ramrod. Oh well, all the best...
Gil

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

Hahahah one of the funniest youth hunting experiences I ever had was my younger brother took a shot at a 3x3 mule deer (if loke see's this, it was right at sliding rock). Anyway he took a shot, hit it... maybe 40 yards away with his hawkin.

The deer hunched up woosy rocking back and forth on his feet while my brother tried to reload. After a bit, the deer started to "look better", head coming up looking about, shuffling around etc. I told him he better hurry, the deer was looking like it was recovering. He shouted at me to shoot it, I laughed and said its your deer, you finish it... he rushed the reload and just then the deer turned to walk away, he fired... I saw the deer flinch, I saw some brush move well off to the side, and the deer went out of sight.

At that point I ran up the mt parallel to where the deer was headed then hooked in, hopefully about where we'd intercept. I rushed around a tall bunch of brush and literally ran into the buck, maybe 3ft away... I swung the gun as the deer tried to wheel... I hip shot it at 3-4ft and hit it somewhere forward of the diaphragm. The deer bolted... but clearly hit and hurt, moving diagonally down hill.

My brother rushed up behind me breathless asking "did you get it? where is it?", I told him what happened, he then breathlessly asked "Can I borrow your ramrod, I think I fired mine"

AHahahahahahahah. Over the years I returned to that spot and looked for it... I always wanted to find it and return it as a Christmas present.

We did recover the deer, it moved only another 30 yards before laying down. That deer had the strongest will to live I've ever seen. Hit 3 times in the vitals with 50cal's, broken neck (brother didnt have his knife) followed by me cutting its throat.

That happened almost 40 years ago...

-DallanC

Vince · Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:07 pm Post subject: Re: Lost ramrod

Some deer are incredibly tough with a very strong will to live. I was half expecting to hear you say he speared it with his ramrod

I shot a deer some years ago, hitting it in the neck just below the head…it dropped like stone. We dragged it into a clear spot to dress it and went to cut it’s throat. As soon as the knife touched, damned if it didn’t jump up and run. I smacked a round into the back of its head and again it dropped. We dragged it back and went to do the knife work again…it tried to jump up again. It took two of us to hold it down to cut its throat. Bloody strong buck.

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

Vince wrote:

Some deer are incredibly tough with a very strong will to live. I was half expecting to hear you say he speared it with his ramrod

Now that would have been the most amazing ending to a hunting story in the history of hunting stories. Too bad it didnt happen.

-DallanC

Deleted_User_13284 · Member Joined: Oct 10, 2021 Posts: 127

wouldn't be the first time I've heard of that happening. One group of re enactors I know wont allow loading ramrods on the battle ground for that reason...

Pumpkinslinger · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:28 pm Post subject: Re: Lost ramrod

northdude wrote:

wouldn't be the first time I've heard of that happening. One group of re enactors I know wont allow loading ramrods on the battle ground for that reason...

For many years the "War of Secession" reenactors didn't carry ramrods on the field and we NEVER EVER actually used them during the scenarios, except to "ping" the barrels during the safety checks. You drop the rammer down the barrel and, if it "pinged" you knew the musket was unloaded and clean. I've seen guys get pulled out of the ranks for failing this test.