Doe Antelope Hunt
This was a hunt for doe antelopes in November of 1988. It was a
hunt with friends and in-laws, which we decided to do after not drawing
any hunts to speak of that year. Besides, the meat is good and
the hunt was
in-expensive (on that last count, times have changed). This hunt
was not quite a year after buying my Sharps
carbine. Since I had not hunted with it, and after some serious
indecision, I decided to take it.
Back then there wasn't the wealth of information available on Black
Powder Cartridge shooting that there is today. I read what I
could and basically
built the type of cartridge that I thought they would have used (I of
course got it way wrong). I knew that Sharps rifles were used to
hunt bufflers, and buffler hunters used big 'ole paper-patched bullets
so I worked up some loads with big 'ole paper patched bullets. As
I was working up these loads it never dawned on me that this was a
military carbine and that paper-patched bullets would be way to
fragile for military use. It took a while to figure the
patching thing out, but the cartridges certainly looked good once I
did. The bullets were 500 grain bullets from
an adjustable smooth-sided mould. I also didn't think really
carefully about the barrel. Being a Civil War vintage weapon,
this little carbine has a really slow twist to the rifling - one turn
in 45 inches. That's just not fast enough of a twist to stabilize
a 500 grain bullet properly. But even with all my mistakes it was
still shooting good enough, the groups being almost minute-of-antelope.
The hunt itself was on a gentleman's ranch, who's name I now have
forgotten, up north of Alamogordo, New Mexico. The hunt was a
Saturday - Sunday hunt and was the first antelope hunt of the
season. This was nice because the animals hadn't been molested
yet and it was possible to get quite close without spooking them.
Everyone except myself was using a modern scoped rifle. They all,
except one individual, had their antelopes on the ground by 8:30 in the
morning on opening day - it's a lot easier with the modern stuff.
Since I was restricted in range I was forced to be somewhat picky and
so had to pass up a number of animals that I could have shot at
otherwise. But by 10:30 I could tell that the other people in my
little group were getting a little impatient with me.
Not too long after that we came along a group of does walking in a line
just a bit off. They were farther away than I really wanted to
shoot, but I thought I'd give it a try in hopes to appease the
others. At that time all the carbine had on it was the barrel
sight, and I was using it in the folded down position which for this
particular rifle gives a zero at around a hundred yards. I
settled in and got the best rest that I could. I placed the blade
on the center of the critter and touched off the round. I then
had to wait what seemed like an eternity for the smoke to clear, though
it probably wasn't long at all.
When the smoke cleared I was rewarded with the sight of the antelope on
the ground, alive but on the ground. So I hopped up and took off
running over to the antelope, reloading (and dropping / losing a round)
as I went. When I got to her saw that her right hind leg was
broken, almost in two. I thought that dispatching her with my
Sharps from a point blank range was a little much, so I used my Colt
Single Action Army to finish her off.
After shooting my antelope I realized several things. First is
that I should either hunt by myself or be disciplined enough to wait
until I have an acceptable shot. Secondly I didn't have enough
lead which is why the shot hit aft of where I was aiming. I also
didn't have enough elevation in for the shot. I was using a 100
yard setting when it was probably obvious to everyone but me that it
was a longer range (I later paced the distance out and found it to be
185 yards). This was why the shot dropped low and hit in the
mid-thigh portion of the leg. With the amount of time it took for
the smoke to dissipate, it must very hazy and confusing on the
battlefields of the Civil War. Finally the leg wound showed me
something that "clicked" years later. In the early '90s my family
and I were taking a tour of a Civil War battlefield back in North
Carolina. When at the location of the field hospital they told us
that after the battle there was a stack of amputated limbs there that
was six feet high. We asked why there were so many amputations
performed. They said it was because when the big lead bullets hit
a bone it smashes and splinters large sections of the bone, instead of
just breaking it as a modern military bullet does. Because of the
large loss of bone, repair is impossible - hence the amputations.
This was exactly the case with the antelope, the bullet had hit the
bone and smashed a large amount of it. History in action I guess.
Overall, a fun hunt with a historic weapon. Just needed to be a
little more picky and patient on taking my shots.