Pumpkin Rolling

It's time to remove hoofed rats from the road to the freezer with .50 & .54 cal - no, not BFG deer season, muzzleloading season. I have a muzzleloader, and I have a sore shoulder and a sincere desire to sleep in, so I loaned it to a friend with a promise of cooking whatever venison dish he wants if he brings the gun and some venison back.

Then I went to a spot much, much closer to the suburbs, and met up with Oleg Volk and a friend for much smaller targets. Oleg brought a suppressed .22 pistol with subsonic rounds, a .22 revolver with rounds that were only primer and bullet, no powder, and a suppressed .22 rifle on a bipod - so almost all shooting could be done without hearing protection at all, as the shots were about as loud as an air rifle. We defined a safe window of opportunity, and then one person carried pumpkins to the top of the hill, and set them rolling off at an angle down the sloping path in the side of the hill. As soon as the pumpkin was far enough away horizontally from the roller, and far enough below the skyline that there was a good backstop, the shooting commenced - hit it on the move as it bounces, rolls, and caroms off small trees!

Leaves flew. Dirt sprayed. Every now and then, a small hole appeared, or a chip of pumpkin flew off. Every now and then, a pumpkin met a solid tree, and split. I discovered that, despite all the walking I do every day for work, ten miles on flat concrete does not mean I'm in good shape for hustling up a steep hill. Also, I only got four or five hits out of a ten-round magazine on the pumpkin. Clearly, I need to practice more!

Its a better day than I hoped, though - I got home to find an exhausted young boy with a grin bigger than his head wrapped up in blankets and watching tv, while the friend was out doing stuff. I may have killed a few pumpkins, but the kid got a six-point buck! Seventy five pounds dressed weight after a clean heart shot - time to break out the venison recipes!