Hunting

Rob Reaser

A Passion For Primitive

Nothing burns so brightly or sparks such hope as a glowing ember on a cold dark morning. Brian Dowler fanned the coals vigorously, shivering in the early dawn as the remnants of the evening’s campfire rekindled. Soon, his friends emerged from their teepee and circled the fire’s welcoming warmth, speaking in hushed voices, yet with great excitement about the day ahead and the challenge daylight would bring.

With the fire’s billowing heat came coffee in pure pioneer fashion. Grounds were boiled at dinner, soaked all night, and then boiled again, reaching a consistency rivaling raw crude. Dowler and four friends were pulling a page from the past, living the life of a hunter in the old, old west, when Kentucky was the western frontier. Camped along the Ohio River, their clothes, tents and firearms were pre-1840 vintage, and each man’s attire matched his shotgun. All were flintlock smoothbores, and most were handmade, providing a thrill of craftsmanship that seems to escape modern day life. “Mine was a ‘trade gun’—a design to be traded with the Indians in the early 19th century,” said Dowler.

“As primitive as this flintlock shotgun may sound, it has a jug choke that throws a 40-yard pattern that will challenge a modern center-fire,” Dowler says proudly. “I load it with 100 grains of FFg blackpowder down the barrel, two cardboard over-wads, a powder-equivalent volume of number six shot, and a thin over-shot card to keep everything snugly in place.” The flash pan of the flinter holds a smidgen of FFFFg powder that ignites when flint strikes steel.

Despite the vintage shotgun’s potential, operating such a machine takes machismo and skill. “You keep your head on the stock all the way through the shot,” Dowler says, “and every shot is the full package,” referring to the bang-bang nature of flintlock ignition. Ironically, his father is a passionate primitive shooter as well, yet gets different patterns with his son’s gun even though loading exactly the same materials. “I know just how much to compress the powder and what the gun likes,” Dowler laughs.

The flintlock camp has become a much anticipated annual event, and Dowler felt honored to be invited. A typical day begins with each hunter heading into the darkness and returning at noon, when the spring turkey season shooting time ends. A gobbler in camp is cause for celebration, yet the days pass quickly gathering firewood, tweaking equipment, cooking and enjoying life as it once was. Turkeys are the quarry, but camaraderie is the main game.

Primitive In Pennsylvania

Many sportsmen stalk to the tune of modern muzzleloading, yet the Keystone State maintains its primitive past with a special flintlock-only muzzleloading season. Since this hunt occurs in late-December when snow often covers the ground, many sportsmen don’t wear period clothing like the Dowler camp, which opts for the warm wool plaids of the 20th century.

I had the opportunity to take the primitive challenge, and it turned into one of my most memorable hunts. Nearly two feet of snow provided an unexpected “snow day”—an opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up. Thanks to four-wheel drive, I reached the mountains, put on snow camouflage, primed my flintlock and began plodding through thigh-deep powder. Way beyond tracking snow, I found snow trails and followed the spore as if through a bed of feathers.

Stacy Groscup…A Modern Master

Imagine shooting an aspirin tablet from the air with an arrow. Before his death in 2005, the Reverend Groscup entertained thousands of fans in special presentations where he shot flying disks, shot with his bow behind his back and other seemingly impossible tasks…all while dressed in buckskins. Like most primitive archers, he shot instinctively, without sights, and trained himself to hit where he looked. Like throwing a baseball, if you practice, your mind controls your limbs to make it happen.

Groscup employed several shooting styles, and also collected a wide variety of bows, including recurves, longbows and self-bows. He combined his entertaining skills with a drug prevention message which he shared with many students.

Today, Stacy’s spirit and style lives on with instinctive shooting phenoms such as Byron Ferguson and Frank Addington, Jr., who put on demonstrations of their instinctive shooting prowess at events across the country.

Soon I spotted several deer ahead, and was properly rested against a tree when a fox squirrel sounded the alarm. The deer immediately began milling about and headed farther up the mountain. Giving that squirrel the evil eye, I began the stalk anew and downed a fat doe with a 75-yard shot.

I had just finished the field dressing chores when I saw movement again…in a furry red coat. That same squirrel climbed a nearby tree and scolded me. Aiming just behind the shoulder to conserve meat, I squeezed off the shot and it tumbled into the powder. What a morning! Two shots, two critters.

If shooting squirrels with a flintlock rifle seems ambitious, you may be amazed at the results of “card shooters” at muzzleloading gatherings. You not only shoot at playing cards, off-hand, at 50 yards, but your target is the playing card sideways—1/64th of an inch wide. Muzzleloading rifles can be extremely accurate if you give the time and attention to know the piece well. Like a spouse, the more you love and understand them, the more fun they become.

“The Flight Of The Mystical Arrow”

Ted Nugent’s media-driven lifestyle is eons ahead of the 19th century, yet his focus on the basic instinct to hunt and an uncomplicated approach to bowhunting is admired by many. As our society becomes overwhelmed with e-mail, text messaging and Internet websites, many outdoor-minded folks take mental refuge in a simpler time, and “going back” is the ultimate way to leap forward in honest hunting adventure.

Before the introduction of blackpowder firearms, accomplished archers used the arrow as a potent hunting tool, combining stealth, quietness and lethality at moderate range. For thousands of years, bows with reflex limbs (recurves) and straight staves cast arrows for food, sport and warfare. An archery option less well-known, but still used around the world, is the self-bow.

The Close-Range Challenge

photo by Rob Reaser

The use of primitive weapons for hunting demands a totally new approach to the sport when compared to hunting with conventional weapons. This is particularly the case for archers employing self-bows, or composite flat bows and recurves, and shooting instinctively. Whereas modern compound bows, arrows and accessories provide lethality (accuracy and kinetic energy) out to 40 to 50 yards for skilled bowhunters, even the most practiced traditional shooters try to limit their kill shots to under 15 yards whenever possible.

That is not to say that traditional bows are not lethal at greater distances. On the contrary, the 13th and 14th century English war longbows (also self-bows) in the hands of skilled archers were deadly out to two hundred yards. Those bows, however, boasted a draw weight typically ranging from 80- to 120-lbs (stout men back in those days!). Most traditional bows made today for hunting purposes draw, on average, 50- to 65-lbs. This weight range, combined with instinctive shooting and the personal ethics guiding most traditionalists, means that old-school archers today will usually not shoot game at distances greater than 25 or 30 yards.

While this makes hunting with traditional bows a much greater challenge, the rewards of success are exponentially greater as well.

Steve Kobrine grew up in metropolitan Maryland, and seemed destined to become the Robin Hood of the neighborhood. In his early years he learned to shoot a longbow, but soon wanted a more personal experience and studied the process of making a bow from a single stick of wood…a self-bow. Kobrine located several Osage orange trees, cut the limbs to the proper length and allowed the wood to season. Once done, he used a draw knife to remove the white sapwood down to the yellow heartwood, making sure that the back of the bow was a single growth ring.

Now in his mid-30s, Kobrine has moved to Africa, where he hunts extensively for a wide variety of game. An extremely proficient archer, he practices at 140 yards and can put an arrow on an apple at 100 yards with great consistency. Despite his progression into the stratosphere of archery accomplishments, Kobrine is equally excited and enthusiastic about his two self-bows, both hewn from Osage in his youth.

“One is a narrow thicker longbow and the other is more of a flat bow,” Kobrine said. “One has curves, like a snake, because the tree dictates what the bow will look like. You have to follow the grain of the tree running upwards as well. If you have twists and turns you must follow them, imparting a lot of character to the bow.”

Not long after completing the first self-bow, a copperhead snake died in the back yard, and the dried skin made the perfect backing. One bow pulls 60 pounds, the other 70—quite a lot for modern self-bows.

Arrows Of Craft And Quality

As beautiful and inspiring as a self-bow may be, it serves as a source of propulsion and has far less influence on a hunter’s outcome than the arrow. In keeping with his primitive nature, Kobrine crafts his own arrows, and even smelted a broadhead from raw ore.

Kobrine’s favorite shaft material is dogwood sapling, but he had good success with cedar shafts and even wooden dowels from a hardware store. “The stiffness and consistency of the arrows must match the length and force of your bow,” says Kobrine. “If the spine (stiffness) of the shaft material is too flexible, the arrow will not fly well.”

Custom Classics

photos by Rob Reaser

It wasn’t until the latter half of the 19th century that gun manufacturing effectively shifted from handmade customs to mass-production, with some semblance of standardization within particular models. Up until that time, muzzleloading long guns and pistols were made primarily of components that were individually hand-crafted. This made for a wide range of unique guns, with manufacturing styles specific to gunsmiths, and to regions of the country.

Today, the legacy of the one-off gunsmiths of yore continues to live in the hands of dedicated practitioners of the art of gunmaking—gunsmiths like Allan Sandy of Belington, West Virginia.

Allan is one of the few custom gunsmiths in this country who take their craft to the highest level, making period-correct, living recreations of the same guns which opened the western frontier in the early colonial days, won the independence of our country, and provided food and defense for settlers from New England through the Cumberland Gap and all points south and west.

Artisans like Allan do mostly commission work for gun collectors, period reenactors and even hunters who thrill at pursuing game in the same manner and with the same weapons as their pioneering forebears. He spends considerable time researching the engineering and artistry of regional- and smith-specific guns for his clients via original sketches, drawings, museum photos and surviving examples.

Of course, if a client wishes to impart his own style and tastes to a classic long rifle, Allan’s years of finely honed skills are applied to make exquisite custom creations, just like true gunsmiths have been doing for centuries.

Allan’s latest personal gun is a .50 caliber flintlock long rifle in the 18th century eastern style. From the outside it looks like a period replica, but the barrel features a high twist ratio that allows him to shoot the latest sabot rounds with deadly accuracy out to 150-200 yards. Talk about high-performance hidden mods! Classic styling blended expertly with conventional performance.

If you are considering taking your hunting endeavors to the next level with a period long rifle, or would like a custom recreation of your own, write Allan Sandy at allansandy@dishmail.net, or call (304) 457-4936. To see examples of Allan’s work, particularly his master execution of relief engraving and wire work, visit Allan online.

After selecting shaft material and cutting the stems to length, Kobrine went about fletching the arrows in a manner similar to the American Indians. “I tied on turkey feathers with a long piece of sinew, either natural or artificial. I split each feather by hand, trimmed the base of the quill and tied those feathers with some helical (slight twist) to increase arrow spin.”

Animal sinew has been the mainstay of many cultures that use binding. It comes from animal tendons—particularly the silvery lining that covers the loin or backstraps. The sinew is cut off, dried and then massaged by hand until the fibers separate. The slender threads are extremely strong (a tensile strength of 28,000 pounds per square inch) and may be combined with a glue for added strength.

Primitive broadheads were often made from flint, and are found among Indian relics. Kobrine knapped (chipped) flint stones into the correct shape, yet these were not legal in Maryland for hunting. Undaunted, he bought a small chunk of copper at a rock shop, heated the raw ore and pounded it out with a hammer. “I heated-treated and quenched it in water, sharpened it with a file and it shot straight through a deer,” said Kobrine. “It goes to show you that the old stuff really works today. I shot animals in Africa with flint tipped arrows and they worked as well.”

Going Green For Centuries

For millions of Americans swept up in the technology revolution, taking a simpler approach to life is suddenly a good thing, yet this is nothing new for primitive weapons devotees. Head for the Green Grocery Store and you’ll pay top dollar for protein that’s free-ranging (not raised in cages), locavor (locally grown) and organic (not fed steroids or other additives). Guess what? Wild turkey, whitetail deer and other game provide all of the above—not to mention the fun and challenge of collecting them. Best of all, the cost of taking the primitive challenge is moderate. The feeling of eating Thanksgiving turkey you bagged yourself with an old-school weapon…priceless.

Now that Hunting Editor Joe Byers has gotten a taste of hunting the hard way, we’re sure he’ll be slipping into neighboring Pennsylvania later this year to cash in on the state’s primitive weapons hunting season.