Having the nerve to start this project, is a hump that I had to overcome. I assume you have to as well. Spending over one thousand dollars in rough hewn tiger maple and rough cast brass rifle parts can make one choke! Right? From these parts! A Jim Chambers Lancaster Kit. https://www.flintlocks.com/
To This! The finished work was worth the journey! My rifle is named Cricket like the brass one in the photo! And Cricket is very accurate!
If you have not read my article on my first and only Flintlock build then please do so below.
Would I do it again? If I failed, then yes I would do it again to get it right. I was highly successful with the help of video steps and cautionary notes. A wild boar below with my Pennsylvania Rifle also known as the Kentucky Rifle.
If you have worked with wood and metal before and know how to sand and file then you are in good shape to start. But pick up books and video’s on the building process and watch them very closely. They are the key to your success! Patience is a virtue. Measure twice, cut once. When I ran into a “build step” that I did not understand during the assembly, I went back to the video and books to find the area and reviewed it. I went back to video’s many times.
For me the toughest part was fitting the barrel and tang without gouging the wood. Keep those chisels razor sharp! The second, and nearly equal tough part, was fitting the lock and trigger. Tooling the scrollwork and patch box inlay came next. It was painstaking detail work that came out just stunning for a first timer! I sent the fancy scroll brass patch box to a Master Engraver to replicate the Lancaster Jacob Dickert style.
Nothing was easy! But the joy of completing each task gave me confidence to do the next, and the joy of that one fed the next. Soon, I had a long rifle (unstained raw wood below) to test at the range but then I had to make a leather sheath to care for all the work I put into it.
Just stained the stock below without any brass.
Carved the tang floral.
Removing wood with a file to install the brass butt plate.
Things you will need to build from a kit: Read and watch video’s before starting.
A Workbench with a Large Vise
Tools and storage at the bench.
Chisels, files, rasps, handsaws, and sand paper for wood and metal, punches. Sharpening devices for honing chisels. Electric Drill, Power Grinder. Stains, a small square and ruler/tape measure. Video’s and books.
Safety glasses, Apron and first aid kit are highly recommended.
For the next 100 or so build hours you will get to know your rifle for sure.
It was Crocodile Mick Dundee that said, “Now that’s a knife!” I like a nice fixed blade for hunting. Perhaps not as big as Mick’s. Having said that; If you are hunting/camping or in a far off outdoor setting where you need a chopping ability to mark a trail or cut a branch in an emergency in say the wilds of Northern New England and miles from civilization like Canada or Alaska. I am comforted, in far off places, with a larger knife both for utility and for defense, like I am with a big bored rifle.
Around home a nice hunting fixed blade that is mid-size, are a compromise, where you don’t look foolish for carrying a big knife locally and still have a point which has a measure of defensive capability. Below is a website that shares blade styles for our education.
https://www.knifebuzz.com/knife-blade-shapes/
Some, like me, like a knife for its cool look, that is gonna still be part of how and why you choose a knife.
Steel for your blade? What are you gonna do with your blade? General use? Honestly, I think if you have difficulty sharpening it then I would not own it. Stainless 400 series stainless, 1095 and similar are great choices for sharpening. Yes, there are better steels but you will pay dearly for them as a finished knife. From a hardening standpoint, I think that Rockwell hardness of around 57 to 60 HRC is hard enough yet can be sharpened.
Non- Stainless is great for sharpness but needs care to prevent rusting. Damascus blades are not stainless but that combine two metals and when etched they show a beautiful contrast. Wide hunting drop point or straight back blades are pretty to look at and are ideal for gutting and skinning.
Several years back, I purchased this full tang Damascus drop point blade blank made out of 1095 steel and 15n20 and I carved and installed a burl maple handle and fancy brass pins. Sheaths can also be a work of art so sought out a USA sheath maker and had this rattle snake skin sheath made. The knife stays sharp for my use on deer.
A better image of my hunting knife below.
I have several knives! I have a gut hook knife for deer hunting but there were times in far off places when I needed to cut a piece of wood for my drag rope or make a shelter from spruce bows if you are lost. A gutting knife does not chop wood job very well however. For deer hunting I carry both my Damascus Knife on my hip and my gut hook knife in my backpack. Today most knives come with a nylon or cheaply made leather sheath. I prefer a sheath equal to my knife thus I am willing to spend more on a custom sheath.
The world is your oyster today. I like US made products if possible and I stay away from CCP made goods. German made knives are ones to consider if US made are not available. Or, do like I did,… build your own knife from a blank.
This winter I am building a straight back bladed moose hunting knife from 400 series stainless where the handle material can be costly, like stabilized burl maple and the sheath is custom made for me in the USA with tooling on vegetable tanned leather. The largest investment is time in your workshop. And that can be rewarding and fun especially in winter.
Here is the Moose Knife with 6.5 inch cutting edge “straight back” blade. Notice the forward edge is a bit wider. I am still finishing the handle. I am pleased with its progress…Great camp knife too!
The Sheath is not yet designed but it will be as great looking as the knife with some tooling on the leather.
I knew for years about dry aging but never really needed it till now. I have lots of vacuum sealed venison in my freezer from deer and moose. Some of the cuts are on the tougher side. I have used the Sous Vide method of using a water bath to cook the internal wild game temperature to medium rare and that works but does not tenderize or change the flavor of my meat.
I am a big fan of the Internet and You Tube to see what others are doing in the kitchen with venison. Personally I like the idea of short dry age times. I tested my theory and it works for me.
I thawed a piece of moose rump steak after much research and placed it on a non-reactive rack in my fridge and set the actual fridge temp to 38F. Three days later I had meat that was very tender with minimal meat loss. Flavor was excellent and I didn’t trim much. Now the Sous Vide will do an even better job on a tender, flavorful cut.
Key to aging is getting the actual temperature inside correct.
Aficionado’s, say that 34 to 39 degrees is the window of temperature that is ideal for connective tissue and enzymes in the meat to tenderize yet minimize bacterial growth. I do not have a spare fridge so I experimented in my new large kitchen fridge. I was able to easily set and verify the temperature.
There are many methods and time lengths that one could use, however, I wanted to minimize the loss of meat and almost no meat was cut away using this 3 day method.
Another method I will try is using special dry age freezer bags that allow evaporation in the fridge for larger cuts below.
Update
It took a month to get my dry age vacuum seal bags from Europe. Beginning tonight, 1/8/2021, I will dry age 2 moose steaks and one venison cut of backstrap in those dry age bags for at least 20 days maybe more. See photo below of my vacuum sealed bags that allow air to pass out only. I am dry aging two Moose Rump steaks and one 5 inch cut of Whitetail back strap. It takes three days for the plastic to adhere to the meat says the instructions. I will follow up this article in 20 days.
If you vacuum seal meat and freeze as I do, then, I am told, you are Wet Aging your meat and to some degree freezer meat that has been vacuum sealed, improves in flavor (degassing) but does not tenderize or break down the connective tissue.
Hope this article helps you eat all that great wild game and go get some more.
It was that pre Christmas storm here in New Hampshire, when I made this video to demonstrate my Sous Vide machine that utilizes water to cook. For those who have venison in the freezer like me, it cooks my venison just as I like it, medium rare. You can set the temperature of the water to cook meat exactly as you like. I cut some mushrooms to add to the cast iron skillet used to pan sear the meat. And it came out tender and juicy!!
Below is the venison dinner. I cut a piece of this medium rare meat, just for you!
I have to give a hat tip to Steven Rinella and company of Meateater fame to bring the topic of sous vide up. I am a meateater! You too? Great!
I have a gift for you to put under your Christmas tree if you like to cook and eat meat perfectly done. It is fast and is a no muss, no fuss device. My device is called an Instant Accu Slim Sous Vide, Immersion Circulator with digital touchscreen display below. It is a significantly different way to cook meat! Check on-line to shop and read-up.
This circulator cost is about 79 dollars for my model but you can spend more.
I have briefly read about these devices but for a time, I blew them off, so here I am in the kitchen the other day “without” a sous vide tool, and want to precook my back strap steaks slowly to avoid being overdone which can happen with lean game meat.
So, I cooked some venison backstrap steaks in my vacuum seal-a-meal bag with Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and in hot water bath on my stove top and in a pan of water for a short period, like a sous vide but I had t to guess about time and temperature. When I thought the meat was cooked a bit, I pulled the meat out and grilled to sear them at 400F on my outdoor grill. My meat was tender and juicy. A good guess! But I want to do that again with the real equipment so I can cook lots of tender game to precise temperatures. I just bought this model shown above. It is coming via Santa Claus.
Game meat has little fat so overcooking lean venison can make your meat tough. For someone like me who has a freezer full of wild game, I think the investment is worth it. There is another method some call reverse searing where you cook meat slowly in an oven at say 225F then sear at the end like I do with prime rib roasts but that is for a different day.
The Weatherby Vanguard in 6.5 Creedmoor was a great choice for my Texas Whitetail Hunt. And so was my choice in Leupold scopes and Nosler Custom cartridges, tipped with AccuBonds!
Shots were perhaps a bit longer than 150 yards, a cake-walk for the creedmoor. The synthetic Monte Carlo style stock takes all kinds of abuse and still looks new. I geared this rifle for New England deer hunting in ice and snow. The barrel and metal surfaces has a weatherguard coating ( a stainless look) as a rust preventive. We had no rain or stormy weather to contend with, just hot and dry. Coupled with my Leupold Vx-3 and Nosler Custom 140 grain AccuBonds, it was whitetail magic.
When I arrived at the ranch, a few of us shot our rifles to ensure they were on target. I set up for a 100 yard shot at a black one inch square, upon the recoil, I could not see the bullet hole, but the Ted the lead guide said, ” It’s dead center in the black”. Ok, I said with a grin, “ready to hunt!”
On the Weatherby, it was a very cost effective at around $800, the only thing I changed was the trigger, it was fine as it was but I wanted a bit lighter trigger, so I dropped a Timney trigger in. The beefy looking bolt is very smooth to operate, I like that! I think that I will hunt New England this next year with the Weatherby. For those considering this rifle or caliber, you cant go wrong for big game deer, elk and black bear.
If you would like to read and see a few video’s of the hunt see below.
I like to chef with my venison but it wasn’t till I hunted whitetails in Texas before I tried bacon wrapped Jalapeno poppers. My taste buds went absolutely crazy, when I ate one fresh off the grill or out of the oven. You use 1/2 seeded jalapeno with cream cheese, add a thin slice of marinated backstrap and wrap it in bacon and roast. It is not uncommon to stuff your popper with a taste of meat, and tender strips of venison backstrap is perfect. Below, I cooked these with jalepeno peppers, and for my wife I cooked with green bell peppers (no heat). Honestly, the heat in the jalapeno’s with seed removed is very mild and blends well with the saltiness of the bacon, cheese and venison. My wife’s comments were; “I could have these for dinner, they are so good!
I found this recipe below that ideally does justice to these poppers. I can taste them from here! If the jalapeno seeds are removed there is just a bit of heat but the crispy bacon, venison and smooth melted cream cheese comes through but be careful as they are addicting as all-get-out!
Key to the crispy bacon is to precook some that can still be wrapped around the poppers as the recipe suggests.
Of course you can add meat or not but it is the bacon, a bit of spice from the jalapeno and the melted creaminess of the cream cheese. I recently had some poppers with cream cheese and three cheese Mexican added to the cream cheese. It’s all good! I like a cold beer to chase it!
The sun was shining brightly as my plane touched down in San Angelo, Texas on November 11th, 2020. It was a glorious day, and I was on an exciting hunt!
I last hunted in the Lone Star State in 2018 and wanted a chance to see and maybe harvest an even larger buck than in 2018 which was already a huge 144 B&C buck.
At the baggage claim, I was greeted by Clayton Kibbe, 19 years old, in his new Blue 4×4 Jeep, later to be my guide.
Clayton, boastfully tells me of his bona fides, he was brought up in a serious hunting family around the famous 825,000 acre King Ranch in South Texas and its Legacy. He proved that time and again!
I arrived in camp and Ted the lead guide said I had the choice of any bunk. Nice! Camp is simple, and part of the Cargile Ranch, a house for bunks and bath, a large barn, and dining building, but very functional with a separate dining room for a dozen hunters or more.
Pictured below on the far end is Ted our lead guide, Clayton and hunter Brian who is getting married next month. Congrats! Yes, you can see the Covid social distancing here too!
On the hunt there were just 4 hunters in camp as the rut has just begun. The following week will see a dozen hunters. In the kitchen is Rhonda, Ted’s wife and the camp cook and teacher of 30 years now retired. Very knowledgeable and fun to talk to! Thanks so much! I teased her when I arrived! “Beach Boys “Help me Rhonda” she smiled. She is also a skilled hunter and a great shot, attested by her husband Ted on Huge Moose and Deer and Safari hunts! Hunters Skip, in the hat, and Sawyer, another young Texas hunter getting some dinner.
The Whitetails on this ranch are managed by Greg Simons of Wildlife System, Inc. The cattle ranch is around 24000 acres with dozens of hunting blinds set up in it. Most of the trees on the property are mesquite, large juniper with some live Oaks in the mix.
The hunting box blinds are slightly elevated, mostly hand made of plywood, with several highly elevated box blinds. Below view from one of the many blinds. These simple blinds are great! Just keep those hornets away, and they did.
Texas Wildlife folks say there is plenty of game here in the Edwards Plateau this year. But it has been a dry summer and hard on the deer, we discovered.
The ranch owner John Cargile showed up and we chatted about the deer health and dry weather. The Texas State folks mandate that the ranch should harvest 200 does this season to balance the herd. I hope they do as I saw near to 100 deer or more on my 3 days afield.
On November 12th just in the morning alone we counted 30 whitetails and ended the days count in the 50’s. That is more deer seen than in my lifetime in New Hampshire, many were 8 point bucks. I brought 2 rifles but chose the Weatherby in 6.5 Creedmoor as the shots may be longer.
Below is my new Tactacam video footage of my shot on a Texas 8 point buck. I had the Tactacam up near the muzzle and not quite level as the picture is quite a bit angled. I will have to fix that on the next hunt. Don’t get dizzy…
You can see the Weatherby rifle flash and the buck jumping 3 feet off the ground at the shot. It was an excellent shoulder hit with Nosler Trophy Grade 6.5 Creedmoor 140 grain AccuBonds as you will see in the later video Part 2. My Leupold VX-3 scope did it’s job with great clarity!
My Crazy Smile tells it all, for the buck I just harvested. A nice shot from my Weatherby and great buck! I was using a Leupold VX-3 scope. This buck did not come close to my other buck but he was mature and somehow I felt compelled to the shot. I had a great rest, and a steady aim!
Later my hunting friend Skip, who lives just outside of San Antonio, shot an even better buck. Well, actually he shot and supposedly missed one as he and guide Clayton found no hair or blood. He didn’t! We eventually found him after the coyotes started eating his back side the next day. A call to the office allowed him to take a second buck but had to pay an other sizable harvest fee. Skip didn’t hesitate on the extra fee and was rewarded with this nice buck. He offered me the buck deer meat and I accepted.
Below are the many Angus cattle, momma and calves in a protective munge. What’s goin’ on, they moo, as they are transfixed by us hunters.
I made it back home safe and sound with some 30 pounds of boned venison that I took on the plane in a wheeled cooler. I had Rhonda buy the cooler for me at the local Walmart for $24 bucks. Thanks Rhonda! I located a game processor in town that would ship the rest of the frozen boned venison back via ground. It was expensive but I love my wild game meat.
Here back in Plaistow, NH I began the process of butchering the boned meat. Below are backstraps that I have laid out to remove silver skin. I vacuum seal all of my game meat, it is essential to prevent freezer burn and can last a very long time in a freezer. I do have a large power meat grinder for making burger and sausage.
My wife and I enjoy cooking and chefing in our large kitchen and wild game is often on the menu. We have moose, boar and deer in the freezer. Since I have retired, I enjoy chefing a step above menu for when Sue gets home from her duties as microbiologist and medical technologist at a major hospital. Great to get the PPE off!
We love venison cooked in our blue Dutch oven below. Somehow the antlers just don’t seem to fit!!
But it creates a great finished product. OMG Sooo Good!
In all I harvested one buck and 2 does and will receive meat from Skip’s buck making 4 deer in the freezer. Should last us, along with other organic wild game a very long while indeed. I haven’t bought any beef burger all year.
Check out my Thanksgiving recipe for Venison Jalapeno Poppers!
From my experience, the rut has the largest effect on deer movement, so I recommend you hunt into the rut. Why? Bucks that are in search of a mate are more susceptible to be attracted to calls, rattles and scents. Bucks that have found a mate or does that found a buck are less likely to be attracted to sounds and smells.
Early aggressive buck behavior and receptive does, for mating begins here in the Northeast in very late October and peaks around November 20th or thereabouts. By late November nearly all does have neared completion of the first estrous cycle. As I said, bucks are harder to pull away from does as the rut progresses. Late November, Post rut, the bucks are looking but most does are bred, but now bucks can again be more susceptible to calls like a doe bleat. In the photo above, my brother and I filled our tags after Thanksgiving with two dandy New Hampshire bucks taken near the 13 mile woods above Berlin! My brother took his with a Ruger M77 in 300 Win Mag and my buck fell to a 338 Win Mag. Neither buck took a step!
Snow helps hunters see where the deer tracks are, and increases the ability for hunters to see deer. It is best to dress warm and stay still on a deer stand, eat a candy bar and hunker down. I learned this hunting near the 13 mile woods near Errol, NH when I took my first deer many years ago. I was “on stand” earlier than those in our hunting camp. I greeted them going out with my deer in tow as they were coming in.
My best times to call in a buck are the last week in October and first week in November. I have observed does at dusk moving toward buck bedding areas during the early rut. Below, this little buck was called in with a fawn bleat.
I like late October to first week November. If muzzleloader hunting, it is prime for getting a shot at a big buck moving normally that is not disturbed. He can be called with a grunt tube or rattled in. In the right wind, you can often smell tarsal gland, that means there is a buck in front of you! That happened to me, but I was too young to understand its implication. The buck slipped away.
Often these bucks are not far from does and waiting for them to come into estrous, constantly smelling them down wind. Or when bedded on a hill side, smelling the updraft in early morning. I took a dandy eight point during muzzleloader season by grunting and rattling. I saw a doe nearby so I played like two bucks vying for the chance to mate. The hidden buck came in for a fight. I shot him at 20 yards and he went down ker-plop.
I took another eight point by sneaking in his bedding area and used scents to create curiosity during the first day of Shotgun season. He came in looking from almost behind me. I thought it was a squirrel! I saw his antler first, then his head. My shotgun was pointed in the wrong direction, I gasped mentally. The buck new something was not quite right but curious to see my face. I kept hiding my face as I raised the shotgun in alignment with a tree so he could not see it. Finally at 20 yards I swung the shotgun to shoot. In less than a second he bolted but stopped broadside at 40 yards, still not sure what spooked him. A one ounce slug was on its way and struck his shoulder. A follow-up shot finished his curiosity. This particular hunt was my best ever because I got the drop on him in his bedroom.
Why does rifle season kill so many deer? There are lots of deer hunters looking and bumping deer into hunters.
Rattling and buck grunting is not as effective in late season so I would not include it in my tool bag for mid November.
Finding a vantage point for active deer trails that cross, with wind advantage are great places to take a stand, as are places you expect hunters to push deer in your direction.
There are several large deer studies that conclude that moon phase effects deer in a minor way. Perhaps the most deer movement related to the moon is when it nears a new moon phase where data and experience suggest there is slightly more daytime movement. Hunting the moon phase, based on the existing data, is not reliable but helps if your gonna hunt those days anyhow.
Being observant of the wind is your best friend. Keep the wind in your face if “still hunting”.
