I put the A blade back on her last night. 1903's have different sized front blades, a C will work with the ladder and a A works with the opens dead on at 100. I used to take this to turkey shoots where the idea was to hit the head. It was open sights, offhand and no resting your elbow on your body. I rarely had to pay for more than 4 shots, I had a few 1 and dones with this set up so I know what this thing will do. Only problem was I never got a deer in front of it. Didnt have a good place to hunt or time off to hunt when this was my only rifle. So with the 2 kids having scored, and the wife with a doe and buck tag left, I figured that I would give her another chance and take a doe if I could so that I have a tag for Flintlock season.
It was fairly chilly, 28 at 1100 when we came in, I didnt look this morning. It was lightly snowing with a really light wind, just enough to make trhe flakes fall at a 45d angle, snow on the ground, Norman Rockwell woods. I didnt see anything until about 1030 when I saw a flash of orange from the neighbor moving through the woods about 200+ yds out, at a guess it was his daughter after a break. I stood up and got pointed west just in case something got bumped, and up sprouted this doe. She loped, stopped and looked back, took a bound or 2 and stopped to look back. I couldnt see her head, just a shoulder so I lined her up and squeezed the trigger. She went down like a ton of bricks, bawled once and stopped. She isnt huge, decent sized and was a breeding doe, not a just turned fawn.
Details, 1903 (action and bbl made in 1933), 165gr btsp Sierra Gameking, 52 gr 4350 70 yards. Hit just aft of the front shoulder close to center. Didn't do a thorough internal BDA because I was cold.
Just made brine, salt, molasses, peppercorns, black and red pepper, garlic, and liquid smoke.
