en ce qui concerne le tir, regarding shooting

 This year is the first year I’ve ever had a hunting license. I’ve never hunted any animal let alone big game like a deer to date. 

Demonstrating the proper loading, shooting and cleaning a flintlock is another requirement for the scout rank. That is one I won’t have trouble with. Shooting accurately is another matter. 

Shoring skills were essential to 18th century habitants for hunting. The ability to feed ones self and family off of the land was absolutely necessary to save their own cultivated animals from slaughter. Undoubtedly Canadian hunting techniques were borrowed from indigenous communities and both cultural groups have subsequently been renowned for their skills with a musket.

My choice of flintlock, just like the milice of the 18th century is the fusil de chase although, they had no choice in the 18th century. 

I’ve been an avid sport shooter most of my life and I’ve always especially loved to “live fire” flintlock muskets but I will certainly need to practice in order to meet the requirements for the ALRA and to cleanly kill a deer.

But before I can Offhand hit an 8"round steel gong 5 times at 25 yardsin 3 minutes. If using a patched ball, extend the range to 35 yards.

I’ll need to figure out my loads. For a round .575 ball with cut paper wadding I’ll experiment with the grain amount of the black powder. For target shooting I often use about 80 grains of twoF to conserve powder but 90-110 will probably aid the accuracy and for hunting will be instrumental to ensure a clean penetration. I may also experiment with patching material, leather, cloth and linen tow. I’ve yet to see a reference to what kind of wadding they were using in the time period so my preparation for the ALRA will hopefully lead to new questions and answers.

In order to prepare for deer hunting I also intend to do some squirrel hunting. A squirrel and a deer are hardly similar but I think that just the woods experience in a hunting mode, needing to observe, to carefully choose shots will be very valuable before attempting to take a deer.