A gut wrenching end

[Bambito]

Being unsuccessful last year I decided early on this year to make some changes. I traded in my encore for an omega. ( I was lucky enough to find two since they don't make them anymore and bought one for my wife as well) I also did some research on sabots actaully on this site and some of you folks gave me some really good info. I went from shock waves to Barnes TEZ. ( very impressed and I will post a few pics later) ok so here's the story....

Wife and I took the first week of muzzleloader off from work and hunted from Sunday till Thursday. We were unsuccessful. Few mishaps and two missed shots. Yesterday I get up at 430 and make the two hour drive to my hometown and where we hunt every year. I get there and am in stand well before light. About a half hour after light I see a yote come down a trail and bed down about 30 yards in front of me. About 20 minutes later I see 4 does coming from my right and going to my left about 100 yards out. I know where they are going to bed down which is behind me and to my left but also know that I won't get a shot. So I decide to try and cut them off. I get down and back up the trail I walked down to try and cut them off knowing that I have plenty of time before they get to there bedding spot. Half way down the trail I see a deer 30 yards in front of me. I kneel down steady the gun and fire. Smoke clears and I see nothing but a white tail waving at me. I get over to where she was standing no sign of a hit. Checked the area completely and nothing. Frustrated I go back to my truck and reload. I drove around for an hour or so and decide I'm gonna go and ask a guy I know if I can hunt his property. (Frustrated with the property we have been hunting this whole time) get to his place and he's not home so I decided to drive around for awhile and come back around noon thinking maybe he's at church. Come back at noon and sure enough he's home. Ask him for permission and he grants me it. So I go and immediately get in to his stand. His stand is in a pasture behind his house and the deer cut through the pasture to get from feeding area to bedding area. The trail is 3 feet wide and hammered so I know I'm in a good area. My stand is 40 yards off the trail. About 230 I start to get pretty cold so I decide if I'm gonna go warm up I had better do it now before prime time. So I leave my gun in the stand and walk back to my truck. I put some foot Warmers in my boots and warm up a bit. I head back out to the stand and as I round the corner and look at my stand there's two does standing underneath my stand. With my gun in the stand I say screw and just keep walking and spook them off. (This could possibly have screwed me in the end.) I told myself all day that I'm gonna shoot the first decent deer I see (no fawns for this guy) about 430 I see some deer coming in to the pasture and heading my way. I get the gun up and pull the hammer back so I'm ready to go when they get to the closest point to me from the trail they are on. So I'm ready to rock and I look back towards the deer and the first deer coming is a HUGE HUGE ten pointer. G2s and G3s on both sides are at least 10 to 12 and he is well outside the ears. He would be the biggest deer I have ever fired at. Fast forward he walks in to my sight and I let her fly.....but the gun says otherwise. All I get is a click. Try again and again and again...nothing. I pull the trigger guard down check the primer and it's good to go bring the trigger gaurd up and when I secure it he here's the click and stops and looks directly at me. I slowly bring the gun up and pull the trigger and click. He and the doe and smaller buck he is with all bolt. I set the gun down and say a few choice words out loud. I see my season ending this way as I realize I am sitting here freezing my arse off with a gun that won't fire. I start to think about what could be wrong with the gun and the fact that I have plenty of light left. I soon realize that it seems the hammer is froze and not hitting. I start thinking to blow on it to thaw it out. So here I am blowing on it repeatedly to thaw it out. I soon see two does coming down the trail and I put the gun up exactly where I had aimed at the buck of my dreams. 2 nod doe walks into my sights and I pull the trigger and boom!!!! Dropped her in her tracks. I set the gun down and sat there for a little bit thinking about everything that just happened. I get down and walk over to my deer. I respectively smiled and was proud of the doe I had just taken. I have always told my self any deer in the late season is a trophy to me and with time I will feel that way again lol! Ok now so what went wrong. Was it the hunt that morning and then the three hours in the truck and condensation building on the gun that did it or is it a problem with the actual gun? Here's the other kicker... If I wouldn't have gotten down to go warm up or if them two does under my stand would have come out earlier or later then they did I would have fired at them and realized I had an issue with the gun. Well that pretty much sums up the season I had. But at the same time I hunt for meat and not so much for antler....and I have meat in my freezer!

[Bambito]

I should mention that I will post some pics of my sabot that I found in her. I would post pics of the deer but I don't have decent ones that would abide by the rules of this HSOforum. I hunted alone and didn't get pics till we hung her in the garage last night. But the sabot is something else. Looks exactly how they advertise it.

[Ryan_V]

Tough luck, that's why they call it hunting!

[fr0sty]

Good story, but in the end it will be an even greater memory. Once I load my muzzy, I always leave it out in the garage until I fire it. I never thought of the hammer freezing, but I didn't want my 777 pellets to absorb water from condensation.

[Greenhornet84]

So I get down and leave my gun In stand. What?! Well at least ya got one after that. Anytime I hear so I left my gun there you almost know what happens next just.

[Mr Special]

the hammer on my ML wouldnt let me cock it by on a very nice 8pt on opener of gun season standing boardside at 35yrds earlier this yr. for sum odd reason there mustve been sumthing lodged in it, making it not fully cock back. all i could do was watching it stroll slowly away lol

ironically, as soon as the buck was out of sight i was able to fully engage the hammer. in the frantic moments i mustve dis lodge watever was in there. smh

my buds, have asked if i regret not using my pimped out slug gun instead but nope not at all. cz sumtimes weird things happen and like ryan said thats why we call it hunting. it made for a super exciting few mins tho lol

[Archerysniper]

Mine stays in the cold all season too keep the moisture away. Sounds like your firing pin was froze solid if the hammer would drop but not go off.

[ducksnbucks]

Yep, mine stays in the cold all hunting season. In the garage (not heated) when not hunting and in the back of the truck during the drive to hunt. I do store it inside during the non hunting season.

[Mr Special]

just a thought,

but during late season hunting, i remove as much oil as possible from moving parts cz oil will freeze up on ya.

Found that out a few times Yote hunting.

taking a few shots w/o oil wont hurt anything. just remember to lube things before storage.

note to self,

strip dwn AR, for sum yote hunting

[HNTNBUX]

Condensation does get bad. Even leaving my gun in the truck I have had pellets turn soft and mushy after a few days. It is a huge pain but this year I unloaded and cleaned my gun everyday. Another thing is it can be far easier to pull the bullet and dump the loose powder out the front than push it through and clean the powder stuck in the grease in the breech area.

Sorry to hear your season ended like that. It is certainly a lesson to learn from so the rest of us do not experience the same thing.

A friend had something similar happen with a frozen bolt on his rifle after getting snow in the action. From what I understand it was a little stuffing the frozen bolt down his pants while he chased the deer across the prairie trying to thaw it out. He never did catch up to him again.

[Musky Buck]

May cost me someday, but my dad and I have never heeded the advice of leaving our muzzy's outside etc. We use loose powder and so far a combined 50+ years we've never had a misfire knock on wood. For us it's been once we bring ours inside they are completely dry by the next days hunt as the wood heat dries everything out big time in his basement. If it wasn't for this forum I wouldn't know misfires ever happen almost, I know no 1 who has had a misfire yet, but someday maybe I will hope it's not me lol as I'm bringing mine inside to give it a light light WD40 treatment, don't like the smell thing but I'm pretty much at this stage of hunting 30+ deer down not going to fret if I blow it on 1. Kinda past the getting stage of hunting, thinking back 25 years my dad was concerned 1 year about misfire, so he fired it, boiled water, cleaned the gun and reloaded, that's what I think people should do if they're not confident shoot the thing, clean it, and reload good to go.

[Wes Ellis]

My buddy has a tradition's, and this year he was going to shoot it and it took 4 or 5 times to go off? What the heck, took it to a gun smith and he shook the gun, lite rattling noise and he said the firing pin is broke. He said it was common in that model?

[CANOPY SAM]

HNTNBUX nailed it. Muzzle-loaders, even the new in-line units, are finicky critters. You've gotta keep em' clean, dry, and protected at all times.

Doesn't sound like this was a situation involving wet powder, which often happens when we leave a gun loaded over-night out in the cold. Sometimes the Deer God's just don't let them work when we really need them to.

I learned early on to unload my muzzy every night. Not all that hard, with simply removing the breach plug, and I'm always careful to make sure all moving parts are dry (only a very light coating of oil, or gorilla grease), and that any powder or pellets are completely dry and intact before they go back into the barrel.

Is it possible you may have gotten a little snow or ice in the hammer? Sounds like it was dropping appropriately with a trigger pull, but just not completely impacting the primer.

Really sorry to hear about the bad luck buck. But it sounds like you've got a great attitude about the whole situation.