Grace Shoots .50 cal. Hawken-Type Rifle

In preparation for her 8th Grade field trip to Gettysburg I thought she should be exposed to the physicality of a mid-19th Century design firearm. She loaded and fired it and hit a target about 80 yards away. True, it's not an actual civil war musket, and I had to use the fake black powder instead of the real thing, but still, it was loaded with 60 grains of powder and fired a large Minié ball, like all those poor sods had to do, in front of a thousand charging rednecks. She didn't really like it, but most of those guys 150 years ago probably didn't either.