The Gun Appalachian Old Timers Actually Carried, And Why It Wasn’t a Big Rifle

📖 My book, The Appalachian Book of the Living and the Lost: https://www.otisboone.com Old-timers in these mountains didn't hunt bear with a big rifle, and the reason comes down to a gun small enough that one pour of lead could be stretched into three times the shots. This one follows the hog rifle from the gun shops of Pennsylvania to the ridge at Kings Mountain, through hog-killing time and the shotgun that stood behind the kitchen door, into the turkey shoots of Tennessee where a young man named Alvin York learned to hold his shot. You'll see why the dogs mattered as much as the gun, why a man never lent his rifle-gun to a neighbor, and how that same hill-country patience walked one soldier through the Argonne Forest and out the other side with a hundred and thirty-two prisoners. It's a story about what a small gun, held by a man who knew exactly where it put a ball, could do when there was no second shot. Real places, real names, and a piece of mountain history that's still leaning in a lot of closets today. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:30 The Small Bore Rifle 2:00 Kings Mountain 4:11 The Hog Rifle 5:59 Bear Hunting With Dogs 8:49 The Shotgun Behind the Door 11:06 Turkey Shoots 12:30 Alvin York's War #AppalachianFolklore #HogRifle #AlvinYork #SmokyMountainHistory #MountainLore