Good Day to all,
it's been a while since I've had a chance to post here.Yup, I think that the Spencer has been really under rated as a decent hunting cartridge. Since my buff hunt I had the opportunity to shoot a nice little whitetail buck with it, quartering towards me, hit it in the left front shoulder and the bullet exited out the right rear quarter. Meat damage was really not bad even though it broke the shoulder at the joint and femur about 3 inches below the hip. Of course he went down like lightening struck him. As long as one keeps the range reasonable the Spencer will do nicely. That said, it is I suppose on the light end for buffalo hunting, especially as that short fat bullet sheds velocity so quickly, but I'd not hesitate to use the old girl again!
My favorite rifle is my old Spencer, but my favorite cartridge is the 50-70. I have two, one is a 71 Remington N.Y.state militia model and the other I built on an original Remington roller action with a Green Mountain barrel, in a Gemmer style. I've shot buffs with both of them and both were one shot kills. I try to take those quartering away shots to hit the heart and break the off shoulder. I've seen a buffalo cow shot through both lungs stay on her feet for over 20 minutes( she was bunched in the herd and my buddy Jim couldn't get another clear shot.)Finally she drifted out and he hit her in the shoulder(Shilo 74 Sharps, 45-70) Our group has taken several buffs and I've only seen a couple shots that didn't completely penetrate(that was a 43 Spanish with real soft 40-1 cast bullets, stopped on the far shoulder) And on one that I shot with my Northwest trade gun, a flintlock smoothbore, in 12 guage, that ball also stopped against the far shoulder)Anyway I guess that I've rambled on enough-
Have a fine day, Chris