When I was a child, I remember reading about settlers in the Tennessee area would "snuff" candles at night with their rifles as practice. They would trim the wicks on a burning candle with a rifle ball to make them burn brighter put candles out with a rifle ball, but my favorite was "barking" squirrels to save lead. They would shoot the limb beneath a squirrel and the fragmented bark would kill the rodent then they would recover the slug to remold into another ball. I'm calling BS, after having beaten way too many squirrels to death with my gun butt after knocking them out of a tree top with bird shot. Tough little bastards and tree bark just ain't gonna kill em.
Yeah squirrels are tough my son shot one when he was 7 that got into a hole we could see it's tail I told my son to cut a stalk off a cabbage palm and bring it to me I trimmed it up and split the stalk and stuck s small stick into it to keep it open place the gap over the tail and twist it like noodles on a fork I felt the tug hand my son my priest pulled it out and it was trying to eat me but tail was stuck told my son to hit it in the head he hit it with the priest and was blessed to see Angles