I carried my 16ga Centare loaded with 1 1/8oz of bismuth #4s and an equal volume of blackpowder. Its maybe a slightly too heavy load but I want to throw a lot of shot.
We got in the bush, got the decoys out and were ready when the sun came up. There were about 10 wood ducks on the pond, Ben tells me wood ducks are about done for the season but it seemed good enough to me. They wandered all around the pond before finally coming about 20 yards in front of me. A drake and a hen right together, I brought up the gun, hit the trigger and "crack!" the cap went off but the gun failed to fire.
I scratched my head over that one, that gun has never failed to fire before.
Thus ended hunting that spot, the ducks were outta there not to return. We decided I ought to try it again to see if it would actually fire. I had to cap it twice more before it went off. Only thing I can think is there must have been some bore butter in the touch hole. I should have capped off before I loaded but I forgot before leaving home and didn't want to do it in the bush. I won't forget that in a hurry.
The rest of the day was a comedy of errors, I was closing in on a group of 6 on another pond that Ben couldn't see, he made a whole bunch of noise and they flew. Then the last spot of the day I got lost and kept flushing ducks when I needed to be quiet.
Ben summed the whole thing up "You'da had that one duck, maybe both of them..."
The speed loaders worked well when I had them in my carry bag. I've got a Vietnam era Army surplus first aid kit bag that keeps my stuff. Later in the day I got tired of carrying it so I put 4 bottles (2 powder, 2 shot) in my pocket, the shot rattled around in the bottle in my pocket and made a bunch of noise. I may make a belt pouch to carry 4 or 6 bottles with straps to hold them in place, it'd cut down on the noise and be convenient...
No comments:
Post a Comment