Black powder scatter gun fun part 1

 Geez, looking back it would appear that I never did mention the side by side shotgun I bought back in February.

I picked this up at the "Ancient Ones of Maine" show. Its a good show and the same place I got my TC Renegade a couple years before. In view of current events, I'm glad we got to go.

Anyway it was sold to me as "10 gauge" but the bores measure right around .74". 10 gauge would be .77, 12 is .72, so this is more like an 11 gauge. Actually, Track of the Wolf says 11 gauge would be .75 so this is more like "11 and a half gauge". I bought some 11 gauge wads and they work pretty well. The barrel has proof marks that I was able to look up. I was looking in a proof mark book my dad has, he said "You'll probably never find them" and at that very moment, I happened to spot one. Based on that I very approximately date the gun to the 1890s.

I shot it back in March but was under impressed with the pattern it would produce. The barrels are cylinder bore so they're never going to get the 80% pattern the turkey hunters go for.

More recently I ordered some plastic shot cups from Ballistic Products. They're normally used to protect the barrel from hard shot like steel or tungsten. I've had them several months but didn't get around to shooting them until Monday.

On the left and unfired shot cup, on the right, one I recovered downfield. You can just make out where I slit the cups, this is important, if you don't slit them the shot stays together.

This is the side of a computer case I found on the range, notice where it had been hit with shot before. Without help, the shot won't penetrate the steel. The big hole is where an unslit shot cup with 1 1/2 oz of #6s blew on through. This might be interesting for shooting targets but not useful for my purposes.

I didn't take any pictures of my pattern boards, it's just a bunch of holes in cardboard anyway. After a bunch of tests, my best load is 1 1/2 oz of shot with 3 drams of powder. This is following the old rule of thumb "Less powder, more lead, hits hard, kills dead. More powder, less lead, kicks hard, wide spread." I suppose this would be considered an "under square" load since my volume of powder is less than the volume of shot. Anyway, with that load I was able to get 142 pellets into a 14" square target at 25 yards. #6 should run around 270 pellets per ounce so I was shooting around 405 pellets. That's about 35% pellets on target. Pretty poor by modern standards but not bad considering a 100+ year-old gun. I probably wouldn't try it on turkey but I'd like to give it a go on ducks and pheasant, probably for squirrels too.

I did try going to 1 5/8oz of shot and both 3 and 3 1/4 dram but actually ended up with fewer pellets on target. The is pretty heavily built so I probably should go back and try 1 3/4oz to see if more pellets help.

While I was in Maine a month ago my cousin turned up and gave me a few pounds of Pyrodex powder. I'd never shot any before and since the shotgun burns a substantial amount (3 drams is 82 grains) I figured free powder was the way to go. That turns into its own story so I'll save that for another post.

Fishin'

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time fishing. My father and grandfather we both fishermen and I kind of followed along. Somewhere along the line I just stopped but this year I find I've got more time on my hands... Back in April as the weather warmed I headed out. For reasons I don't really understand I had already collected a couple fishing poles and so I took to the river. The Millers river flows not too far from us and interestingly while people were flocking to our local state parks you don't have to walk too far to leave the crowds behind. People will go on the main trails but not much farther. Those early months didn't see a lot of success, I was catching some small trout but not too many and none of real size. That all changed in early June when I walked up Priest brook. Priest brook is a tributary of the Millers and while I didn't catch any fish where the road got near the river when I walked upstream my luck changed.

Mostly on Priest brook I find trout although there are some sunfish, perch and what I think are small pickerel.

Its hilarious to catch fish so small the lure is bigger than they are. This little guy was really punching above his weight.

Since then Angie has started fishing with me and I've learned a couple things:

1. I'm a luckier fisherman than her. She'll admit it too "I've never seen anybody so lucky."

2. You really have to get away from the crowds and since our local rivers meander that means you'll be bushwacking.

3. Bushwacking is going to but a hurt on your legs. The other day I think I tangled with a stinging nettle, the results were excruciating.

4. When you're into the fish the pain doesn't matter.

So far we've taken 2 good sized trout to eat and 3 smaller ones that had the bad luck to swallow the hook so deeply I couldn't get it out without killing them. Angie caught a sunfish that we could and maybe should have taken but "It looked at me, I can't kill it!"