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Posted on 09/25/2008 6:43:34 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is anoble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain.
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
I haven't, but lots of shooters use yellow lenses to help increase target contrast on dull, cloudy days. On a sunny day with fresh snow on the ground, I'd definitely have some polarized sunglasses. I came close to snow blindness once, and that was enough for me.
Good Morning ALL and beautiful day it is. Winmag - That is an excellent reply to Miss Rose’s insightful inquiry.
Memories, a fresh snow, blue sky, my English Setter Nip, a 20 guage double, a semi abandoned farmstead, and several coveys of bob-white quail, good memories indeed.
Drillings weren’t all that common in the US prior to WWII. More than a few of them made it home in the returning veteran’s foot lockers or duffel bags. The drilling is eminently suitable for a hunting weapon in the US, the 9.3mm cartridge can bring down any big game animal provided the hunter does his part. Speer makes a good hunting bullet for reloaders and loaded rounds can be purchased as they are still made by Norma and RWS. The 16 gauge shotgun, is suitable for lead shot but most gunsmiths doubt the use of steel shot. So for the gentlemen’s quail and pheasant hunt, it would be fine.
I’ll echo winmag’s observations on the use of century old fireams, it’s done all the time. My Swiss 7.5 mm 96/11 service rifle was made in 1898. It’s capable of holding it’s own with many currently made hunting rifles. My Model 96 Webley Green revolver was made the same year and is a good shooter. It can fire the .45 ACP and also the .45 Long Colt.
We are all awaiting the opportunity to read your story, good luck to you in your nano writing, we’re looking forward to seeing it in the not to distant future at fine booksellers across the country.
As is our habit, Miss Gypsy gets her walk in the morning, today was especially pleasant, blue sky, no wind, upper 40’s, the trees wearing their bright fall colors, and the Methodist church playing ‘Old Rugged Cross’ on the clarion. We’re truly blessed in the great land of ours.
Oldest rifle I ever fired was a museum piece brown bess flintlock at Aberdeen MD’s foreign materials intelligence school where firearms and munitions was the lesson plan. I was told it was mid 1700’s in age and .75 caliber.
At 50 yards I got to fire three times and at the time having fired my own old long tang TC Hawken in 54 caliber I thought I could get a fair group. Duhh Huuhh !.....:o)
That rifle had a group that resembled a shotgun pattern !
But as you state....old guns are perfectly safe when loads and condition of the weapon are carefully considered by competent skilled hammer monkeys !
These folks wouldn't be shooting with gold-inlay weapons --- they're more practical.
I have a few silly questions --- when dove/quail/pheasant hunting, why does the hunter use pellets? Is it a velocity issue, an issue of maximizing number of targets, or something else? Don't the pellets wind up in the bird, and, consequently, in the meat? Or do the pellets just stune the bird's beeber enough to knock it out of the sky? And how do you get pellets out of the meat?
You pick them out of the meat when you start chewing it. ;o)
That's the least desirable method. Better is to check the bird over as you pluck it.
Shot choice has several variables that are all interconnected. The smaller the shot number, the larger the pellet. Large shot has a longer range (greater sectional density, even for a projectile as inefficient as a round pellet), but fewer pellets per shell. Small shot gives denser patterns at shorter ranges. The "choked" section of a shotgun barrel near the muzzle can also expand or contract the "shot string".
The type of game and the distance of the shot determine you ammo choices. Goose hunting requires heavy charges of large shot, which brings increased recoil. You're trying to bring down the avian equivalent of a B52, and you just hope one or two pellets connect with enough energy to bring it down.
Small birds that hold cover until the last second break out like rockets in all directions. You want a shell with a light load of small shot so you can get a cloud of shot out there quickly. Birds like quail and grouse are so fast you usually don't have time for a second shot before they are gone.
The odds are all stacked in favor of the bird. You need a good dog to alert you to a possible target in time to get yourself ready. Otherwise, you probably won't know there's a bird there until you almost step on it. It increases the excitement of the hunt, but not in a way most people would consider desirable.
Uh, I believe a Brown Bess is a smoothbore musket, which would explain the results. Still, it was the world standard of the day. It would be outgunned today by a guy with a slug barrel and rifled shotgun slugs from Wally World.
It was the man behind the gun that counted most, even in those days. The Brits drilled long and hard so that the grunts could give and take volley fire until it was time to close with the enemy, and go to work with the bayonet, the real infantry killin' weapon of the day.
I hear a dentist's drill ...!
Twas indeed a smoothbore yet at 50 yards it was a poor group even for such.
But at least now I have Nanowrimo material.
:-D
Evening Miss Rose - well, can’t expand much on Win Mags reply. There is both art and science to wing shooting with a shotgun, we could fill volumes with the lore of wingshooting. Some of the best shooting literature (imho) concerns misty mornings, the cornfields, the backriver sloughs, a faithful canine companion and good friend or several, during the 11th month of the year.
Some rules of thumb are Geese #2 shot, Ducks #4&6 shot, Pheasants #4&6 shot, Quail #6,7 1/2,#8, Doves #8 shot, Trap #7 1/2&8 shot. Skeet #9 shot. The above list is subject to numerous and frequent amendment to conform to local custom, personal experience, and your shotgun’s patterning preferences. ymmv.
The cat is not amused.
Somehow we ended up with some quail once. I have no idea who ‘dressed’ it, but there were pellets in it when we ate it. Of course, we just ate around them. ;o) Them birds was mighty tasty ;o)
LOL! Cute picture!
Good advice all. I wouldn’t hold myself out as much of an expert on shotguns. I haven’t hunted birds for many years and then it was pheasant with #6 in a 20ga or when I was little, the same in a .410.
Rose: From what I’ve ever seen when you get mister winmag’s advice on gun topics you can take it to the bank.
~sniff~... and he wuz thegoodson...
Oh... And yes I have in fact used yellow lensed shooting glasses, though I don’t anymore.
At the time it actually because they were the only rated “safety” glasses I had. They’re also good for exaggerating contrast. My current glasses are polycarbonate and rated as such... So now I don’t have special “shooting glasses”.
But as I recall yours is a period piece... I’m not sure that yellow glasses would have been common back then?
Anyway... My .02
I think you need a bigger son.
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