Interesting pellet performance

John Bourbon

John Bourbon

Well-known member
The other day, Cheech Kehoe and I were hunting Lake Champlain and I had the opportunity to shoot a mallard at long range with my 100+ year old Remington 10 ga. I was using home brewed 2 7/8" shells loaded with Bismuth BB's. When I shot the bird, I could see shudder, but it flew on, only to drop out of the sky 100 yards later. When we retrieved the bird, it looked undamaged and since it was such a good sized bird I elected to pluck it whole instead of breasting it out. It was then that I found the one and only hole in its body. There was an entrance wound on the lower right side and the pellet was stuck up under the skin on the upper left side. That pellet penetrated 8" or 9" at 50 yards. I find that amazing.


John Bourbon
 
I've heard stories of guys dropping geese at 60+ yards with lead BBs back in the day. Birds were stone cold dead when they hit the ground. I guess it comes down to having the confidence in your ability to shoot a bird at that range, and knowing the ammo you are using has the ability/lethality to kill at that distance. I've shot sea ducks out to 35 yards with Hevi Shot and the birds skipped across the water they hit it so hard. When skinning them out, I was also finding that the pellets had nearly passed through the birds, thick down and all. Amazing stuff.

Any good layer of fat on that mallard?



Nate
 
The other day, Cheech Kehoe and I were hunting Lake Champlain and I had the opportunity to shoot a mallard at long range with my 100+ year old Remington 10 ga. I was using home brewed 2 7/8" shells loaded with Bismuth BB's. When I shot the bird, I could see shudder, but it flew on, only to drop out of the sky 100 yards later. When we retrieved the bird, it looked undamaged and since it was such a good sized bird I elected to pluck it whole instead of breasting it out. It was then that I found the one and only hole in its body. There was an entrance wound on the lower right side and the pellet was stuck up under the skin on the upper left side. That pellet penetrated 8" or 9" at 50 yards. I find that amazing.


John Bourbon: I to shoot a SxS 10 ga, but mine is a Parker. I find the bismuth 1 3/8 ths oz hand load BB's are the best on geese out to 60 yds. I have shot a few ducks with them with lots of BB pass thru, keep on shooting the mighty 10, scott
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Hi Nate. I am lucky enough (or unlucky depending on your point of view) to have been around when lead was all there was. I remember seeing amazing shots with lead BB's. That's back when 3" Belgian Browning A5's were the cat's derriere and everybody wanted one. Back then, there wasn't anything you couldn't do with 1 5/8 oz of lead BB's in a Super X shell.


Very little fat on that mallard, even though it was a nice mature bird, 2 curls and all.


I would LOVE to take this 10 ga to Maine and see what it can do. I have some all brass shells loaded with 4.5 drams of real black powder under 1 5/8 oz Bismuth BB's. I can just imagine sitting on a rock and touching that off and waiting for the smoke to clear to see what lay before me...


John
 
Hi Scott. Tell me about your Parker... Lifter model? Damascas? hammers? I find these old 10's addicting. There is a guy that shows up at all the local gun shows with an old LC Smith 10 with some pretty nice engraving. One day I might just get stupid and come home with it.


John
 
A 10ga in good hands, and used as it should be IS a mighty waterfowling Shootgun. The only 10 doubles I have ever used were the old Spanish ones from the 60's & 70's. They were notorious for breaking firing pins, so once loaded you had to keep the muzzle UP. Killed a big bull Sprig on Currituck Sound (that I had mounted) with a Spanish 10 double pre non toxic shot. Since then have owned a Mag 10 and then a SP 10. They aren't magic, just the proper tool for the proper job. Long Live the 10 ga.!
 
Nope they're not magic, and the old doubles do require special care and feeding, BUT there is something about them.....


John


PS. some day I want to kill a swan down Carolina way with mine.
 
many of the old short tens were made as long range tools -

With an ounce and a quarter load of lead - my British 10 (10 lbs with 32 in barrels) with 2 5/8ths chambers patterns at 91% in both barrels.

One of the guys on another board I read does a soft drink can test- at 70 yards - so I tried it, this gun puts 5 #4 pellets in a 12 oz can at that range

I have not patterned the nice shot loads I have loaded yet but I expect they will be well into the full choke range, and I still need to pattern the Parker 10 with the brass hulls and black powder and bismuth, but i expect the gun has more capabilities than I do
 
John - If you hunt Swan in NC, Fairfield, Lake Matamuskeet area they are so thick you can use the 10ga if you want. Back in the day I hunted with Bob Hester. He helped spearhead the Swan Season petitions, and I brought them north to PA. Many signed and a season was established, but PA and other Atlantic flyway states declined, fear of PETA. I have had permits in the east and out west, but never pulled the trigger.

If you read Travels and Traditions of Waterfowl by H. Albert Hochbaum, on page 100 mention is made of Pymatuning Lake. Pa. and Mr. Ray Sickles. He helped plot the flight path of Tundra Swans (Whistling Swans back then). That refuge is where the waterfowl bug bit me in 1963. It's a major flight corridor for Tundra Swans aka "NW Pa Snow Geese"...
 
Sir, I shoot my Remington 1894's (1-16ga and1-10ga) at Waterfowl every chance I can. Like your self I have turned too bismuth, ive see the same results in the bismuth #4's and 6's, when shot at longer ranges, i haven't tried anything bigger than #4s but can say I have been very impressed with the performance of the smaller shot too 45yards. I have patterned both my guns with bismuth and nice shot out to fifty yards, they must have had good barrel men employed at Remington then,cause both my guns are very consistent /even.. don't hesitate to try the smaller size shot, if you haven't already, ,,,haopy hunting, ,,,colin
 
"One of the guys on another board I read does a soft drink can test- at 70 yards - so I tried it, this gun puts 5 #4 pellets in a 12 oz can at that range "


WOW, I'm going to have to try that....I don't think my gun is that tight of a shooter, but I will try that can test to see what it does. Last winter when I was recovering from surgery and couldn't sit down for weeks on end, I spent a lot of time at the loading bunch crafting ammo for the 10. I have lots of 4's, 5's, and 6's to test out. I even loaded some 4.5 dram black powder loads in brass hulls. After having witnessed that go off, I can't imagine what an old 8 ga must have looked like when it went off.


There is a book out on the old Remington doubles, written by Charles Schemmer I think. In it he details what the markings under the barrels mean. Each of these old SxS's (10 and 12 ga) were pattern tested with 1 1/4 #5 shot at 40 yards. They shooter then counted the holes in a 40" circle and stamped that # on the bottom side of each barrel. That way the buyer knew what he was getting for a choke gun. And that was using loads that pre date plastic shot cups. My gun patterns in the 70% range according to the markings. On very informal pattern shooting with lead 8's over water, its very tight.


I have an opportunity to buy a second 1894 in 10 ga from a family friend. My wallet cringes at the thought, but the romantic in me wants it.


I loaded up some bismuth 5's for swatter loads last year and have yet to need them. I then built/ carved a neat little 6 shell holder for them out of a 2x6. I'm having an awful hard time posting pics these days. If anybody wants to volunteer to post them for me, I will email them to you. I also converted a box originally intended for funerary ashes into a neat box for my brass shells. Again if anybody wants to help me with posting, I'll email them to you.


John
 
Hi Scott. Tell me about your Parker... Lifter model? Damascas? hammers? I find these old 10's addicting. There is a guy that shows up at all the local gun shows with an old LC Smith 10 with some pretty nice engraving. One day I might just get stupid and come home with it.


Hi john, its an EH 32 in.Damascus 3 frame at 9 lbs even, I shoot that as my go to duck and goose gun, I shoot nothing but SxS parkers and Ithaca's. I have a grade 2 Ithaca NID 10 ga that shoots very tight that I use for pass shooting. I also have a 2 frame (that's a 12 ga frame)30 in. EH parker light 10 ga at 8 3/4 lbs that I shoot crows and early season duck hunts. I do load 100% of all my shells, scott
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Hi Scott. It always amazes me the variation in frame sizes that used to get made.
"EH parker light 10 ga at 8 3/4 lbs that I shoot crows and early season duck hunts". I bet that feels nice in the hands. As to loading shells, I paid for some RST shells, once. Sticker shock prevents me from ever doing that again. I've been using all Federal hulls to load mine. BPI has primed, virgin 10 ga Cheddite hulls for sale, but I can't find any loading data for them anywhere. Had you seen the 2 part series on Ithaca NID 10's in Double Gun Journal? Certainly made me want one...


John
 
Hi Dave. Thank you very much. It looks like I forgot to send you the pic that shows the 6 pack box open. I will rectify that...


The box that says Mergus (the name I gave the Snow Goose Cheech Kehoe and I built), was made on a whim from a 2x6. I wanted some old fashioned looking shooting accessories to go along with the old gun, so I ripped the chunk of board and using rasps and gouges, I shaped the joint between the two pieces like a cove and bead joint. Then I bought a 15/16 spade bit from the hardware store to drill 6 holes in each piece for the 2 7/8 10 ga shells to sit in. I had to relieve one side of the top piece so that when the top swung closed, the mouth of the shell wouldn't hit the inside of the top hole. I would up having to carve that relief cut to fit. The leather came to me from Dave Diefenderfer.


The second box started life as a funerary box for dog ashes. It too came to me from Dave. I cut it at angle on the band saw and fitted a piece of cedar in it. After getting the fit OK, I drilled 2 rows of holes in it, one deeper than the other. I then glued the styrafoam to the inside of the lid to keep the shells from rattling around. I still haven't gotten around to flocking the interior. Maybe this winter. The hulls were made by Rocky Mountain Cartridge. At present, this box holds all the hulls I have loaded with real black powder. According to the loading books I have this load will throw 1 5/8 oz at 1340 feet per second at only 6000 psi.


The leather strap hinge on the back came from Dave also. The handle is from an old pair of wader suspenders that I salvaged when the waders went bad. I'm not totally sold on the latches yet. Time will tell.


John
 
The other day, Cheech Kehoe and I were hunting Lake Champlain and I had the opportunity to shoot a mallard at long range with my 100+ year old Remington 10 ga. I was using home brewed 2 7/8" shells loaded with Bismuth BB's. When I shot the bird, I could see shudder, but it flew on, only to drop out of the sky 100 yards later. When we retrieved the bird, it looked undamaged and since it was such a good sized bird I elected to pluck it whole instead of breasting it out. It was then that I found the one and only hole in its body. There was an entrance wound on the lower right side and the pellet was stuck up under the skin on the upper left side. That pellet penetrated 8" or 9" at 50 yards. I find that amazing.


John Bourbon
John,
I'm not really sure of exactly what your point is/was here. If you're talking up the effectiveness of old guns loaded to their original specs with soft non toxic loads, then yes, I agree. Old waterfowl doubles truly are some of the best treasures of the sport.
But if it is the pellet performance you're amazed by, you really shouldn't be. Read some of the writings of Fred Kimble and his contemporaries. After he developed choke, 60 yard shots were quite the norm, and his favorite duck load was "St. Louis threes". As far as that single pellet strike, here's what I believe happened. You were probably a little off with your shot placement and hit the bird with the fringe of the 30 inch pattern. The pellet that did hit the bird did, however, have sufficient energy to penetrate almost fully. I think that if you did some further investigation you would have found that the pellet had struck one of the air sacs or a lung. Since avians do not breath in the same manner as mammals, it took some time for the bird to either bleed out or have the lung fill with blood and drown it. I've had this happen to me, and the first time it happened, the bird (a goose) flew almost three hundred yards. I thought I shot super goose or something. Then I found out about a birds respiratory system.
Frank
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