With pheasant season upon us here in Washington, and waterfowl seasons looming, myself and my little buddy Ed have once again taken to the field in pursuit of our various game birds. As such, I thought it would be fun to share with you folks our somewhat unusual choice in scatterguns. A muzzle loader of all things. Lots of folks hunt big game with muzzle loading rifles, but I don't think I have ever seen a muzzle loading shotgun in the field, unless it is the one I'm carrying.
Here is the gun itself. I built it about 40 years ago, and have been hunting both upland birds and waterfowl with it as my primary shotgun ever since. It's a nominal 10 gauge (and marked as such), but was cleverly bored as an actual 11 gauge, so that modern plastic wads intended for loading in 10 gauge shells can be used if desired.
Here is all of the gear that must be carried to load this thing. The large leather pouch, known as a "possibles bag", carries everything but the powder horn. That would include the powder and shot measure (the cut down purple shotshell), the small leather shot pouch, a straight line capper, and the three types of wads necessary.
Here is the load for one barrel laid out in the order in which they are loaded. On the left is the charge of black powder, followed by an "over powder" hard cardboard wad of about 1/16" thickness, then a cushion wad of a soft paper fiber, then the shot charge, then the "over shot" wad of very hard cardboard of about .020" thickness. Interestingly, these guns do their best work with powder and shot charges of equal volume, so we use the same measure for both.
One of the inherent limitations on these is regarding their chokes. Or lack thereof. Since everything has to go in from the front, right past those chokes, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to build them with much of a choke. This one has no choke, or a "cylinder" choke in the right barrel, and an improved cylinder choke in the left. This can be seen pretty clearly in the photo.
Some guys who shoot these things take advantage of the ability to use modern shot cups to help tighten patterns. As you can see, I like to use the traditional loading method, using "period correct" wad materials. Surprisingly, this gun patterns quite well anyway, being every bit as effective on pheasants as a modern gun with something like improved cylinder and modified chokes. One of the reasons is that it throws one hell of a cloud of shot, with my "lighter" upland and duck load still using 1 1/2 ounces of shot. My "heavy" duck and goose load can go all the way up to 2 ounces... ouch... (note the steel buttplate).
Anyway, I thought I would share, since I have taken it out of the safe and have it loaded up with my "light" load. I know this might seem like a lot of additional work to some, but Ed and I really enjoy the more relaxed approach that hunting with a muzzle loader affords.
Oh, and here's Ed, along with his personal trainer Tilly. She doesn't hunt, but she does a fine job of keeping Ed in shape.
