TrapperReady
Member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2003
- Messages
- 2,732
It finally happened yesterday...
I was working with my dog, getting him onto some game-farm chukars and trying to see how his retrieving was coming along. Out of habit, I had grabbed my O/U when leaving the house (forgetting that I was only trying to shoot one gun this year).
When we got to the field, I checked and the tubes which were installed were I/C and Full. I rummaged through my bag and had a couple boxes of 12ga shells... some factory #7 1/2 target loads and some heavy #5 reloads (my preferred pheasant-buster). Since there was a distinct possibility of running into some leftover roosters, I decided to load the I/C barrel with the target loads and the big medicine into the Full.
Worked like a charm! For game-farm chukars shot over a dog, the #7 1/2 target loads are perfect. Even for those times when I missed, I just took my time with the second shot, and dropped them out a ways.
Until...
Dog flushed one out of a clump of bushes near a treeline. The bird made a beeline for a break in the trees, and I swung on it fast to take it before it got behind some cover.
Blam! The bird kind of exploded and landed back a ways. When I broke open the gun, instead of the bottom shell ejecting... the top one did. The dang selector had drifted over and fired the Full choked barrel with 1 1/4 ozs of #5... at a distance of maybe 17-18 yards. It wasn't pretty, and the dog REALLY didn't want to put that bird down.
The worst thing was that the brunt of the impact was right in the good-eatin' part.
Anyway... there's not much point to this story, aside from seeing what can happen when things don't go by the book. One of the oft-listed (even by me) benefits of an O/U or SxS is the ability to have different chokes and loads on tap. The vast majority of the time, that works great... but in this case it didn't. I did notice the rest of the day that the selector seemed a little looser than normal. Maybe it's time to break things down pretty far and see if anything is amiss.
I was working with my dog, getting him onto some game-farm chukars and trying to see how his retrieving was coming along. Out of habit, I had grabbed my O/U when leaving the house (forgetting that I was only trying to shoot one gun this year).
When we got to the field, I checked and the tubes which were installed were I/C and Full. I rummaged through my bag and had a couple boxes of 12ga shells... some factory #7 1/2 target loads and some heavy #5 reloads (my preferred pheasant-buster). Since there was a distinct possibility of running into some leftover roosters, I decided to load the I/C barrel with the target loads and the big medicine into the Full.
Worked like a charm! For game-farm chukars shot over a dog, the #7 1/2 target loads are perfect. Even for those times when I missed, I just took my time with the second shot, and dropped them out a ways.
Until...
Dog flushed one out of a clump of bushes near a treeline. The bird made a beeline for a break in the trees, and I swung on it fast to take it before it got behind some cover.
Blam! The bird kind of exploded and landed back a ways. When I broke open the gun, instead of the bottom shell ejecting... the top one did. The dang selector had drifted over and fired the Full choked barrel with 1 1/4 ozs of #5... at a distance of maybe 17-18 yards. It wasn't pretty, and the dog REALLY didn't want to put that bird down.
The worst thing was that the brunt of the impact was right in the good-eatin' part.Anyway... there's not much point to this story, aside from seeing what can happen when things don't go by the book. One of the oft-listed (even by me) benefits of an O/U or SxS is the ability to have different chokes and loads on tap. The vast majority of the time, that works great... but in this case it didn't. I did notice the rest of the day that the selector seemed a little looser than normal. Maybe it's time to break things down pretty far and see if anything is amiss.
