1894 Vintage NH-Grade

[Kevin McCormack]

Originally Posted by Dave Noreen

Back eleven years before I bought this Parker, I left the same shop with an Ithaca NID No. 2 Super-Ten. That year the Winchester/Western catalog had an asterisk next to their only remaining 2 7/8 inch 10-gauge load being offered, the 4 3/4 dram equiv. 1 5/8 ounce of #4 chilled, that meant discontinued "available subject to stock on hand." So, I bought every box they had (24) at the Potomac Arms end of season ammunition sale. Haven't had much use for 1 5/8 ounces of lead #4s over the last 31 years, so I will likely die still owning 23 boxes!!

My all-everywhere hunting and fishing buddy Al of years ago wouldn't shoot anything but a 10 on waterfowl. One day he stopped at the old corner sports shop in Beltsville MD where the old geezer owner Clint Bowman told him he was going out of business and the sale would start that weekend. Al asked if he had any 10 gauge ammo in the closeout sale and Clint took him behind a counter and showed him 2 full cases of this exact same ammo, one in #4 shot and one in #5. Forget the exact year (1970-71?), but these were the heavy cardboard cases of 20 boxes each.

Al bought them both and shot them up on ducks for the next 15 years at our hunt club near Wye Island. Al shot an early, good quality AYA 10 ga. 3 1/2" magnum with 32" barrels, using BBs or #2s for Canada geese and the smaller shot for ducks. He was the only guy I knew that shot only 10 ga. for both back in that era, and could really handle that gun, making some spectacular pass shots on both ducks and geese at extreme ranges.