8 gauge pre 1920 buckshot

[6pt-Sika]

Originally Posted by Bruce Hering

Craig:

I find you comment interesting based on "close and buckshot". When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey (read 50's and 60's) all we could use on deer was buckshot. My Dad sent two 12 gauge guns and a bunch of ammo down to some guy in South Carolina, as I remember, and had the barrels worked on to shoot tight patterns with what I believe was OO out to +30 yards or so. They both threw amazing patterns as I recall and many years later when I measured the chokes they were about .010 or IC. Unfortunately, both guns are gone now.

Those guns sure did a job on deer.

I never had an intrest or need to try buckshot until I inherited my grandfathers W&C Scott crystal indicator 10 gauge . This gun however is tighter than normal and on the underside of both barrels it’s stamped “no ball shot only” or something like that . Anyway I started with a Ross Seyfried load for 1 1/4 ounces of shot pushed with 30 grains of SR7625 and adapted the basic load for buckshot round ball and slugs granted I only tried buckshot in the Scott . Anyway during that hunting season about ten years ago I knocked over my first deer ever using 00 in the Scott . Since that time I’ve killed quite a few deer using various 10 gauge doubles also a couple with a Parker 16 and my Handloaded buckshot . Now the kicker in this whole thing is the fact that rifles are legal in my county so generally I’ll climb a tree and bring a rifle and shotgun along if the deers inside thirty yards and I’m comfortable with the shot the shotgun will boom if it’s further or I think I can’t get the shotgun load to the deer well enough I’ll plunk it with a rifle . I’ve had a couple instances where I’d plunk one with a shotgun others would run off a ways and I’d plunk a second with a rifle . I should say I’m not overly worried about trophy racks I tend to shoot Uhm as I see uhm . And we have doe days all season with a limit of two per day so my yearly totals sometimes creep up a bit .