Vintage shotshells
 

I told my favorite gunshop in Anchorage to gather up all the old 12ga shells they had and I'd buy them. They came through. The left two boxes are #5's and full and mint condition. The blue Peters plastics are #6 and missing one shell. The fourth box is #6 shot and missing one shell. The far right is mixed #4 heavy and target loads with three 00-buck tossed in. Not a bad haul for $5/box, eh? The old Parkers love this kind of ammunition and it will still get the job done.

Richard: would that be Great Northern Guns. Thomas

Yes.

Nice! I just scored a few boxes of vintage (shooter) ammo the other day myself.


Destry

about all the old ammo i can find now is bought off the screen...good find fellows... charlie

Thats a great gun shop. I stopped in there once on my way home from a hunt and took a likeing to a very nice Pre 64 M70 FWT 243. I asked about shipping and was told "This is America, take it with you" so I did and I still have it.

Congrats on the ammo...weren't they the place that had the 28ga ammo a while back?
Any luck with the claw?

Mine was some high brass 12 gauge stuff, a couple boxes of 16 gauge, and some other mixed various.

The one shelf piece in the whole deal was a near full box of Hiawatha Ace 20 gauge.


DLH

While these grand old cartridges are certainly nostalgic, collectable, and wonderful bits of Americana in themselves, I would advise to be cautious if you shoot any. These old loads were fairly "hot" and could put some risky stresses on the decades old, dry wood stocks of the old doubles we love. I know. I used to shoot some of those cartridges "back in the day."

In fact, I've even saved some for historic purposes...

Are these collectible????[

URL=http://s78.photobucket.com/user/Bobguns/media/XpertW12ga002.jpg.html]http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j1...rtW12ga002.jpg[/URL]

Bob Jurewicz

The good news for me is that I have a ton of ammo from this era. The bad news is that I bought it all when it was new.

those shells are very collitable...not rare stuff but good ones to start with...charlie

I keep reading cautions about firing hotter loads in older SxS's (made for such loads) that have old, dry stocks. And while I understand that old wood has a slightly lesser moisture content than newer wood, the age certainly hasn't deteriorated the lignin = "glue" that holds the cellulose fibers together. Can someone please explain the scientific/technical considerations whereby old dry wood is allegedly more prone to setback or cracking from recoil? I personally haven't seen that while shooting boxlock guns that have properly tightened screws and are not oil soaked and already showing setback, nor those with stocks that haven't already been cracked from falls and other similar mishaps. Thank you.

One reason that dry stocks are prone to cracking is that the wood shrinks as it dries and is therefore already under stress around the receiver before one even fires a shell. David

The old stock caution may be attributed to stocks that are oil soaked.

While the experience and knowledge of others are certainly their own, and as valid as mine, I can only offer what I've encountered in stripping down a great many boxlocks, and no small number of Parkers:

Old American double guns, stocked with black walnut are almost always split inside. Apparent cause: age, dry wood and recoil forces.

American guns stocked with English walnut are less prone to splitting. Reason: Hardshell walnut retains a measure of resiliency longer. But it can still spit if it's old, dry and pounded by heavy loads.

Oil soak in the stock head makes the wood punky and soft. Whether this quality promotes or lessens splits I can't say. But I've seen a lot of oil soaked stocks with splits.

All of this is why I limit target loads to 3/4 oz and field loads to 1 oz in these old doubles.

Exactly. I view this caution as another of those old wives tales that upon repetition takes on a life of its own and becomes truth without considering its basis. There have been thoughtful posts here saying what Frank just said again but they seem to be quickly forgotten. For me, if the stock is not pulled away, not cracked, not oil soaked and soft, the head is tight against the frame, there is no basis why the gun cannot be used to its service loads. Stock cracks, if present, can be usually easily repaired . Of course a person can always choose to use lesser loads for less shoulder recoil, preservation of ammunition components, general sense of easier on the gun, matching the load to the game, etc. Thanks for a thoughtful post, Frank.

Those Super X loads are my favorite vintage shells to shoot, along with the later Mark 5 shells in the same loadings. I've got a bunch on stash but am always buying more, don't ask me why. At this point I've got more than I could ever shoot in a lifetime I'm guessing......

DLH

I agree Destry; the Mark V's are the best shotshell ever made and these paper equivalents are a favorite also. For smell I like the ribbed green Remingtons, which seem to pleasingly scatter a fair amount of aromatic paper wadding about the shooting grounds.

As for heavy loads, I tailor my loads to the gun. I have a #1- framed 12ga with a wispy fragile looking wrist that preferably gets 24gram handloads of very low pressure. With 26" cyl bbls why would anyone put a load like these through it unless they were out to vaporize birds?? I have a couple of stout 2-frame guns with wrists like a fresh Louisville slugger with no incipient tang cracks that get these heavy loads with no worries. I never put these loads through any of my 1-1/2-framed guns, which is most all of my 12ga guns. Not just for the guns sake either; these loads really whack you with recoil in a lighter gun.

Regarding the stock shrinkage issue, wood shrinks primarily, but not only, perpendicular to the grain, meaning that a properly grained gun stock, one with nice horizontal grain that goes through the grip, will mostly shrink vertically. If you cut a slab off the end of a round log and leave it to dry it will lose more diameter than anything else but it will also always split from the center to the edge somewhere, and wood continues to dry for a very long time. My log house is still shrinking after 22 years of wood heat - 1/4" per vertical foot is the rule. My walls get shorter every year and I hear an occasional 'pop' as some log cracks a bit. This is white spruce mind you so the initial moisture content is relatively high, but the concept holds for any type of wood. So, these vintage gun stocks do shrink some horizontally which, as David H says, imparts stress(tension) on the wood as the receiver and tang hold it from shrinking like it wants to. The obvious place for a crack to start is at the back of the tang which is precisely what happens. When you repair an incipient tang crack it makes sense to relieve some wood when you put the stock back on if necessary. I glued up a significant tang crack once and clamped it. When I tried to slide the stock back on it was tighter than when I took it off and needed a bit of wood very carefully relieved.

Richard if you ever get back down here be sure and remind me to give you a box of these 2 7/8 10 gauge Mark 5 shells I have.

DLH

I'll definitely take you up on that one Destry...!