Sandhills & Short Ten
 

Earlier in the year I purchased a NH short ten gauge from a member off the for sale section here. My intentions for the gun was to hunt Sandhill Cranes with it this fall. I connected with some sandhill's with it last weekend in Oklahoma. It been a fun adventure researching non-toxic loads for it, getting the components together and finally bringing down some birds with the gun & ammo.

The gun is a 3 framed NH-10 2 7/8" chamber 32" twist barrels all original and 120 years young. The load was found in the ballistic products ITX manual. It consisted of cut down new primed Cheddite hulls roll crimped with 1 3/8oz of ITX Original-10 shot a PT1044 wad and 44gr blue dot powder advertised as 7300psi @ 1200fps. I'm pleased with the load overall. If I did my part it dropped the cranes stone dead. The only druthers I had is the load is a bit dirty and leaves some residue in the barrels. I can't detect any problems in the bores with the ITX-10 shot.



I also had a buddy shooting his Fox HE along side me. What a hoot it is shooting a 120 year old gun with modern loads. It sure turned some heads with the guides and the others in blind.

Awesome! That's my goal right there with my short 10! Thanks for sharing

I have a pair of Sandhills that visit my front yard every day. No season here in Florida for them. But I hunted them when I lived in New Mexico years ago.

What do you do with a crane after you kill it? Are they edible?

SH Cranes are excellent eating.

I understand the breast meat tastes like beef. Sometimes referred to as 'sirloin on the wing' or something like that.





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That's exactly what Trigg said of the few he got one year. They were grilling steak and sliced crane breast and after a while could barely tell the difference between the two. The ones I've gotten out of Nome were eating nothing but blueberries and were far and away the best waterfowl I've ever eaten. Very tasty with a very unique flavor.

The most common term used is "ribeye of the sky" They are like most wild game in that it depends on what they have been eating, how you take care of the game in the field & home, then how you prepare it. The main thing I've found is to not over cook them.

I'm in the process of putting another group together next fall to hunt them again. We will probably have some openings if some of you might want to join in on the fun. Just ship me off an email for the details. frbrit57@gmail.com It would be great to get enough double gun guys together to have a blind to ourselves.

There was also a pleasant sidebar on this hunt. We had one of the former top ten finalist on American Idol & her boyfriend join our group. She's a real talent, a fun to be around live wire and the gal can really shoot.

I bet that was big fun. Good on her! I'm assuming you made her 'sing for her supper'??? That's quite a pile of cranes. They migrate south over my moose hunting camp by the thousands and generally set down on the gravel bar in front of it some nights right at dusk. When I hunted them in Nome they would pass over in flocks of tens of thousands. It was an unbelievable sight; they were horizon to horizon. I was shooting them with a Navy Arms 12ga muzzle loading hammer gun loaded to near a light 8ga equivalent, which put them down with some authority if I did my part. My hunting partners 12ga Win 101 mostly just annoyed them unless they were pretty close. He shot at and hit one twice and it kept on going until I let it have it with my hammer gun, which put it down in a cloud of feathers. He looked at me and the gun and asked, "wtf have you got in there?" - "Plenty powder, Kemosabe!", I replied. He was impressed.

I generally fileted mine out and did them up pot roast style with potato and onions, slow simmering them on the wood stove crock pot style until done. They were just beginning their flite south so mostly had 1/2" of fat all over so cooked up quite nicely, made incredible gravy and left plenty of fat for the chickadees. I've never eaten better waterfowl.

Wow Richard - that many many moons ago!





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