all ga gun

[charlie cleveland]

was sitting in the house the other day did not want to work on any think in particular so i seen the old ten parker setting in the corner...decided what if i were out hunting and ran out of 10 ga short shells and it be to far to go home and get some more short tens as we all know they aint sold none of these in years....wellthe anwser to this is i always carry along a set of them chamber mates in 12 ga...bout any store carrys this ga ammo...okwere out hunting and you run outa 10 ga shells the quail are really working good you run outa 12 ga shells its 40 miles back to townwhat you gonna do...well ive come up with a pretty good idea...your buddy thats hunting with you is shooting a sixteen gauge and has a extra box he offers you....well most people know you dont shoot 16 ga shells in a chamber mate thats made for conversion for the 10 ga to 12 ga well heres the long and short of it...you can fire the 16 ga in the 12 ga chamber mates made for the ten ga....first take and cut the plastic from a 12 ga hullat the brass or steel end..then split the plastic hull lentgh wise...then you can slip the 12 ga plastic sleeve you just made over the 16 ga shell....then push the 16 ga shell into the chamber mate insert it into the10 ga gun...its a little tricky but you can now close the gun slowly your ready to get some more shots off...you can even do this with the 20 ga if you use the plastic from the 12 ga over a16 hull over a 20 ga shell....i fired a box of 16 ga shells in the old ten then a box of 20 ga also...youd be surprized at how good the patterns are of a 16 in the ten gun... and the 20 ga was had good patterns too....now i know most all of us carry enough shell and usally a extra gun...but hey sometimes things do happen like running out of shells in a ten or other gauge gun... heres a true example of this happening...my dad in 1959 went on his first turkey hunt in the BANKHEAD FORREST in the state of ALABAMA..he was hunting with a ten ga LEFEVER HAMERLLESS DOUBLE... he only took 6 shell said thats all he d need...he said turkey hunting was slow that morning but said the rattle snakes were out a plenty after using up 4 shells on the snakes he said he knew that he only had two rounds left but that was still enough for a turkey...well after dinner he saidthere wasa large hawk come by and his buddy said nows your chance to try that old ten out...this was back in the days when it was considered a quails or chickins a favor to dispatch a hawk... well my dad said he never thought about it being his last two shells yes he killed that hawk with the 2 nd shot and his friend said he could not believe the distance .....well he said now he was in a fix no body else hunting with a ten back then in fact most people had never seen one....well for a minute it looked like turkey hunting was over for him that day....his friend was hunting with a browning sweet sixteen....hed luckly had carried more shells than my dadmy dad borrowed some of them shells he cut the paper off the ten ga hull and yes he had to put a little paper arond theshell to make a good fit....well that evening he called up his first big tom and killed it with the 16 ga shell in the old ten...now he did not have a set of ga mates as i did but he was resoursefull and done the best he could...now theres a lot of ifs and maybes in this storey but there the chance this could happen to one of us... good luck with you hunting....charlie

[J. A. EARLY]

Charlie,

My father and his four brothers grew up during the depression. They all had single barrel guns back then. He told me that they did this all the time, cutting the outside of 12 GA hulls off the brass and putting them around 16 GA shells which were more popular then than now, and the 16 shell will hook on the 12 GA extractor. The did what they needed to do to put food on the table.

[MarketHunter]

An old timer down at home told me about something similar they did during the depression era. The only gun they had was an old Springfield 45-70 trap door rifle. To shoot rabbits they'd wrap newspaper around .410 shells and fit them into the gun.

He was raised down in Mississippi and had fun stories about shooting piles of blackbirds and an old black lady down the road making them into blackbird pie for them. Their mother found out they'd been eating blackbirds and threw a fit, saying they weren't that poor!

Destry

[Bill Murphy]

Some of us are not taking this thread seriously, but you can shoot 12s in a 10 all day long, without cardboard, without adapters, and without cut cases. Just lay the 12 gauge shell on the extractors, and slowly close the gun. The shells will center up and fire just fine. When opening the gun, hold the barrels high to make sure the shells don't slip over the extractors. I have borrowed a 12 or two when the action got a bit heavy on tame mallards at a friend's RSA in Dorchester County. Of course, fours and eights are not really banned yet in Dorchester, nor are all punt guns retired yet.

[charlie cleveland]

never tried it like you done bill but if i forget my chamber mates and have the 12 ga shells on a hunt i will trie it your way for sure... charlie

[Bill Murphy]

I shot some skeet with a ten I bought lately. I showed up for a Saturday morning get together at our skeet range and one of the guys just had see some shots fired in the new Parker ten. I didn't have any ten gauge shells so showed the interested group how to use 12 gauge shells in the 10 gauge gun. They were amazed and there were no comments about blowing up Damascus guns with improper ammunition loaded with that newfangled smokeless powder. When light 7/8 ounce loads are fired, hollow reports are common. However, when loads with consequence are used, the report is very much like it would be in a 12 gauge barrel. It all has to do with the expansion of the hull into the chamber walls on ignition.