We all know what shot is--those little round lead pellets that come in two sizes, the size you need and the size you probably have with you.
Having the right size shot is as rare as having the right kind of fly--rarer, really, because 25 shotshells weigh a little more and take up more room than 25 Olive Duns. What happens is that we've all read the charts put out by the ammunition companies and, trusting dreamers that we are, we believe them. Now that's fair, provided you believe them in the calm air of the hardware store or the gunshop, because they work there. Where they don't work like that is in a duck marsh, for example.
Let's say you've read X number of articles by the wise sages who speak from experience well exhibited by their wind-creased smiles that circle gnarled brier pipes. The Sage talks knowingly of No. 6 shot being the cat's pajamas for decoying broadbills. You put your magazine down and ask your wife, as soon as she finishes patching your hippers, not to forget that you want a couple boxes of 6s out of her reloader. About 3-1/4, 1-1/4 should be fine.
"No 4s?" she asks.
"No 4s," you tell her patiently, "I've just finished a piece by a guy who knows all there is to know about shot sizes, and he's convinced me." You continue, as she puts another log on the fire and freshens your drink, "I'm sure he's right. You remember last year when I told you about missing those ducks--easy crossing shots they were too, off Cedar Island--well I had 4s then. Too open a pattern; 6s would have done the job."
Saturday morning finds you in a blind facing 40 lovely bluebill decoys, placed in a classic hook layout. Perfect, right? Wrong! Oh, there are plenty of birds alright, but they're out there about 54 yards. Just exactly where 6s quit and good heavy 4s are just the ticket. But we all know where the 4s are--sitting in neat rows over your wife's reloading bench.
Actually the problem isn't as impossible as it used to be. It's still difficult, but things are looking up. The late Cliff Baldwin, who once worked as a road man for Remington, told me that he had to carry (this is back in the 20s) BBs, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s, 10s, and 12s. Both in drop and chilled shot for the most part. And in various dram equivalents. And in 8-gauge, 10-gauge, 12-gauge, 14-gauge, 16-gauge, 20-gauge, 24-gauge, 28-gauge, .410s and--for the true small-bore gentlemen--32-gauge.
You wanted a 2-dram, 1-ounce load of 8s for your 12-gauge woodcock gun? No problem. How about 2 ounces of No. 3 in copper shot in your 10-gauge? Right! Just the ticket for 60-yard Canadas.
And you couldn't stump Cliff with your own ideas on what might be the money load for a live-bird shoot at the old Chalfont traps. If you decided that 3-1/2 drams of No. 7 copper shot were what you wanted for the choke barrel and 3-1/4 drams of 8-1/2s were an absolute necessity for the first shot--why, there were plenty of ammunition companies ready and willing to turn out a few cases for you--if your shooting ability was a respectable advertisement.
Shot and loads weren't the only consideration, either, that kept many an old gunner muttering to himself and his Lucky Strike bred pointer. There were plenty who wouldn't bet a good chew on their chances if they didn't have Laflin & Rand powder. And plenty of others who wouldn't pull a trigger unless it set off a good charge of Audubon or Du Pont or Robinhood or Hazard's Ducking No. 1.
Yessir, those were the good old days. When a man could start a fight or bet a Connecticut-built Derby hat about the qualities of greased felt wads, cardboard wads, hair wads, cork or linen wads--their combination, number, size, and the order they were placed in the shell.
I figure that a man with a Grade A Parker who set out to buy a season's worth of partridge loads just didn't walk into the feed store and ask for a box of light 7s. That wouldn't have any style. He wouldn't have felt right about it.
He would have spent some time over a Mason jar of homemade apple and discussed the whole thing with his shell man. Where was he going to hunt the whole months of October and November? How were his Llewellin setters working out? Did it look like a late fall or an early one? Plenty of young birds or a scattering of old wise ones? A variety of odds and ends were weighed and measured, the order placed, and in due time handsome and colorful wooden cartons filled with shells packed in boxes adorned with the work of a fine artist arrived. They hefted right, and the long polished brass bases gleamed with efficiency. And all that season, after each shot, he carefully blew out the remaining heavy smoke from each barrel and inhaled the pungent perfume with deep satisfaction, before sending the dogs for his fallen partridge.
Now I know, I suppose, that the shells I can buy at the filling station are fine, but somehow I miss the serious give-and-take of the old days. And suppose I want 7s or 3s. I can't have them. I've got to settle for 8s or 7-1/2s or 8-1/2s or 9s or 2s or 4s. But I've got one advantage over the gentleman with the Grade A. I have to make do with what's around--and he didn't. We can come home drooling marsh ooze on the floor and console ourselves with beaten homemade biscuits and a long discussion with the Better Half on how different things might have been if the grocery store had carried the 5s we wanted instead of having had to make do with 4s or 6s.
Just as there is no perfect shotgun, except somebody else's, the perfect shot size is most likely to be the one we don't have with us--just as we rarely have the right choke for the job at hand.
I'm sure somewhere it must be written that when I go ducking with my full choke and heavy 4s I will have no shots over 22 yards. And no need to get a headache guessing what happens when I'm ready, improved and modified, with a coat full of 7-1/2s.
I have come to believe that if the biblical Job lived close to fine woodcock cover, the day he chose 9s, he wouldn't get one flush under 40 yards.
One thing for sure, there's no right answer. And that's what is so much fun. Somehow I seem to sleep better in a gunning camp when the last words I hear, before dreaming of a perfect double on quail, are about drop shot versus chilled and light 8s versus three drams of 9s.
This story originally appeared in Hill Country by Gene Hill. Copyright (c) 1974-78 Gene Hill. All rights reserved.
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