First hunt w/my A grade

[Dalgo]

First hunt with my newly acquired Fox A grade. That's me on the right w/Rusty the wonder Brittany. Rusty did a superb job at finding, flushing, and fetching. The Fox performed beautifully. Loads used were RST's Pheasant 1 1/4 oz. #6 shot. Location was Martz's Game farm in Dalmatia, PA. Date was Saturday, November 17, and a gorgeous day it was. Couldn't ask for more perfect weather.

[Silvers]

Pierre, I'll bet that old Fox raised some eyebrows on your buds with their gas gun and o/u's. My friends are already used to me bringing a SxS, usually a Fox. But one waterfowl guide "Billy" last year commented before the hunt, "Oh I see you brought Old Nellie". Well it didn't take him 1/2 hour after shooting time to ask to see and handle Nellie the old vixen. Well anyway, it sounds and looks like you had a great time. Thanks for posting. So what did you think of the RST pheasant loads? Silvers

[Dalgo]

Ha, ha. It did raise eyebrows! I guess because it is an older gun, and SXSs are not common, they looked upon it with schepticism - at first. When it started knocking birds out of the sky with those RST Pheasant loads, the jokes changed to wow's and positive comments on side-by's. In handling the gun they conceded that the Fox balanced so much better than any of their guns. BTW, my buddy's auto (left, in the pic here) was the gun that jammed while shooting at clays, causing me to take it to the gun shop to get it unstuck, which resulted in my running accross that beautiful Fox in the first place. My buddy now wants to start looking for a SXS. He just loves the way it balances and swings. In fact, the guys all want to shoot the Fox at some clays "just to see what it feels like."

The RST Pheasant loads performed wonderfully - when I did my part. I'm really happy with them. Recoil was unnoticable, but, I had a couple of layers of clothes on, and in the heat of a hunt one neither notices recoil nor noise. #6 shot appear to be more than adequate for pheasant. I might order some #5s at some point just to try them out, and see if they perform any better. Probably won't be any different. You hit them right, and they go down. Federal Prairie Storms? Ha! Those RST low pressure Pheasant loads are plenty.

Thanks for your comments, Frank,

Pierre

[MARSHFELLOW]

Dalgo,

well said, "you hit them right, they go down".....I suspect you wont see much of a difference between 6's & 5's like you mention. RST makes great stuff for us for sure.

tjw

[Dalgo]

Marshfellow, probably not. I suppose a patterning board will bring out a preference from the gun. I'm still having a hard time understanding low pressure vs high pressure. I have been shooting prairie storm or equivalent high brass loads that kick the snot out of you. Other than the lack of recoil, the low pressure RST rounds seem to hit just as hard. What am I missing (don't say the recoil, lol)? A few extra yds (I thought choke took care of that). I'd love to understand the theory behind all this. Shooting the little 2 1/2" Falcon Ultra Lites, smoked clays just fine, and like I mentioned, the 2 3/4" pheasant loads did great. And, surprise, the RST pheasant loads are half the price of the Prairie Storms! So much for vintage specialty shells costing through the nose. I realize one thing, though, there is so much I need to learn about all this. How fun!