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Stan Hillis wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 8:41 pm
Being a lifelong waterfowler I have used a lot of loads, beginning with 1 1/8 oz. of #6 lead (before the lead ban) for beaver pond woodies. But, in all those years I've never fired a 1 7/8 oz. waterfowling load. Never saw the need. I have been able to cleanly kill all the big ducks I ever encountered with no more than 1 1/4 oz.. I once fired a 2 oz. turkey load out of a Mossberg pumpgun ............. one time. The owner wanted me to shoot it some more but I advised that i did not hate myself that much.
Maybe big geese need a 1 7/8 oz. load to kill them, I dunno. The only two I ever killed were both dish-ragged with "wood duck loads".
That Mossberg/Federal 3.5" marriage reminds me of the one Pacino wanted Keanu to join in the "Devil's Advocate"! Unholy is putting it lightly!!
The only thing that saved the 3.5" Twelve from an immediate death was the Super Black Eagle, the rest is an unfortunate history of crippling ducks/geese and running shotgun prices to the moon!
Like an immediate ban on spinning wings one can only imagine if it had died!!
From what I've found the 1 3/8-ounce 12-gauge, 3-inch, Super-X load (Nash's load) was 1295 fps. The 1 5/8-ounce Magnum load was 1205 fps, and the 1 7/8-ounce load was only 1100 fps. My info is a good 25 years old. Have more modern powders sped that 1 7/8-ounce load up any?
When I had my goose hunting lease at Bucktown, MD, I quickly found they were either coming in to the decoys gear down and locked or going by so high you couldn't reach them with a Magnum-Ten. An A5 Skeet Gun, a lady I carpooled with gave me after I helped her sell her late husband's thirty custom stocked pre-64 Model 70s, worked just fine. My best morning, I had my three Canadas on the ground 14, 18 and 21 steps from the blind and was at the bar at 2311 Wisconsin Avenue in time for lunch.
Thanks for the advice on the 1 7/8 ounce loads, Frank and others. I'll add them to my obsolete shell collection. By the way, a "sight I can't unsee" is Dave Noreen at the Good Guys Club in DC, dressed in camo, watching naked dancers, in the middle of the day.
Back in the day that 3-inch/1-7/8 ounce load was heavily promoted along with the Remington 1100 Magnum, and both were well respected at least here in the northeast in the pre-non tox days. Many locals would head to Canada for honkers whether Canadas or Blues/Snows along with ducks, and the border crossings were easily done even with a full case (500) of the 3-inchers hiding under the hunting gear, as in the boot of my Ford convertible. I don't remember anyone bringing regular 1-1/4 ounce high brass loads on those hunts; and in prep for one trip when for some reason the 1-7/8 ouncers were in short supply a friend who went on to became CEO of the largest distributor in the east called in a favor from his contacts at Remington. In those far simpler days the border agents were generally welcoming and interested in where we were going, or later, how the hunting went. No registration of duck guns going or coming. Although on one trip the CAN agent asked if we had uncooked potatoes and we had to leave several bags at the crossing, adding to literally tons of bagged potatoes already there in front of the office area. He wryly told us they didn't want US dirt (with some bacteria then prevalent) in Canada. Our magic place was far north on the western shore of James Bay at the lower reach of Hudson Bay and that involved driving to the end of the road in Ontario and taking the train a day's ride farther north and then freighter canoes on the river and out to camps in the hunting area. One trip in particular always comes up when my friends and I reminisce, when one of our guys Joe ..... [edit-reworded] really stepped out with the RR track work crew and most of those riding with us in the passenger car. Far simpler times! Anyway. the Cree guides would make decoys using turned up sod with necks/heads made of white styrofoam from instrument packing crates discarded by the nearby CAN military NORAD station and the geese would come in like B52's when the guides mimicked feeding geese with their mouths, no blow in type calls. Also plenty of shooting with ducks darting by in singles and small flocks. Those 1-7/8 ounce loads did fine work, the limit was liberal and the locals who dressed/froze the birds would sell the feather down to the Hudson Bay Company store there in town. Our gang would bring back our possession limits for a gratis community dinner at the local bar where we hung out, a change of pace from the "venison dinners" that were also a local tradition at the taverns after deer season. Those waterfowl dinners would bring in 150 or so people to Billy's place and just for the nominal cost of drinks. All this quite a change from today's world and I'm happy I came along at a place and time when I was able to experience things like this. Those were the days for sure. Yea nowadays we're saddled with non tox and otherwise heavily restricted but I hear some will still push the envelope. frank
Some vintage 1-5/8 and 1-7/8 ounce shells. Those in the second pic rode in my Olds 442 to Canada and returned many moons ago; still have a small stash of them. Wish I still had that 442.
Last edited by Silvers on Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
Frank's post got me up to check what was left in my stash of 3-inch lead 12-gauge shells. Back in 1974 when I was stationed in Alaska my friend Kelley and I bought two cases of Winchester Super-X 12-gauge, 3-inch, 1 5/8-ounce, one #4 and one #6, and split them. I see I still have two full boxes of each.
I also have two boxes of 1 7/8-ounce loads I bought in anticipation of using my Model 12 Heavy Duck at Bucktown, but never needed it as explained above.
By the time I moved from goose hunting on the Eastern Shore to shooting resident Canadas in Loudoun & Fauquier Counties, Virginia, I was using bismuth.
I checked my stash and I still have a pretty big supply of stout Winchester Super X 12's in 4, 5 & 6 shot. 5 of the boxes in the picture are 1.5 ounce loads in 4 shot.
But I always felt that if you were needed to go that big you should always have a big 10 on hand.
Nothing like 2 ounces of lead back in the day when legal for decoy shy honkers!
Last edited by ROMAC on Sun Jul 17, 2022 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Somehow, the sound of a shotgun tends to cheer one up" -- Robert Ruark
Fowlgunner, my two boxes of 1 7/8 ounce lead are late Remington boxes, probably the last of the lead waterfowl loads. I bought them at our club swap meet last month. They will probably never be shot.
Those shells would be very popular with guys going coyote calling. I've seen plenty of want ads for what were once considered big goose loads by guys that are going after coyotes.
"Somehow, the sound of a shotgun tends to cheer one up" -- Robert Ruark
I just read this article on the newly developed Dupont no. 93 powder concerning patterning results in a Lewis and a "Special" Fox gun. It is absolutely a great read for those of us interested in this waterfowl load stuff.
Copied from a post by Drew Hause on the DGJ forum, with full credit to him for finding and posting it originally.
eightbore wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 2:38 pm
Fowlgunner, my two boxes of 1 7/8 ounce lead are late Remington boxes, probably the last of the lead waterfowl loads. I bought them at our club swap meet last month. They will probably never be shot.
Bill,
Are they Express Magnum, Nitro-Magnum, or Premier Magnum?
Only the Premier were buffered and copper plated.
They would also be the slowest and most likely highest pressure loads of the three.
frank
