Pappy's Porch....Hunting and other important stuff..Everything from birds to bulls, kids to pooches. Some things serious some just for fun - so come, settle in on Pappy's Porch and join the good times.
Fishtracks would like to introduce George "Pappy" Swan. This talented gentleman has a long and in-depth history of outdoor experience, both in the area of fish (work) and hunting (for fun).
I hope you enjoy his work as much as we have....All trademarks and copyrights held by respective owners.
2000-2006 all rights reserved.
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Pappy on growing older....real life with a smile!
At my appropriate shooting area, I paced off 30 yards and set up the box with a piece of butcher paper taped to it. I made a 3-inch diameter solid black spot in the center of the paper with the marker. I returned to my firing line, loaded one round, lined up and fired directly at the black mark. "Yep," it was still shooting 1.5 feet high and 1.5 feet left at 30 yards. Now comes the scientific and high tech part. I had to make the shotgun shoot low and right. I inserted the wooden doweling into the muzzle, wrapped the barrel in some cotton rags and inserted it into the aluminum tube, which I inserted into the square tube, trailer hitch receiver on old "Henry" my '81 Ford Pickup. Turning the barrel until the side that I wanted to bend toward faced straight up, I pulled up on the receiver and stock.
After removing the precision barrel straightening devices from the barrel, I fired another round at a new paper target. "Yahoo!" It worked. I continued to shoot and tweak until the gun was putting its pattern evenly around the black spot. Then I shot paper targets at 20 and 40 yards. Again, it was right on. I was in business The gun was shooting right where I pointed it. I again patterned it with Hevi-shot number sixes and was thoroughly amazed at the results.
The next spring, I again went turkey hunting. I killed a gobbler at 40 yards (He would not come closer although cordially invited) with the Hevi-shot load from "Old Bent Barrel" (I tend to name all of my guns and pickups I'm originally from Kansas). At the shot, that turkey pitched forward, landed face down, and never moved. I couldn't help but think of Old Frank, a friend of mine (he's a year older than me). Frank is a Farrier (a fancy name for a shoe salesman for horses) and still gets under several head of horses daily. But, Frank tells me that when his time comes, he wants to go face down in a corral full of horse apples. Frank loves his work.
Seriously, I don't recommend this method of corrective gunsmithing. It solved one problem for me but created another. The wooden doweling cracked when it gave into the pressure of bending the barrel. Now the choke tubes are a bit stubborn to screw in and out. I am probably going to leave the full choke tube in that barrel more or less permanently and dedicate "Old Bent Barrel" to turkey hunting. I have purchased a newer 870 and it shoots well and I will use it for waterfowl. Perhaps, if I had used a brass rod it might have preserved the roundness of the choke and muzzle area. At the very least, I had solved the problem of the crooked shooting shotgun. Since then, people occasionally ask if I know that my barrel is bent. I tell them, "Yep, it sure is."
Next month, Pappy recalls some adventures and misadventures in hunting with "primitive" muzzle loading rifles and shotguns.
Pappy
AKA George Swan
But when a shotgun is throwing its load that far off, compensating with Kentucky windage is not really the answer. Shooting at stationary targets, as in turkey hunting is one thing but it is most undesirable if not near impossible to try to compensate and hit a flying target consistently. Ideally, We want a shotgun that shoots where we point it without having to think about it. So what could I do about it? I could buy another shotgun and hope it shot well. I could buy another barrel and hope it solved the problem. And, I could mount a scope but I wanted to use the gun for bird hunting later. Or, I could do something wild and funky, and that is just what I did.
I had learned to shoot trap at the Wenatchee Gun Club a few years back. Eager to learn, I tried to listen to the old timer's (older than me) discussions. I recall one in which they talked about bending shotgun barrels to make them shoot more accurately. I had listened with interest and then dismissed it. But later, the bad shooting 870 would improve my recall. That was a period of time when I could not locate a local gunsmith. It seemed as if they had all gone out of business (permanently or temporarily), were in the process of moving, or had gone to that "Big Bench Rest In The Sky." RIP. So I decided to take the challenge. If the old timers could do it I could do it!
I carefully thought this out. The shotgun was shooting high and left. Therefore, all I had to do was bend the barrel low and right. Simple, I was amazed and stupefied at my problem solving ability. I began to round up the necessary equipment for my project: one old pickup truck complete with square tube, trailer hitch receiver, one 18-inch length of thick walled aluminum pipe, one 5/8-inch diameter wooden doweling in a length just a bit longer than my barrel, a pocketful of 12 gauge reloads, one standard extra large cardboard box, one batch of three foot square sheets of butcher paper, one roll of masking tape, one black marking pen, and one offending Remington 870 shotgun.
Pappy And Old "Bent Barrel" Finally Take A Tom
Last month, I described how "Kentucky Windage" had worked to take a turkey after I had determined just where the heck my shotgun was shooting. One sad and sobering fact was that I had been shooting that same old 870 for about fifteen years and had never patterned it. Why it was shooting so far off, I haven't a clue. The barrel was straight and true as near as I could tell. It began to sink in to my honored (senior) citizen brain that there had been a lot of misses along the way on ducks, geese, and pheasants and now I had a reason (or at least an excuse) for them.
All trademarks and copyrights held by respective owners.
2000-2005 all rights reserved.
