Despite it being a lifetime desire I have only had a side-by-side shotgun as an everyday duck gun for two seasons. Between 1985 and early 1987 I hunted ducks with a Savage Fox B gun with 28” M/F barrels, double triggers and extractors. I shot 1¼ ounces of #5 magnum lead shot hand-loaded into Remington-Peters “blue magic” hulls. It was a wonderful couple of years. I went from shooting poorly, at best, with a Remington 1100 to shooting my first ever dead-in-the-air double on the first day I carried the cheap double on a duck hunt. It was when we still had the experimental October season and I hammered a pair of wood ducks that decoyed to a pair of Victors. I had my boat hidden under a fallen cypress tree that still sits, basically unchanged, after more than 30 years.
I learned a lot about hunting with a double from that gun. I learned about a cut and bruised trigger finger when shooting a heavy load from the left barrel. I learned about the panic of trying to free an empty hull from a stubborn chamber while a crippled duck is swimming off. I learned to not trust a “snap-on” forearm and realized there had to be something better than pressed checking.
It was only a brief affair but I loved that cheap gun and saw past its flaws even the rather oblong, odd-angled and offset pattern of the full choke barrel. Before the third season rolled around, the federal government conspired with the SCDNR to force me to switch to steel shot starting with the 1987-88 duck season. The brief but torrid affair with the Savage was over. Without a steel-compatible duck hunt I had some gun shopping to do.
The 1986 Browning catalog pointed to only one gun that was both a double and steel-shot capable but…it was an over and under. I must admit that I had been fascinated by O/Us ever since a man named Stafford had the audacity to bring a Christmas Superposed on a deer hunt in the lower Santee swamp. Fascination or not I had no choice so I bit the bullet. I found out that I was a decent shot with the Citori and now, 33 years later it’s still my go-to gun. I’ve killed 30 species of waterfowl with that gun along with woodcock, snipe, rail, winning some skins money in a clays tournament, a lot of dove, a few wild quail and a very memorable sharptail grouse. Even with that I still couldn’t shake the image of my Papa with his G-grade Parker and a post-depression turkey. I was haunted by my great-uncle’s unexpected gift of a side-by-side popgun when I was just five. Those impressionable years left a mark that I just couldn’t shake.
I bought a Parker Brothers VHE 20 years ago and tried to fall in love but I just couldn’t. The then affordable Kent Impact loads were easy on the Full and Fuller chokes but deadly in ducks. Don’t be fooled – Kent Impacts are the equivalent of lead but at nearly $50 for a box of 10, my pragmatic senses just won’t let me enjoy a modern morning out with the Parker. Besides the old VHE has horrible dimensions. I don’t think I ever seen the barrels when swinging the gun. It has never felt right and the sight picture is atrocious. There is no magic with that gun even after killing a fine black drake on an upstate duck hunt. It’s been a safe queen ever since and I probably need to sell it.
In keeping with my once-a-decade attempt to remedy the lack of an everyday duck double I bought a 12 gauge Browning BSS Hunter in 2009. I got a really good deal because it was a Frankengun – made up from the barrels from one BSS gun and the receiver and fore end from another. The previous owner had taken it to a hack gunsmith in an attempt to fit the barrels and forearm. The gun’s fit and finish is as perfect as new but the hack left or maybe created a more serious problem that I would find out about later.
Over that summer I bought a flat of Bis-maxx, a bismuth-based soft non-toxic waterfowl load that is safe for use in old and tight choked guns, and a case each of two densities of Fiocchi soft tungsten. These new loads plus some Kent Impact loads that I had been hoarding for use in the Parker were all a good match with the gun’s modified and full barrels. I dedicated the entire 2009-10 duck season to killing every duck with a side-by-side. It was a somewhat frustrating season. As much as I like the look and feel of the big BSS, I don’t seem to always shoot it well and it would occasionally shoot itself open and knock the forearm off. The real but infrequent problem showed itself at the worst possible times. I don’t think it ever cost me a duck but I just can’t tolerate a waterfowl gun that’s not reliable.
Even with the occasional problem, I managed a couple of good days in 2009-10 including a dead-in-the-air double on redheads, a very dead swan, and a last day limit. I killed a banded woody with the BSS and made one of my favorite dead duck pictures with the gun and some Bismaxx loads. Still there were a lot of misses and some cripples that haunt me so bad that I still don’t want to talk about it. I learned about soft non-toxic loads too.
Over the course of the 2009-10 season, I killed ducks with the Parker, the then new BSS and my “bird” gun, a 20 gauge BSS. All of these guns require soft non-toxic loads. The Kent Impacts in 12 or 20 gauge are trustworthy and deadly but the bismuth and Fiocchi tungsten loads, even the “high density” Fiocchis, lack knock down power.
At the end of the 2009-10 season I had to face the hard reality that I had an untrustworthy gun that shoots expensive and ineffective loads. For nine years I had two side-by-side safe queens sitting side-by-side in my safe as reminders that I still didn’t have the everyday duck double.
I decided to change that last summer. I pulled the big Browning out of the safe and filed a cheap screwdriver’s blade to perfectly fit the screws in the gun’s forearm. I removed the wood and reassembled the gun. I could finally see the problem – the barrel lugs where too short to fit properly in the latch. Rather than risk another hatchet job I took the barrels to a welder and had him lengthen the lugs. It was a very course welding job so I had to spend some time on the bench with a hacksaw, Dremel, and some jewelers files. It is a fine piece of gunsmithing, if I do say so myself, and only served to extend my fondness for the gun – kind of like killing ducks over homepainted decoys. More importantly it worked. I took the gun out and shot some 3” turkey loads and the latch stayed tight but I still had two problems – I can’t shoot it and the necessary loads are either prohibitively expensive or expensive and inefficient.
I approached the “can’t shoot” problem first. I took the gun and the BisMaxx loads on a wood duck hunt. If morning woodies can’t test a shooting problem, nothing can. I shot three times and killed three ducks including a dead-in-the-air double on woodies with a banded hen. I made it four-for-4 with a late morning, mach-2 bufflehead. I have confidence in the gun but regardless of the morning’s performance of bismuth, I still don’t trust the soft stuff.
I solved that problem too. I just got the gun back from Briley after having steel-capable VX tubes installed in the gun making it ready to shoot my favorite #2 Fasteel loads. The 2019-20 season can’t get here soon enough.
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