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What Happened to the 8-Bore Shotgun?

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  By Worth Mathewson In 1913, the very   important Weeks-McLean Migratory Bird Act was passed by Congress. The principal aim was to outlaw market hunting and to protect non-game birds. A part of this  Act was to outlaw the use of guns larger than the 10 bore. The aim was to put an end to punt guns, but of course it took the 8 and 4 bores with it. (Four bores are not punt guns; they are shot off the shoulder.) But in reality, the ban on 8 bores wasn’t necessary.   While 8 bores were used by some market hunters early on, by the late 1890s, they had turned to pumps and autos. The old 8s were interesting guns. In England they were greatly favored for waterfowl, especially geese, over the 10 bore. The standard 8 was chambered for 3-1/4 inch shells. Most of these basic 8s weighed about 12 pounds. But it was also made with 3-1/2, 3-3/4 and 4-inch chambers. The massive 4-inch guns weighed up to 18 pounds, and shot up to 3 ounces, the standard load for 4 bores. Very likely...
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The First ... Prelude to the Last

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Essay by GORDY GORDON, Editor/Publisher Sumner, Missouri, October 1963. You think this is a photo of a beginning. It's not. Men at left and right, respectively, were my adopted uncles, Ray and Randy. That's a somewhat excited young Gordy at center. And yes that is my first goose. Moments beforehand, it fell to my shot. I had fired from a concrete pit in the ground so deep that I had to stand on a wooden box to see out and shoot. Now, my Dad was a Waterfowler, through and through. He chose the location where I grew up based heavily on the fact it was smack-dab in the center of duck and goose hunting grounds. And perhaps it was Dad's adult lifetime of wishing and hoping and working toward this moment that essentially willed my shot and the goose to collide in a burst of fate some 24 yards east of where three men and a boy huddled within the goose pit. A generation or two earlier, famed outdoorsman and conservation pioneer Aldo Leopold had -- and wrote about -- the exp...
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A Rio Grande Bonus by GARY R. ZAHM

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The main flight of ducks had stopped and thinking the morning’s hunt was finished, Nels and I excited the pit blind.   Wading into the shallows and starting the task of decoy retrieval, we heard the faint, far-off music from incoming honkers.   Quickly, we splashed our way to the blind and changed over to Winchester Super-X 2’s.   Onward they came, 16 big, white-cheeked bombers on steady wings, 250 yards out and 40 yards above the latte-colored river channel.   I flattened myself against the shadowed pit wall, daring not to move as I peered beneath a layer of natural grass laid atop the ring of excavated soil. Using his Herter’s Numara Canada goose call, Dad sent out a perfect, goose-attracting riff!       AH-OOO, AH-OOO, AH-OOO!   The lead gander responded, banking his flock toward our setup.   The slight variation in   flight pattern looked as if it would bring them just over the outer edge of our decoy spread.   The final, slow-m...
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