I take a lot of crap because I don’t like shotguns. I’m OK with that. The thing is there are essentially two types of shooters in this world, rifle shooters and shotgun shooters. Rifle shooters can shoot or at least understand how, shotguns shooters can’t or just don’t want to try very hard.
That statement probably ruffled a few feathers and shotgun shooters should relate to that. Lots of times when they shoot at birds – the preferred and only really justifiable shotgun target – that’s all they do; ruffle some feathers. This feather ruffling comes from the inability of the shotgun to actually do anything other than go bang on a consistent basis.
You see shotguns are designed to help you miss and then give you an excuse for doing it. A turkey bird comes in strutting at 25 yards and from a seated position you manage to miss that turkey bird with not one but hundreds of pellets. If you had a rifle and missed it with hundreds of bullets the only explanation would be that you are an idiot or blind. But, do it with a shotgun and everyone understands. They’ll even say things like, “Yep, it happens.”
Why would a hunter intentionally go to the woods with one of them “it happens” weapons? Here I must submit to the greatest rifle shot of all time – Natty Bumppo AKA Hawkeye – who once said, “…“but if there is a law at all, it should be to keep people from the use of smooth-bores. A body never knows where his lead will fly, when he pulls the trigger of one of them uncertain fire-arms.” Editor’s note: If you are a shooter and do not know who Natty Bumppo is you are forever doomed to the inconsistency of a scattergun.
For those who do not completely understand the shotgun, let me explain. The shotgun throws a pattern of bullets – pellets – and those individual pellets never land in the same place. This causes shotgun shooters to spend hours doing something called “patterning.” This is mostly a waste of time because in reality all they are doing is trying to predict the unpredictable. It’s kind of like trying to understand how women think.
I learned this at about age five when my father took me squirrel hunting. Dad was a shotgun shooter but not by choice. It was the only gun he had. He armed me with a little break action shotgun and one morning while sitting at his feet under a hickory tree, I fired a box of shells at squirrels. Never killed one. Hell, I never even hit one.
On the way back to camp I asked if I could borrow Grandpa’s pump .22 for the next hunt. I did and after that the squirrels knew my name and I never looked back.
Of course the trend now with turkey hunters is to try to turn their shotgun into a rifle. They strive for the load and choke combination that will put all the pellets in a single hole at 25 yards. They also endure intense recoil in an effort to pull something off that can easily be done with a rifle or even a pistol. They are, if I must be so bold, missing the point. Editor’s Note: Some turkey shotguns kick as hard as dangerous game rifles. Turkeys just aren’t as mean as lions, tigers and bears.
All joking aside, the shotgun is a weapon designed to compensate for the point of aim (POA) point of impact (POI) error. In other words it throws a pattern so that if your aim is a bit off your target will still be covered with the spread of the pattern. The idea is not to make a small pattern, the ideal shotgun blast makes a pattern of a decent size but most importantly, the entire pattern area is covered uniformly.
Unbelievably, on rare occasions you run across that guy or gal who can shoot a shotgun and a rifle with equal grace and precision. I’m not one of those folks but my dad was like that and so is my son. This is not a testament to the scattergun or an admission of its usefulness; it only goes to show that there are some exceptional individuals in this world. I’m not one of those people.
I do believe however that if you would like to teach the average human how to cuss and develop the ultimate profane vocabulary all you need to do is give them a shotgun and a couple boxes of shells. Editor’s note: Empty-Cases hereby coins the phrase, “Cuss like a shotgun shooter.”
I don’t like shotguns. I do own a Mossberg 590. I keep it around because it always goes bang and just in case I might need to miss something and need an excuse for doing so.
