doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Freak event on a dove field

Consider that it doesn't take many pieces of shot to decapitate a dove and that patterns are highly variable. I think you had the sorta "reverse hole" in your pattern and it happened to occur on the dove's neck. Unlucky dove. A rare event, but nothing outside the limits of normal probability. I doubt there was any other unusual happening within the shot.

DDA

Stan,
In his book The Modern Shotgun, Volume 3 pages, 74-77 Burrard reviews the condition that you experience on the dove field ,under the heading, "Balling".Burrard reviews the reasons for this problem. He gives details of a serious accident that occurred when a passer by was hit by a cluster of balled 6 shot at a distance of 133 yards. The result was a serious facial injury. The same shot killed the original quarry a pheasant!
Several years ago whilst Woodcock hunting I experienced a freak occurrence. I shot at a rising woodcock at approx. 25 yards ,The bird disintegrated; with the wings floating to earth like falling leaves! At that time I was shooting reloads of 7 1/2 shot in Remington shells with plastic wads. The bore of the barrel was cylinder. Clearly the wad had not stripped on discharge hence the result observed.

This happened to me opening day here in Indiana. 30" Cylinder choke 14ga shooting recently purchased factory 16ga 1oz #6 shot. It wasn't a particularly close shot, ~25 yds give or take. To me, this would prove that shot alone could decapitate a dove. Had this been 1/2" further back on the bird I feel pretty confident that it would have been two separate pieces hitting the ground.

I once killed and cleaned a ruffed grouse that my dog put up. The thing was in a Kamikaze mode, and I shot when it was about 10-15 yds away--cloud of feathers, and thought nothing left, probably. Picked up the bird, and there was only the breast, head and wings, the guts and tail was gone! One pellet in the breast, cylinder barrel, 12ga.

I had a similar thing happen 2x, both on pheasants.

The first time, I had a bird get up about 10 yd away and I was very quick on the shot. It folded with some odd feathers floating down. On picking it up, I noted the whole 1 1/4 oz of #4 from the modified barrel of my 12ga had hit it squarely in the vent and it was totally cleaned out. No pellets anywhere else in the bird.

The second time, another pheasant got up close and I hit it between 10 and 15 yd away with 1 oz of #6 from the modified barrel of my 16ga. It had most of the neck gone with only the trachea holding the head on. One pellet stuck in the skin of the back where someone using #5 plated had wounded it.

Happens.

OK, as Russ was prone to say, "I could be mistaken" or in my own vernacular, "I could be wrong."

I'm aware of a too quickly & closely shot pheasant two years ago that was simply eviscerated as Dave describes & I've also seen dove disappeared mid air w/no more then the wings wafting down toward the ground afterwards. No prolly about those shots; it was more than the wad that hit them.

That's why I like tight chokes in my 12 bore game guns- "You've about had all the thrills in wingshooting when you see your quarry, well centered, crumple in the air and drop earthward" T. N. Buckingham "The Dove"--

So I wonder how often it is that when we miss those close shots, and are left to say "WTF?," it is actually because the wad failed to open, as evidenced by these stories of eviscerated birds? Maybe it is a small number, but likely more than we might otherwise expect. I am sure the ammo makers won't share any information they have on the percentage of plastic wads that fail to open. I guess that is one advantage of fiber wads.

So now I have a new story for when I miss the close ones - "Damn wad didn't open up!"

Quick story. Several years ago I was duck hunting with a buddy with my Golden Abby. In came a mallard flying. My buddy pulled up using hevi-shot and made a passing shot as the duck was flying directly over us. Distance maybe 15 yards. Just as he fired the duck flew above the tree canopy and we lost sight. Heard the thud behind us and my Golden was gone. Came back with the duck in its mouth with a missing head and brought it to my hand. Blood was still spewing out as she brought it to hand. After I took the bird from her mouth she took off again. 30 seconds later she returned with the ducks head in her mouth. She was one amazing retriever. Miss her every day as she passed about 2 months ago at the age of 14.

Learned when I was about 12 or 13 not to shoot game too close with a shotgun. Rabbit ears with a strip of skin and a tail just don't make a good meal and my dad was quick to correct me for it. Just a big waste of good food. Some shot is imbedded in the wads frequently. Such heavy wads can do considerable damage. Wads with or without imbedded shot generally don't fly to point of aim so a dove struck with just a wad does not mean there was balled shot. Read about a couple guys who mistakenly loaded shotgun slug loads and hit birds that way. As I recall they were carrying the slug loads because they were in grizzly country.