I am still trying to figure out what happened opening day, Saturday before last, on the dove field. I mentioned the event briefly in another post, but can't seem to get it out of my mind.
I was shooting a new to me Verona 30" O/U .410 with two fixed full choke barrels. I had previously patterned the gun with 2 1/2" loads to look at the point of impact of both barrels, as it seemed to be stocked a bit high for me. The patterns at 30 yards were what I expected for full chokes, and regulation was good. So, I bought a few boxes of Remington 3" loads, 7 1/2s at 1135 fps and took it to the dove field that Saturday afternoon. I was working towards my limit of 15 pretty well when a dove came from right to left, almost a 90 degree crosser, well within my range. I swung and shot, and immediately noticed a small object in the air off to the right side of the dove, and watched as they both hit the ground. Wondering what it was, I never took my eyes off it until I reached the bird. To my amazement I was looking at the dove's head laying on the ground some 5 ft. from it's obviously lifeless decapitated body. Upon closer examination, the dove's body was not excessively shot up, nor it's head. They were just completely separated from each other. I went back to my stool, sat down and began to wonder what had just occurred. I got back up and stepped off the distance from my stand to the spot it fell, calculating a distance from gun to bird in the air of 23 yards. Understand, I clearly saw the dove's head leave it's body upon impact of the payload.
I am very blessed to have taken many thousands of doves in my lifetime, here and abroad, but have never witnessed anything like this. I have taken 39 doves with that little gun so far this season. None of them were mangled or damaged due to too tight a pattern or too close a distance, though some were taken at distances as close as 15 yards.
What do you think happened? Is it possible for a load to stay in a wad for that distance and impact like a slug, due to some aberration in the loading procedure? These were new shells, never exposed to water or any other weather extreme. It sounded and felt like every other load I have shot out of those four boxes I bought. The hull looked just like all the others with no difference detectable in the hull mouth.
What do my brothers in arms think?
Clueless In The Country, SRH
