What most people don't understand is that those longer shells were long to give more wadding as much as to deliver a heavier payload. Before plastic wads came into heavy use in the 60's getting tight patterns was much harder to achieve. We often fight too tight patterns where they were always fighting to make them tighter.
This is so true, and a fact of history, but the why of it is what is so intriguing to me. I believe it is because of a change in the shotgunners, from then to now. From what I can read and understand there was a striving for excellence in shotgunning, in the bygone days, that no longer exists in many ways. Those shotgunners set unbelievable records at shooting matches around the world. They strove for better,
and tighter, patterns because they believed they were able to utilize them to kill game more efficiently. And they
were able to. Because ...... they worked at their sport, or their "craft" as was the case with the top shooters. They used single and two shot guns, and they hated to waste a shell with a miss.
Contrast that attitude with today's attitude of the average shotgunner. The average shotgunner today cannot hit what he's shooting at, flying, 30% of the time. And, the worst part, and the part that pertains to this diatribe,
he doesn't care !!! Buy more shells, shoot more times at the bird with a semiautomatic, and complain to the others after the shoot, I just can't hit anything. Hell no you can't, because you don't ever try to improve. Misses are caused by mistakes. If you don't go to the trouble to get someone to help you find out what those mistakes are you will keep right on making them. Almost nobody really works at improving their shotgunning. They just complain and accept that missing 70% of the time is the best they can do.. I see this at the club everytime I go. The same guys, who are not handicapped in any physical way, seem okay just to miss over and over and over. And come right back next week to do the same, again.
And, not only the realm of shotgunning, but American society in general. America has been "dumbing down" for many years ....... accepting mediocre performance in all areas as "good enough". Compare the m/l baseball players physiques to those of 40-100 years go. Many pitchers are so badly overweight it's embarrassing. How about education? We won't even go there, but suffice it to say that we have created an atmosphere in America where lackadaisical performance is perfectly alright, even encouraged in some areas in the name of "acceptance of all". I am afraid this has crept into shotgunning, and is now getting firmly implanted.
So, what's the upshot of all this? Most people today do not believe that a target, or a dove, or a duck can be cleanly taken at the ranges our forefathers regularly killed them ........
with inferior ammunition!! We opt for more open patterns to make up for our inability to place that pattern where it should be. We have the best guns and ammo ever produced, capable of the best shotgunning ever known to man ...... but we can't, for the most part utilize it. Sad commentary indeed.
SRH
