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I've never really noticed this on any of my 12-bores before but... on sub-gauge guns I occasionally center a bird and it still flies off. I've had it happen twice today and once yesterday. In the past I somewhat blamed the ammo (7/8 ounce 16-bore loads) but these were 1-ounce RSTs. Today was a fairly blatant example where everything around the bird was clearly impacted and it escaped anyway, seemingly unscathed, with not a feather out of place (at least none I could later find). Ruffed grouse are exceedingly thin-skinned creatures in my experience and don't normally require a very hard hit to be taken, so I can't really explain it adequately to myself. I closely examined my normally-lethal Brummie 16 tonight for any visual clues as to what might be happening and then scrubbed the bejesus out of the tubes on my weapon. I will head out again tomorrow but....my faith is a bit shaken. If I hadn't already bagged several birds I would be even more concerned but...
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