The Shockwave and low recoil buckshot score again!

Brobee

Brobee

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As my first-gun-ever was a shotgun and it's what I used to get my first big game animal, I've always had a fascination with shotguns. So much so that every hunting season for the past several years I've had a gas making a shotgun deer hunting video for my YouTube channel. For my project this year I decided to use my Mossberg Shockwave to compare the effectiveness of "managed" recoil 00 buckshot with that of regular 00.

Before I can cut my final video I still have to go hunt antlerless deer in December (we have an AWESOME season for this here in Alberta!), but as I've shared some pics from my first successful hunt in another thread, I thought I might share some stills from my recent second successful "managed" recoil short-barrelled shotgun. I've been studying the deer hard, and a couple nights ago it all came together where I punched my general season supplemental antlerless tag:

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So now that I've got two deer with the Remington Managed Recoil 00, I'm waiting on the December Foothills Deer season to start so I can chase some deer using Hornady's American Gunner 00 Reduced Recoil and Hornady's Critical Defence 00.

Can't wait!

Cheers,

Brobee
 
Crazy. I don't hunt, but I have that exact gun in that exact configuration and I can't believe someone is using it for more than just spraying lead at the range.
 
bunny said:
How far away was the deer when you dropped it, did it run far after the shot?
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I was in a pretty interesting spot - a grain field which had been combined, the straw blown out the back of the combine into swaths/piles. There was still quite a bit of grain in the straw and the whitetail were going for it heavy. The deer were bedding in some aspen & buckbrush just on the other side of the fence at the edge of the field, and there was a rockpile about 50 meters into the field with some good tall grass & weeds around it's periphery. The rock pile was on a bit of a slope and I was betting the deer would come out into the field along the bottom of a draw that was about 20 yards from the edge of the rock pile. So I hid myself in the weeds along the edge of the rock pile and settled in for what turned out to be a major deer show.

The only problem was that the wind was blowing from the rock pile to the bottom of the draw, and it was kinda shifty with respect to direction. The pic above of the young spiker going to red-alert tells this story well...the deer would come out of the woods, jump the fence into the grain field, and come along the bottom of the draw. Depending on the wind, they would wind me at 50 yards, or maybe I'd get lucky and they would get 20 yards away before filling their noses with nasty.

I'd spent all evening watching deer come out then wind me between 20 and 50 yards....it was frustrating because it seemed the wind would only be in my favour when a little buck came out. I so badly wanted to shoot, but I've only got antlerless tags left. Anytime the does would come out, the wind would shift just a bit and they'd blow and stomp off into the bush before coming within my 25 yard limit.

Then right before last light I got lucky; the wind settled a bit in a somewhat good direction and more does came out. Having seen so many deer run off I was a bit squirrelly as I put the camera on her and got my gun ready. I blasted her right when I figured she was just under 25 yards, and because she was slightly quartering to I held just medially to her front near-side leg. I would have preferred to wait just a bit longer to see if she would go broadside, but her buddies were further into the field and already at red-alert and I was worried they were all going to bounce off any second. My original plan was to pick one of the closer deer, but they were more facing me than I would have liked for my choice of gun/ammo, so I chose the doe who was closer to being broadside but a bit further away.

At the shot she dropped like a sack of hammers. The other deer ran off into the bush and with a loaded gun I made a quick but careful approach. She was still thrashing a bit so I shot her once more just under the ear.

After getting her home and peeling off her hide I was super-interested to see how she'd been hit: one pellet had struck back a bit through her bottom rib and into her abdomen to be lost somewhere in the gut pile. Another pellet hit her near-side-front-leg, breaking her radius and ulna while deforming into a flat thin disc. The rest of the shot hit medially a bit more towards her brisket; split between her shoulder and neck. Two pellets were recovered just under the skin caudal to her far side front shoulder, having travelled through her lungs and the blood vessels at the top of her heart. Another two pellets struck a little higher and were recovered wedged against her spine. She'd been hit with 6 out of the 8 pellets.

In retrospect I would have liked her to be a bit closer than 25 yards, but mostly I'm thankful I did the degree of patterning I did this summer when sussing out the feasibility of my shockwave with buckshot as a deer hunting tool.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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jza said:
Crazy. I don't hunt, but I have that exact gun in that exact configuration and I can't believe someone is using it for more than just spraying lead at the range.
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Fair comment! This summer I put a tonne of play into familiarizing myself with the shockwave and practicing with all manner of different types of buckshot. One of the first things I discovered was that the factory front bead was way too short and as a result the gun shot at least a foot or two high. I fixed this by gluing on an xs tritium big dot which sits much higher than the factory bead, pretty much fixing the elevation issues and causing the gun to shoot just above the big-dot.

I then ran a thorough set of patterning exercises where I shot from 7, 14, 21, and 28 yards. I tried three different types of buckshot, and I shot 5 separate patterning trials at each range with each type of ammo. Every round I fired in these exercises was on a fresh target, allowing me to build a pretty comprehensive set of experience on how each load patterned through my gun as well as how effective my aim might be.

I learned a lot from this exercise about how to hold the gun and where I should set my limitations - 28 yards was more-often-than-not just a bit too far for me to be comfortable on a clean deer kill, however I was solid-confident that at 21 yards I could go a good job. So I set my absolute-max-limit at 25 yards and then practiced a bunch more.

In preparing this summer for my hunting season I figure I've fired at least 300 rounds of buckshot in practice and another 500 light birdshot shells at skeet targets from stations 1, 2, 6, & 7. I can pretty much guarantee that without most of this preparation I would not have the skill or experience I think I'd need to ethically hunt, so I would not recommend to anyone just picking up a pistol-gripped shotgun and going hunting...:) But with a bit of purposeful practice I know it's doable and I'm having a very fun time trying it out this season!

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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Spent some more time in the woods with the Shockwave looking to punch my antlerless foothills deer tags. Kinda felt like I was surrounded by deer! I so wish I had a buck tag that morning...

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Gun was loaded with Remington Managed Recoil 00 Buckshot. I'd set up just off a very-well-used deer trail right where it crosses some fencing; range was approximately 20 yards. I shot her immediately after she cleared the fence and presented nicely broadside. She stumbled at the shot and turned to face me, so I shot her a second time. At the second shot she jumped the fence and collapsed immediately on the other side. Kinda wish I would have just let her bleed out from the first shot for it turned out to be a great one with multiple pellet penetrations of her heart - but you never know when you drop the hammer and I still have a bit of anxiety hunting with this rig so it felt right to shoot again given I had the chance.

All in all, it's been a "blast" deer hunting this year with my baby alligator (nickname for this particular shotgun...how lame is it to have a nickname for your gun?!?). Got the whole thing on video so I should be set to make a great episode this year.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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Nice. Sounds like you had a great season. Did your girls get a deer this year I know you guys put some work in on her shooting before the season.
 
Beautiful pictures and good job on putting in the work to make sure you were confident in the shockwave enough to take hunting.
I just built a mossberg shockwave and am wondering where you got your XS big dot in canada ?
I'm sick of the tiny black bead. But the muzzle flash screenshots I have are bad@**
 
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