Talking about the .410, I found this interesting >> mcb-homis.com/slug_410.../index.htm

Now why didn't they also put a .45 LC in this test...
just have to put it somewhere in the planning to make my own 'pumpkinslinger', a nice boosted .410 with a blackpowderengine to avoid most of the big risks.
Thanks for the interesting info. It seems that slugs also prefer a hard one

went up to lake/dam yesterday with my bro inlaw/shooting bud and fed out 4x20 ltr buckets of grain,trolled lure around and boated 7 trout of which we kept 3 to eat...great day but cold as a frogs tit.
got up this morning and SWMBO said lets go fishing so we zoomed back up to same lake with another 4 buckets of grain....30-40 ducks loafing around in our shooting pozzie so they got another 3 buckets full spread out the fourth went on other side of island by our emergency/lake drops drastically pozzie. wife didnt have good day on rod but I could do anything wrong even when I tried...I swapped from lure that was catching and caught more,then tried lure that has never worked and caught another, hooked up and handed rod to Bec's to wind in,picked her rod out of rod holder and wound it in to give her room to fight fish and buggamesideways hooked best fish of the day on her rod!!!!! she landed 3 fish in total...two I hooked and a tiddler. we ended up boating 8 fish and brought home 4 .. 2 are about 3lb and the other 2 4lb all are rainbows .will be filleted tonight,skin and boned fillets will go in freezer for night when Bec's will get em out and batter them...... best darn fish n chips on the planet.
saw heaps of birds around the place and spoke to chap building his maimai/stand,weve met a few times over the years ,he looking forward to big weekend just as much as I do. roll on first Sat in May.

Great stuff Elvis...how can ya go wrong when you are feeding ducks to keep them around your shooting pozzie and then fishing for trout...and bringing the buggers home.

the real reward is when SWMBO covers the fillets with beer batter and fries them for my dinner......scofemupdelishimo!!!!

well another opening weekend over. took along an Irish mate who hasnt shot for years.
three of us all shot like crap so we got plenty heaps of "bang for our duck" still would work out 3-5 shots per bird if we dare to count shells used.
highlight of weekend for me was Irish mate dropping his first canadian goose (through an open choked SxS bakail with steel #4s no less) I managed to drop 2 of them from my dingy and picked up a third dead on water.
we had a lot of fun and gave each other stick about our piss poor shooting,birds would decoy in beautifully and stick out landing gear at 30 yards presenting easy shots,only to have big holes poked in sky all around them before they flew off unharmed......
we got out anual possum,this one was rather different as I awoke at 04;30 to him screaching in tree 10' above my head...it was told to piss off hairy legs and come back tomorow..... which it did at 19;30 while we were cooking tea with fire roaring and us yaking and carrying on.I heard noise and looked 20' away to where Meg was tied to pine tree only to see possum climbing DOWN tree to where she was,it was 8' off ground at that stage so I ran over to keep it from doing naughty things to my dog(shes big and black and beautiful but just not that kind of a girl)called out to mate to grab shottie he did and proceded to educate possum rather terminally with 2 loads of steel #4s out of tight choked U/O fair up the rear end.....fair to say possum was rather "gutted" by the whole thing and Megs virtue ramained unblemished.
finished weekend with 18 mallards,5 parries,4 canadian geese 1 pukeko and or course 1 possum.

Glad you had a great weekend, Elvis. I got one turkey.

Pumpkinslinger wrote:

Talking about the .410, I found this interesting >> mcb-homis.com/slug_410.../index.htm

just seen this now
funny thing is the 2 1/2" loads of shot use the same charge data as 3" in my manuals the 3" has slightly more payload and the shorter one more velocity. I modified a lee spoon to get powder charge correct then used it for all loads I did. 3 or 5 ball #00 buckshot in your normal wads is super easy to do for the wee guns and you can simply reuse the star crimp.

slimjim wrote:

Glad you had a great weekend, Elvis. I got one turkey.

Where’s the turkey pics??

we fed and fed and fed and then fed some more this season...caught lots of trout while doing it.
23 mallards,5 parries ,2 spoonies and 3 possums. two of the possums were taken with the .410 insert in old single banger .12ga,both never even twitched after the shot.
good mate who has JUST started hunting did very well with my open choked Bakail and shot his share of the decoying birds.
our Daughter (Toadlet ) Rachel came along to observe/spend time with Dad and we had a great weekend.
a couple of standouts...taking old shepherds crook to use from boat for picking up ducks or decoys...turns out a sheeps hind hock and ducks head/neck are pretty much the same size so it works great.
using spade to tie boat up to,just stand on it to slice down through mud and tie boat up.... why we havent thought of this before I dont know.
take and extra gerry can of fuel for the boat.....someone was having far too much fun hooning around with the 15hp motor and ran out of fuel at the last minute meaning we emptied the fuel from chainsaw (about a cup full) to get me off island and back to boat ramp with 2nd load of gear...I then rowed the 600ish yards back to island and picked up last load and passengers (Meg swam) and powered up motor with last dregs of fuel to zoom back in to boat ramp.. .what a hoot.

It sounds like you had an awesome weekend mate...and shot a damn fine feed if ducks to boot. Well done to your shooting partner, in fact to both of you. How come you were hooking the ducks out of the water...didn’t Meg get them for you?

Always allow more fuel than you need for the boat mate...a 600 metre paddle is bloody hard work.

here you go Bushy

Meg was busy snoring....oops I mean busy retrieving the birds Bro in law and mate were shooting from maimai while I was out hooning around in boat...the crook used from the boat for floaties out in middle and it was awesome for hooking decoy lines when picking them up at pack up time.

nearly that time of year again.....still not sure if we will be allowed out to partake this season with this plurry virus keeping things in lockdown,fingers crossed it gets lifted enough to allow some sort of a season one way or the other.

Did ya leave any for someone else?

That looks like the end of the fun. Now you have to pluck and clean them.