The Significance of the Indian Trade Gun in Early America
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- This video discusses the history and use of the Indian Trade Gun.
Information included in this video comes from many sources, including:
Russell, Carl P. Guns on the Early Frontiers: From Colonial Times to the Years of the Western Fur Trade. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005.
Burke, Lee. “18th Century English Trade Guns in the South, or the Carolina Gun, Its Time and Place in History.” American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin 65 (Fall 1991): 2-16.
Smith, Marvin T., Jon Marcoux, Erin Gredell, and Gregory Waselkov. “A Seventeenth-Century Trade Gun and Associated Collection from Pine Island, Alabama.” Southeastern Archaeology 36, no. 1 (2016): 1-13.
Peterson, Harold L. Arms and Armor in Colonial America, 1526-1783. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000.
For demonstration purposes only. Do not try this at home.
This video was on the level of earlier Paul Harrell for the content, history, overview/theory/thoughts and demonstration. Subscribed, and looking forward to more videos as you refine your style and presentations. I mean it - and I've been a patreon supporter of Paul's channel for years. I see that your channel isn't solely a firearms channel, but that's fine. Keep up the good work, Chief.
Wow! Please do not compare me to the great Paul Harrell. I appreciate your comments. Thank you for watching.
@@HistorywithG-Hall I can, and I will. Based off of this one video I've seen of yours, you are on that path - and will get there. You seem to have both the personal and pragmatic talents that he used (and still uses). Keep at it, kid. (yeah, I'm old)
My Indian ``trade gun`` is a single shot rossi 20 gauge with a mid range bead. I have a black powder adapter with it as well. This simple light weight gun is a back packers dream and will take any game on earth.
What is a black powder adapter? Thanks!
@@browngreen933 Its a little thing that fits in your gun like a shell.....you put a percussion cap on it and loads it from the front like a regular muzzle loader.Get them from short lane gun adapters.They also have adapters so you can shoot pistol calibers in your shot gun too
@@garyhouston113awesome. Thanks for the information.
Nice!
I’ve been a teacher and this was an excellent presentation. Good teaching ! I’ve built a 20 gage or 62 cal. Smoothie and it’s become my favorite flinter. Your video was not cluttered with a lot of unnecessary detail. Thanks so much ! Keep them coming 👍😃
Great video. I just had a similar conversation with a young guy who was checking out my fusil de chasse. I actually told him it was the 1700s version of a mossberg 500 😂. Thanks for your service.
Facts are facts! Lol. Thanks for watching.
This trade gun was a very effective tool at the range you were working.
Absolutely. We are going to discuss American long rifles very soon. They weren't as versatile but they were unmatched at long range (for the time).
I read an article on trade fusils in an OLD Gun Digest, and the author wrote he picked up a brand new,made in the 1870's trade gun in a Hudson Bay trading post in the 1950's. He also stated HB still sold 10lbs bags of .60" diameter lead balls into the mid 1960's. Those far north Indians were a very conservative lot,evidently.
When cartridges are expensive and few and far inbetween. A muzzleloader makes a lot of sense. You can make the powder and lead ore(galena) is not hard to find up north. Flints ain't hard to knapp either.
When cartridges are expensive and few and far inbetween. A muzzleloader makes a lot of sense. You can make the powder and lead ore(galena) is not hard to find up north. Flints ain't hard to knapp either.
Very interesting!
How does a comment pop up twice? Anyone know?
Excellent presentation, the trade gun was a staple in the fur trade for a good number of decades. Right up in to the cap and ball era of North America.
Absolutely. Thanks for watching.
Truly a Gentleman and a Scholar, it is good to see other than Video Game rangers making videos!
Thank you for watching.
I like that your video is for entry-level shooters, not just for advanced shooters.
I also like the period costume you wear to match the firearm that you are demonstrating.
I do not like the camera angle that only shows your back, and hides the target when you are shooting.
An offset camera angle that shows your stance as well as your target would be preferred.
Thank you. Right now my "camera team" is just my propped up phone, so I 100% agree with you. I hope to improve the quality of videos soon.
My trade gun is my favorite, also. Just discovered your channel... appreciate the history along with firearms
Thank you.
Thanks for your knowledge
Thank you for watching.
The Trade gun, whether it was the British made guns that were supplied though the Hudson Bay Company and others like it or the French Fusil de Chasse and Fusil de Traite were the preferred weapons of not only the Native Americans, but Roger's Rangers and the other light infantry at the time. By 1762 at Fort Edward, where Roger's Rangers were headquartered, there were more carbines then guns of musket length. The Mohawk were especially adept at ambush tactics with their trade guns and preferred shots from 20-50 yards, and of course, Rogers Rangers and the French under Langy all did the same. As far as the buckshot goes, reading some writings of the time, Roger's men described the shot they carried with them as being "about the size of a large pea"
Can you recommend a gpod book on Rodgers Rangers and their arms?
My understanding is that they used a lot of cut down or "bobbed" military
Muskets. The Brown Bess being the favorite. I suppose that a captured Charleyville would not have been out of place in t he ranks.
@@johnndavis7647 Naw, their favorite long arm was the fusil de chasse. There's a lot of good books about Rodgers Rangers. The book about their trip up to Canada is very good and the transcript of his courts martial are my favorites
@@mikeblair2594 titles please
Absolutely.
For many years I used .319 round balls in my 1849 32 caliber revolver, a 32 caliber rifle and in a 12 gauge double barrel percussion shotgun.
It would probably have worked in a 20 gauge trade gun just as well.
Thanks for the video
Yes, sir. Thank you.
Two years ago I was hunting grouse with my new England fowler. I had some shot that I'd made by runnin some hot lead through a perforated plate into a kiddie pool from the roof of my porch.
Anyway I was hunting grouse and saw a magnificent black tail buck. So since I had a tag on me, I dropped a round ball on top of the bird shot and I brought home that buck and three grouse. After the cow elk my brother got, our freezer is now full and the pantry is full of canned goods from the garden and the woods. Ain't nothing better than a.jar full of wild black raspberry preserve. The cows giving milk again and we now have a young steer. Im happy
That is one of the coolest stories I have ever heard!
@HistorywithG-Hall it's better when you know your family is gonna be fed and property taxes and bills are paid from what what I can build and forge and the money brought in from two sons working on wild fires all summer. 30 grand per kid goes a long way on a modern homestead that's been paid off 90 years ago.
Intersting vid love the concept of reintroducing the idea into the modern times
Thank you very much.
very nice sir, thank you
Thank you.
A pleasure to hear a concise, clear presentation about historic firearms. The comparison to modern guns was nice to see. I expect you are a fine teacher as well as a patriot. Thank you. I subscribed.
Wow. Thank you so much. I hope to make more soon.
Great video
Thank you.
Interesting video
Thank you.
This is a rehash of something that grinds my gears. I started shooting ML almost 60 years ago. I have owned and hunted with a “trade gun”. The NW variety. Nearly useless in Montana. Then the rifle thing. The natives in the East picked up on rifles quickly and if we read Dewitt Bailey’s “British Flintlock Military Rifles” will see that by the 1740s some Eastern Tribes were using rifles and using them WELL. This leaves the people on the frontier with a problem. You cannot defend yourself against the rifle armed opponent, then or now, with a smooth bore. Further the smoothbore, in the context of the American Frontier, East or West, uses too much powder and lead. The majority of American rifles are the time of the American Revolution were under 50 caliber. 44 and 50 being spikes in the graph. The traders and the British military wanted ALL rifle sales to Natives STOPPED. The first because they used less powder and lead and were not throw away items so the native needed to buy another pretty soon. The second because of how the Natives made war. John Bartram on 4 Feb 1756 wrote “…they now commonly shoot with rifles with which they will at a great distance from behind a tree…take such sure aim as to seldom miseth their mark.” Bailey Pg 75. I have hunted and guided hunters using Flintlocks, BPCR (Sharps etc) and various modern firearms for decades. Military? My Combat Infantryman’s Badge dates to Nov 1970. Further I shoot master class in NRA/CMP service rifle and Master in Mid-range and started working on master class in Longrange (800 and 1000 yards) Last month. And I shoot Springfield 1903 in vintage sniper and an M1 Garand is other vintage matches. I have killed something in the realm of 100-150? Deer and elk with MLs. I stopped counting decades ago at 70. So far as the natives using small shot for small game. I would have too see the sales of such shot to the natives to believe this. The had bows for this use and even in the 1830s in the west hunted buffalo with the bow. Look to Osborne Russell’s “Journal of a Trapper”. The trappers in the West, like Russell used rifles. It was possible to keep hostiles out of trade gun range with a rifle. And the same was true in the East. A native in a tree or a ridge 200 yards from the stockade can make it really hot for people inside and a musket/trade gun is useless. And I started re-enacting the 1770-1840 period in 1968. And try John Joseph Henry’s book on the expedition to Quebec in 1775. He gives a bore size for a rifle there as does Col Hanger who was a Captain under Tarleton in the Rev-War.
Thanks for watching. Indians absolutely preferred rifles once they came on the scene. There are supply records from trade forts that demonstrate that Indians wanted small shot (bird shot).
First of all, thank you for reminding me that the firing cycle of a pump action is not complete until the next shell is loaded. Secondly, the history of the trade guns in general during this period is of great interest to me. The French were the first Europeans in the Pacific NW, where I grew up and I believe Trade guns had a significant impact on all of our history. Thank you for the video and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes to protect the free world 👍
As a retired soldier and paratrooper I can honestly attest to the fact that there is no such thing as a perfectly good military vehicle of ANY type, let alone a transport aircraft!…
Yes, that’s an Indian trade gun… a very nice grade, but none the less a trade gun… more like a chieftain grade and not the standard grade by any means.
Thank you.
ThankX ! I really like the demonstration comparing black powder arm to a current smokeless.
It was much as I’d imagined downrange with rate of fire and sustained number of rounds down range - we have it easy in the twenty-first century.
So easy!
I like what I saw here so I subscribed and liked.
Thank you so much.
Native American firearms history from present to past
Thank you.
Sir, thank you so very, very much for your service as a grateful immigrant from Africa. This is my first video of yours I’ve seen at fantastic I NVO students and the knowledge that you and your service will bring to their education in general and more specifically history. I look forward to more content and I am sharing this. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Good on ya bro!
Thank you.
Excelant comparison. Thanks for posting.
Thank you for watching.
Cheerio Mate! Going back to school to get your degree can be hard. I’m a professor at Oxford and I will demonstrate my Brown Bess to my classes. I’ve got a diverse collection of antique weapons ranging from mid-evil crossbows, matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, and WW1 bolt actions. Though I’m not as blessed as you yanks on being able to have a liberal access to the wide variety of automatic weapons.
Thank you. I trained in England for some time back in the early 2000s (Second Battalion, Parachute Regiment) and earned my British Parachute Wings. I loved it there. It sounds like you have a very interesting class.
One of my favorite persons from history attended Oxford. Perhaps you have heard of him. John Locke? I am joking.
Thank you for watching.
I wonder if you can shoot a rifled slug out of a Indian Trade Gun. I've seen modern shot cups work very well. TAOFLEDERMAUS and Black Powder Maniac shoot just about everything, which inspires me to get one.
Shotgun slugs can be accurate out to 100 yards.
In a S.H.T.F. I seriously doubt anyone in the civilian world would find it reasonable to get into a gun fight much further out.
Thank you for watching.
At the 10 yards about 30 ft of a load of sevens and a half shots in self-defense could give somebody a really bad day
I sure don't want to be on the receiving end of it!
My Uncle when he got out of the Marines in the early 70's when he went hunting got an Ithaca 37 Deerslayer in 16 gauge, and he proceeded to hunt and shoot EVERYTHING with it. I inherited the gun in 2001 and I've killed deer, grouse, squirrels, coyotes, etc. with it. My son started hunting a year or so back and he started off with a Remington 870 that he had two barrels for, a rifled slug barrel for deer and a smooth barrel for small game. Earlier this year we traded that in on a 12 gauge Ithaca 37 Deerslayer and he loved that gun because it will do everything you can ask of it.
Awesome!
Good history
Thank you.
I believe the musket was the preferred firearm by most since early on game was plentiful and could be taken at short distances. By the 1800s in the settled areas the rifle and choked fowling pieces became more popular due to the increasing scarcity of game. In the areas of the old French controlled lands the natives preferred the French trade fusil de chase, being close to the current 20 ga it was lighter and required less powder and shot and as with French powder and flints it was of better quality.
Good stuff!
@@HistorywithG-Hall In the areas north of the Ohio river and Great Lakes region there are many examples of the old French trade muskets in museums that were so well liked by the natives that some were used well into the 19th century being repaired and restocked many times rather than use a newer English trade musket.
Good points on your firearms choice! Also great presentation on the usage of your personal firearm versatility! I personally use handguns more than rifles or shotguns . To each their own! Well done and blessings and best wishes to you!
Thank you!
Thank you for your service. You put your self in harm's way for your country and that is to be commended.
I'm really interested in the politics involved with the trading of firearms to native people. Native people of North America obviously did not want to loose their home to European expansion, yet Europeans were willing trade to Indians, fire power that would make that more difficult. The trade musket obviously became less of a tool for resistance and more of a tool for survival into the 19th century. The flintlock was used, even into the turn of the century.
Alliances were very important during the colonial period. There were definitely those who felt trading guns to Indians was a bad idea, and there were even some laws to try to prevent it, but with several European empires competing for the continent, it became necessary for survival. If the English wouldn't trade guns to the Indians, the French surely would.
Good job! What powder charges were you using in your trade gun?
I want to say, because I was just shooing paper for demonstration purposes, it was about 50 grains. Thanks for watching.
Love the Indian Trade Gun, and thanks for bringing it to the fore on this platform. I feel it is a neglected firearm in the scope of early Americana.
It really is. I think they are starting to become more popular.
That was outstanding! I sometimes go to Mountain Man rondy's and the old AMM guys almost exclusively use trade guns and often have a cut down Blanket gun too. I am convinced the settlers shotgun was the gun that won the west, because it was so versatile and affordable. Our local Pioneer Museum has a TON of doubles and a few single barrels, most 10 gauge!
I don’t know about the west but my family didn’t get a true rifle until the 30-30 sitting in my safe purchased by my great grandpa in 1917. Until that time it was shotguns that brought in the game and kept them same from the mid 1860’s until the bought the rifle. So I completely agree. Most settlers had shotguns as they are so versatile.
@@tufelhunden5795 Money. Most folks just didn't have the cash to cartridge rifles, and cartridges were expensive too. There's always been kind of a "technological lag" of sorts for consumers. People continued to carry percussion revolvers even after the Peacemaker became available. A used one could be bought for two dollars and a pack of paper cartridges for .75 cents. A new Peacemaker cost a month's wages, let alone the cartridges.
Very interesting. Thank you for commenting.
Great vid, but info is a little late. During colonial times trade guns had long barrels, 42-46” the use of shorter barrels in trade guns wasn’t seen until the first third of the nineteenth century, cr 1830.
Buck shot, goes back to the fifteenth century in Europe, though Indians were great users of it
Yeah, buck shot was called swan shot back then. I've got a family heirloom that's made from soap stone and it makes to large balls for a 24 bore and ten buck shot that one of my Shoshone ancestors made cause its cheaper to make your own than having to buy it from your nearest trading post. If they would even sell it to ya.
Thank you for commenting. I am not sure if you have access to read those articles I put in the description, but archaeologists in the Southeast have found trade guns with much shorter barrels dating back to the late 1600s-early 1700s. But yes, they used long barreled guns as well.
The buckshot comment I made was referring to Patrick Malone's book The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians. Its a great book of you have not read it.
@@HistorywithG-Hall apparently those guns were modified by the owners, since records indicate only long barrels sold.
By 1750s Indians in general and especially the Cherokee and Choctaw were learning advanced gunsmiting skills. By 1780 we know of some Cherokee serving white customers altering and repairing even compleatly restocking guns out of parts
Yes the Indians were very inventive with their loads
Mossberg 500 introduced around 1960. Still going strong, still a bargain.
Absolutely. Thank you for watching.
Yes, that’s an Indian trade gun… a very nice grade, but none the less a trade gun… more like a chieftain grade and not the standard grade by any means.
I own a “track of the wolf” trade musket with an octagon to round barrel in 20ga., up graded furniture and a tapered ram rod. I’ve taken quail, grouse, pheasant, squirrel,rabbit, coyote, deer, elk… pretty much everything other than bear and moose with it, I’ll probably always use modern for those… but it is absolutely one of my favorite firearms ever! and will always be my “go to” grouse gun… BUT, by far my Mossberg 500 is the most versatile firearm that I own. With all of the available accessories, barrels, chokes, stocks, sights and ammunition available for it today, I have to 100% agree that it is absolutely one of the top most versatile firearm available today… maybe even ever!… and in the future of drone warfare an absolute must have.
I have stated my entire adult life “the first gun anyone should acquire is a shotgun and the gun to never get rid of or be without should be a pump shotgun.”
I'll dispute that we preferred rifles as soon as they were available. No one really did. They may have preferred rifled muskets but that is a later (and last, really) rendition of the muzzle loading musket that didn't come with the negatives of the very narrow specialist spectrum of the small caliber rifles.
We, and other Appalachian people, were using smoothbore flintlocks into the 1930s. Many poor people were. Rifles gained popularity from a narrow niche to a large minority, but some families still have the smoothbores that were used for generations. Cheap MILSURP, like the Springfield Trapdoor that was being sold for a few dollars after the Spanish-American War and the Krag-Jorgensen after it's brief service.
Thank you.
Nice trade gun. I am always up for a new black powder/musket channel. I myself am building a NW trade gun. Mine appears to be slightly longer. Good to hear you are a history teacher. I hope you are permitted to teach accurate history. Lots of propaganda out there. Anyway, welcome to the community of black powder guns, on TH-cam. You will discover many fine black powder channels. Looking forward to your next episode.
Thank you. I try to teach it the best that I can!
Just liked and subd
Thank you.
Indians wanted sideplates depicting Mishigenabeg -- the Great Horned Water Serpent -- to increase the gun's spirit power.
A lot of Indian trade guns have the serpent on the sideplate. Thank you.
As an old muzzle loading Fudd, I enjoyed this video. I didn’t know Indians “invented” buckshot. I think they also used buck and ball loads.
God I hate the word fudd! I've a cheap AR that I upgraded over the years and I shoot two gun action mach challenge. a few modern hand guns, but I've got More muzzleloaders pistol, rifle and fowlers. That I made from scratch. I started as a blacksmith and kinda fell into building muzzleloaders. All my kids have arms with hand forged barrels and hand filed locks, but I won't do that for money. Its kinda hard to find someone to pay what its worth.
Thank you. I don't know that they "invented" it either, but some scholars have suggested it.
Great ! Thanks !
Thank you!
👍
Thanks!
Airborne!
All the way!
I really enjoyed your video on Significance of the Indian Trade Guns. Students are lucky to have you for a history teacher! As for the hollow-based shotgun slug, is it safe to shoot in shotguns with all chokes? Maybe the hollow base allows this?
Thank you so much for those encouraging words.
I will be honest, I do not know how to answer that question. I am not really a slug shooter. I tend to use a rifle when I need to be precise.
I own a Mossberg 590 Military style shotgun with a bayonet lug. I also built a flintlock trade gun with a 30" barrel in 24 gauge from a kit. Plains Indians liked these because they used them for killing bison on horseback, while "running buffalo". I have only shot it with a .570 round ball at paper targets. It is incredibly light weight. I made a large Bowie blade bayonet to fit my Mossberg
because the M7 bayonet was too puny and impossible to sharpen and the M9 bayonet with it's foolish modular design was too weak. I made a leather sheath for it. US ARMY 1968 - 1971. I did re-enacting of the American Fur Trade for decades and built a full size replica Red River 2 wheeled cart with hand tools from an Article in the Museum of the Fur Trade periodical. I took it to the NMLRA Eastern Rendezvous and gave a tutorial open air talk about it with the tools that I used. It still resides in my garage to this day. I loved those good old days encampments.
That is really cool!
frist half should been own vid
Perhaps. I was just trying to make it relatable. Thank you for watching.
Sorry to correct you, but the Spanish refused to trade arms to the native Americans and thought the French and English were foolish for doing so. My people thought of the Spanish as only good for stealing horses and would ride from the Oregon, Idaho and Western Wyoming country down as far as central Mexico to rob them of their horses. They'd take one of their fowlers if it was there, but since the quality was low they wouldn't go looking for them. My ancestor bad left hand (Owitze in Shoshone) was living testament that a Spanish barrel was prone to blow in the worst place and at the worst time.
Love your English fowler there. I build custom flintlock and percussion firearms. I've been known to make a matchlock a time or two and I've made one wheel lock for my oldest boy, but the rest of my kids are more sensible and take no for no! You got to have a lot of money for me to forge and file another one. I've better things to do with my time, like juggling live hand grenades.
One more thing to correct is Wilson and Ketland and Garnets and a few others did mass produce cheap fowlers for both the Indian trade and colonial trade. Not a lot of folks had the money to have one custom made. All the men were required to own a firearm, but few could afford one, especially in the backwoods, but you could trap a few beaver, coons or muskrat and buy a trade gun. They were good arms just for the fact that (like today) if your gears crap nobody is going to buy it Indians and European alike.
Thank you. The Spanish colonized the Southeast as well, especially before the English and French showed up. When Henry Woodward, the first English Indian Trader in South Carolina, showed up, he found Indians (a few) that were already familiar with firearms and used Spanish terminology when discussing them.
I totally forgot about the southeast. My people just thought of the Spanish as good horse breeders to steal from.
There are so many tribes all over the west that come from shoshonean stock (we were Chicamec then ; ie the dog people. The the Nokonie ;ie the homeless people). It's was Coronado who left horses strung out all over the southwest that got us off the ground and created the war tribes that Lewis and Clark had to deal with. It's a long story.
Anyway, you can call me Ishaui. The coyote.
@@mikeblair2594 Interesting. Thank you.
Good basic presentation. Explaining the difference between the three major loads was concise--and most people don't know/don't care about the differences. Hunters, competitive shooters and those using shotguns to deal with armed and hostile humans need to know the difference. Simply buying a box of #9 target birdshot loads from the bargain bin at the big box retail store might not work too well when something is raiding the chicken coop. On the other hand, #2 birdshot won't work so well for busting clay birds on the skeet range.
Shotgun versatility must be earned--it's not automatic. There are so many accessories to make a shotgun perform one task better than a "standard" shotgun. This video demonstrated the Mossberg 500 with a riot barrel (I have to guess "cylinder bore" or "improved cylinder" because I don't know everything) and bead front sight only. Sure, you can shoot sabot slugs through that police riot shotgun--but a replacement rifled barrel and an optical or electronic sight will improve hit probability using sabot slugs. That rifled shotgun barrel has issues with multiple projectile loads (birdshot and buckshot), producing donut patterns--ensuring that you miss what you're aiming at. Short barrels snag less in cluttered terrain such as small rooms and forested areas--longer barrels produce higher velocities and give longer sighting plane. Speaking of sighting, if your shotgun has only a bead front sight, 50 yards with slugs is about the maximum distance, and you need to check point of impact versus sight picture. That need shows up in this video at 20 yards. I have been able to plunk M-9 silhouette targets at 100 yards using bead front sight and Kentucky windage and Foster rifled shotgun slugs, but my hits were random on the target. When I use rifle sights, those sights must be zeroed for the slugs at a designated range. Want to hit your intended target with shotgun slugs? Shoot several to determine where your slugs land at different distances or simply get close enough so that you don't miss.
Chokes are a serious subject. Fixed choke barrels are traditional and inexpensive and work most of the time for most people. It's a good idea to pattern your shotgun with the load you're using to see what it does with a specific load--powder charge and shot size and manufacturer. How much performance do you need. That's regardless of choke because shotgun manufacturing tolerances, much like Indian trade guns, are generous for reasons of economy. A rifle made to shotgun manufacturing tolerance would throw large groups and be regarded as inferior--many .22 LR pistols and rifles are cheap to produce and certainly better than no gun, but gun snobs shun those cheap guns over durability and accuracy and reliability issues. Commercial shotgun safeties are not drop-safe and when someone is excited it is possible for the shooter to fire the shotgun with the safety on "safe." It breaks the safety. In 1982 while serving as a Quick Reaction Force armorer for a secure site, I had two Winchester Model 1200 and one Stevens Model 520 trench shotguns in the locker along with 15 M16A1 rifles. The Stevens was unserviceable because the safety failed the function check. Trench shotguns were commercial shotguns with a riot barrel and a heat shield (handguard)/bayonet mount (and sling swivels--riot shotguns usually don't have sling swivels). Generally these have cylinder bore choke--many riot shotguns have improved cylinder choked barrels. Before WW2 there were adjustable chokes, often paired with a compensator (muzzle brake) that reduced felt recoil. Today, interchangeable choke tubes are common. My shotgun has a slug barrel (rifle sights, 20"-barrel, improved cylinder choke) and a 26" ribbed barrel with three choke tubes--skeet (cylinder bore), modified choke and full choke. No rifled barrel--yet. In order to get versatility, I need to pattern a specific load through each choke tube and see what my pattern size, pattern center (from point of aim) and pattern density is like.
Or I can just Joe Biden the thing by waving it in the air and making noise and allowing the pellets to land where they may.
How much performance do you require? How much versatility? Not all shotguns are equally versatile. Your mileage may vary. A "modern" single barrel 20-gauge hinged frame shotgun with an assortment of 20-gauge plastic-hulled shotgun shells (Foster slug, #3 buckshot, #7-1/2) and a full choke barrel would have been a wonder weapon in the 18th Century, but most modern American hunters would shun this for hunting. My father liked his Winchester Model 37 in 16 gauge--he used his single shot scatter gun for everything and bragged that as long as you know what you're doing, one shot is enough. Not all shotguns are equal in performance. During WW2 the US Army Air Force issued modified Stevens 22/410 combination guns to C-54 and B-29 aircrew based on Eddie Rickenbacker's unscheduled rubber boat vacation--the barrels were trimmed to 14" and front sight remounted. Later, the purpose-built M6 Aircrew Survival Weapon was issued to USAF bomber crews during the Cold War. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M6_Aircrew_Survival_Weapon I like the .410 bore shotgun--light gun, compact ammo, light recoil and low report. Versatile? The .410 bore is a shotgun but throws a small charge and is range limited compared to bigger bore shotguns. Wait--it gets weird--the existence of snake loads for pistols allows some to believe that they've turned their .22 snub nose revolver into a 10-gauge magnum shotgun.
www.ammoman.com/blog/how-effective-is-snake-shot/
I mentioned pattern testing. The link above patterns pistol shotshells at 15 feet. Standard pattern boards are 4'x4' and shot at 40 yards, with the percentage of pellets landing inside a 30" circle scored. Pattern density makes a big difference. I like the .410 bore but that's a limited shotgun caliber. A typical 12-gauge upland load throws 1-1/4 ounce of shot and an improved cylinder choke is supposed to put 40% of its pellets inside the 30" pattern board circle--and 1-1/4 ounces of "7-1/2 has a nominal 437 pellets per ounce, putting 164 pellets in that 30" circle. The .410 three-inch magnum throws 7/8ths ounce of #7-1/2 at a lower velocity than the 12 gauge 2-3/4" light field load (that's 382 pellets in the .410) and most .410 bore shotguns are full choked (70% patterns) to give adequate pattern density (277 pellets in a 30" circle at 40 yards), which seems to be pretty good performance--but for 40-yard shots the 12 gauge will put 273 pellets on target with a modified choke barrel. The problem with the small .410 charge is hitting a small flying object.
I'd have to specify 12 gauge for the shotgun caliber for that unearned shotgun versatility reputation--and then work to earn that versatility. Jack of all trades--only if you know all of those jobs--the shotgun is a master of a few hunting tasks. Tyrants do not fear shotguns as much as tyrants fear pistols or rifles--there's reasons for that, and shotgun ammunition restrictions and limiting "sportsmen" to shotguns capable of holding only one or two shots.
Thank you.
Click bait!
"Several combat tours of Iraq and Afghanistan", well that's certainly nothing to be proud of. Serving as a stormtrooper of the Empire and invading and occupying any lesser country in the world "just because we can" is no path to honor. Anyway glad you got out of that shit with your life and hopefully your sanity intact.
Lol and we all know that steel shot sux on waterfowl especially for geese!
Lead is dead, baby!
@@HistorywithG-Hall Never understood the lead steel issue with waterfowl! They said that it was to stop from them ingesting it ? But I never saw any ducks diving deeper than a few inches and the ponds and lakes I hunted were at least 10 feet deep! Geese too !
@@jameslalley3787 Yes, sir. That was a controversial legislation in my family for sure.