Ready, Aim, Click! (or Worse)

LISTEN: (6 Min, 17 Sec)

 

A COVEY OF DAPPER scaled quail scooted and sifted like miniature minutemen through the low tangles of cactus, disappearing then reappearing, as I high stepped in pursuit. The 12-gauge pump gun was held at port arms, ready for the whir of a sudden flush from one of the closer birds.

On cue, a cock with its white topknot vaulted into the air. 

I skidded to a halt and pushed the safety off as the gun came to my shoulder. The swing felt good, and I pressed the trigger … no Blam!, just a dry click.

Oh no, I thought, must’ve forgotten to chamber a round!

The Winchester Model 12 racked smoothly but the cycling shell hung in the opening of the chamber. I yanked and cursed, then plucked the 12-gauge field load. Then I recoiled in horror.

There, about one-half inch down, gleamed the jammed copper brass of a live 16-gauge shell. I had been alternating between the 16 and the 12 during the hunt, and the smaller shell got mixed into the belt-bag pouch. The hulls of both brands were red, an easy mistake to make.   

The saving grace was that the 16 could not drop far enough into tube to clear the chamber for the following shell. The shotgun was unable to fire, still, an inexcusable blunder. Thank goodness it was not a 20-gauge shell. 

The no-fire jam is not the case if a 20 is dropped into a 12. It can slide several inches down before jamming in the tube, clearing the chamber for a 2 ¾-inch tragedy.

And the 12/20 mix up is more likely to occur, mainly because 20-gauge guns are far more common than 16’s. For this reason, most (but not all) 20-gauge hulls are yellow and most (but not all) 12-gauge hulls are red. Colors aside, the difference in size and heft between the two shells is boldly apparent, but mistakes seem to happen somewhere each year. 

I was shaken to the core by my red-on-red debacle, which occurred on a New Mexico hunt last January. I have owned dozens of firearms during the past 60 years and cannot recall another instance of mixing gauges or calibers when loading a gun. I consider myself to be a safer shooter/hunter, more so the older I get. 

But I have been guilty of several terrible breeches of safe shooting over the decades and have witnessed others in the hands of companions. Fortunately, none resulted in a tragedy. 

During a deer season years ago, I toted a rifle and a shotgun up the ladder of an elevated tripod stand. That was stupid, no place to safely secure the 12-bore turkey gun while sitting and waiting. A careless foot bumped the loaded shotgun and it fell straight down, stock first. 

I can still see the round black hole of the muzzle as it dropped. The loaded gun was on safety and did not fire when it slammed into the ground but that was way too close.

Another time, during a sweltering September dove hunt, I was using a fine old Churchill hammer gun. The right barrel dropped a bird and I promptly paced in a straight line across the grain field toward the mark. While walking, I decided to lower the left hammer (the gun had no safety, and the action could not be broken open against a cocked hammer). I thumbed the cocked spur to slowly lower it as I pressed the rear trigger, and my sweaty thumb slipped, allowing the hammer to fall full force on a live round. 

The abrupt blast blew a spray of dirt and stubble about 10 yards ahead of my advance. I still have the beautiful Churchill but remain a bit skittish about classic hammer guns. 

Yet again, on a predawn goose hunt, I climbed into the “shotgun seat” of a pickup to drive within reasonable walking distance of the white spread. The driver had his gun pointed muzzle down on my side of the console. It was a 10-gauge magnum autoloader, serious goose medicine.

As I scrunched over in bulky waders and parka, he reached with his right hand to pull the big gun tighter to the console. I felt the long barrel nudge against my left leg. Then the gun fired. 

The noise and flash were amazingly muted by the fact that the muzzle was jammed into the floorboard carpeting about an inch from my left wader boot. The powerful charge blew a tight hole through the metal floorboard, but mercifully I still have two feet, and nobody was hurt.

The bedrock rule of always keeping a gun pointed in a safe direction goes a long way in preventing disasters, but guardian angels can only cover so many mistakes. For example, the rule has no jurisdiction in the case of an obstructed barrel. The gun can be pointed at empty sky all the way to Saturn when you pull the trigger, and the barrel explodes.

Waterfowlers should keep this in mind. A stumble on a rice field levee or a bumble in a goo-pie coastal marsh might ram the muzzle into the mud. Even if a clog seems unlikely, it costs absolutely nothing to check. One huge advantage of a double gun is the ability to break the action and stare down those gleaming tubes. 

At least a mud-clogged muzzle is, relatively speaking, way out there. The 12/20 jam puts the fireworks right between your hands, not one shell but two. Pay attention to color coding and remember the coral snake adage, “red and yellow kill a fellow.” 

Mistakes are patient; they can fester and wait, and they don’t care squat about experience or pedigree. One careless lapse over a gun can erase decades of safe shooting. That is a sobering fact that all of us should consider as incoming flocks of dove and teal open the calendar to another bounty of hunting seasons.

 

Email Joe Doggett at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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