Posted by SGT on October 17, 2006, 10:39 pm, in reply to "Shotshells to use"
Your gun would certainly withstand the strain of such heavy loads, at least for a little while; but it was not made or intended to be abused in that manner, and it is likely your stock would begin to crack behind the lockplates before you fired too many such loads. Folks nowadays don't realize that the load you described was actually a moderately heavy 10-bore load 100 years ago; so, since they don't make Smith guns or replacement parts anymore, treat the gun, your dad's legacy, with a little more respect. We recommend loads no heavier than 1 & 1/8 oz generating pressures of 8000 PSI or less. Besides,heavy loads are not necessary to kill game birds; afterall, our ancestors virtually wiped out the North American game bird populations with ammunition vastly inferior to the worst loads we have today. I suggest you look into reloading; it vastly increases the enjoyment of vintage gun shooting, and nowadays we have the benefit of multitudes of published loading research that will allow you to create powerful loads for any large game bird yet still be within low pressures suitable for vintage guns. You don't have to take my word for this; but you might want to take the word of some of our members who followed this advice with great results, even on wild turkey! You might wish to acquire back issues of the Double Gun Journal and read Sherman Bell's series "Finding Out for Myself". His reseach is indepth and very insightful. Regards