justme

both bores were full choke. I laid for a rat in the old shed at our house west of Gillespie, sitting in dad's Olds with the barrels out of the driver's window. Shot a rat full in the face at about 10 ft. lots of dust, couldn't find a body even with a flashlight. Thought he'd ducked back at the last second. Looked closer, and there was blood everywhere, a bit of bone, fur. :-)

Same gun, fired at a Jay from maybe 5 yds, on the other side of a multiflora rose hedge. You could see the shot pellets "chewing" a tunnel thru the brush and it dropped him.

Shot a big chuck from about 5 yds, I was up on a building and he was mostly below me. Tore a 2+" rathole in his chest.

Shot a load of #8's at a telephone pole (knot on it) from about 5 yds, to see how deep they'd penetrate. Most of them didn't and some of them bounced back and hit my shins.

set up a lawn chair in the yard at Gillespie at near dusk. Lots of gracklings and starlings flying in to roost. Kept the M67 .22 rifle near at hand, but took most out of the air with dad's 12 ga. If one of them landed in one of our trees, I"d pop him with the .22

Garand

so what? Teeny bopper bragging at its best.

John in AR

Why'd you come to hate shotguns so much later on, then? Serious question, not picking a fight. Other than the bird shot not penetrating a telephone pole, which it's not meant to do, it seems like you had good success with it.

justme

don't hate em, just find them to be not worth owning. Loved shooting skeet with a 20 ga 1100,

John in AR

To each his own, but this:
seems like reason enough; simply doing something you love doing. I don't really enjoy skeet shooting, but have a BIL who was world champ at one time, and one of my sons made it to regionals some years ago. To me, it isn't all that fun, but to them it is. If it is to you, seems like as good a reason as any to own one.

A lot of what I do even with 'serious' guns is really that for me; just personal enjoyment, and imo that's reason enough at a certain point in life. I'm getting old and am crazy busy right now, so I make a point of sometimes doing things strictly for purposes of how much I enjoy it.