doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 28 gauge ammo in the boonies

Back when I was a kid, my Dad bought most, if not all of his ammunition from Holiday station stores-my bicycles, too. I had a red Holiday "Impala" 26" boys bike that came from one, circa 1970 or so.

Most of those old Holiday stores are long gone, replaced with multiple island Holidays with a big snack and coffee section, but, no ammunition. The old ones could be counted on to have Federal (local) loadings of 12 and 20 gauge, .22 rimfire, 30-30, and 30-06. Dad didn't use 30-30, and if he ever found ammunition for his 7mm mag in a Holiday, it wasn't when I was along.

I distinctly remember my Dad buying 4 100 round packages of Federal .22 standard velocity ammunition, and saying we, him and I, were going to burn it up one Saturday before bird season started, just for fun. I was a bit older, and would have had a driver license at the time.

I found it, in the bag he carried it out of the store in, with the receipt, sometime after we buried him. My son and I have started on using it.

Best,
Ted

Ted,
That's just as your dad would have wanted it!
Karl

Local Walmart has 3 or 4 different 16ga loads same at Cabela's plus they also had blue boxed Kent Bismuth 1oz loads that were cheaper than 12ga loads. The cost was only $3 more than I paid for same ten round packs about 15 years ago except back then the boxes were brown and had Winchester name on them. LGS had post West German JP Sauer Royal 16ga with long barrels. I have passed on it because it was 16ga. I now think not buying it was a mistake.

Some is better than none, Karl, but, almost 40 bird seasons elapsed between that purchase and my finding it, and remembering the day all over again. I wish Dad and I would have made the time, when we had it.

My Son is the proud owner of Dad's Remington 241 Speedmaster. As of now, I make the time for him to use it.

Best,
Ted

Ted, he wanted to if he was like my father. My dad did not or could not make time for many things with his sons. Mine worked 60 plus hours a week, near or over a hundred during peak planting or harvest times or later every week when he started his mechanical construction company. When younger I did not understand his drive to work, work, work. It was all he knew I thought. To be fair dad did take a day to hunt with family around the holidays. He even came to my baseball and football games without my knowledge.

I was stunned when he mentioned me striking out the last seven batters in one of my hitters I pitched in high school. He saw the last four innings and I never knew it. I think a lot of our dads took silent, quiet pleasure in our growing up. My generation was more vocal in kids events and the next one almost thinks it is part of the team. Times have changed I guess. Enjoy your .22's and tell you son about his grandfather while you use them up.

That's what grandads are for. They lovingly, and happily, spend time with their grandsons when the Dad is too busy making a living to go hunting and fishing as often as he'd like. I have discovered that in the last several years. My grandad was my hunting and fishing mentor and I have become that for my grandsons. It is not an indictment on working fathers at all for a grandad to spend as much time as possible with his grandkids.

My oldest grandson, Jackson, and I are hunting for a few days in the L'Anguille River bottoms in Arkansas for ducks right now. My goal has always been to be as good a grandad to my grandkids as mine was to me.

SRH

My dad was a factory worker (John Deere), which left weekends for hunting and fishing. Worked out pretty well. And I was lucky enough to grow up in northern Iowa when we had so many pheasants that we had to shoot them to protect the farmers' crops. (In 1963, the year I graduated from high school, the Iowa pheasant harvest was just shy of 2 million birds. That was in a season about 3 weeks shorter than our current format.)

We didn't have bird dogs, but that came later.

Larry, after being a blacksmith for 20 years my dad was a pipefitter/steamfitter and one of his first jobs was the big John Deere plant in Waterloo. I remember dad staying down there all week in those days. Anyway, I'm headed down to northern IA this morning for a go at the pheasants. Last year about this time I ran into a big group of huns and pheasants all hanging around a farmer's weedy rock pile on the edge of a drainage in the only heavy cover left in a section. The huns all panic flushed and scattered in the wind, must have been over 50, then a wave of pheasants blew out of it all the while I was mired in thigh-deep snow trying to get in range. Never got a shot! This year less snow, but crunchy... I'm heading for the same spot.

I'll be spending the last day of our season on New Years Day chasing grouse up in the Thumb area of Michigan. It's a disease I just can't resist, and a good way to end the year!
Karl

Best part of that area in PA is there are tens of thousands of acres that are not posted. Owned by either the papermill in Johnsonburg or old coal mining companies that are now long gone and nobody knows for certain who owns that land, you can hunt for days without seeing a posted sign.





Lloyd, I hope you had fun great part of the state to hunt in.