doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The scent of just fired paper shotgun shells

My last order from RST was a mixed case, had them include some paper case shells. Most of the time when someone writes or talks about a classic scent associated with hunting or shooting it's Hoppes #9. But for me nothing is as evocative of the past days of hunting as the scent of paper shells.
Other scents that come to mind are Barbour jackets, puppy breath, moss, and woodsmoke & Bourbon. Fishing scents would include 2 cycle exhaust and the mosquito dope we used back before deet. [can't remember the name of it]
Anyone care to add to the list?

The aroma of paper shells fired with a charge of IMR 7625 is tough to beat. Also partial to inhaling deeply with my nose buried in the feathers of a freshly killed quail. The addictive aroma of a cypress swamp in evening. The scent of an old cricket cage, and outboard motor oil mixed with the water in the bottom of a wood boat. The acrid air over bluegill bream beds on a still morning in May.

Aside from hunting and fishing.......... newly bottom plowed soil, and a freshly dug peanut field. Honeysuckle blooming alongside a dirt road near a blackberry patch. A field of coastal bermuda hay, freshly mowed, as a 12 year old boy runs barefoot through it catching grasshoppers for fishbait.

Gotta quit. Too real.

SRH

Nice posts! As a child, family camping was one of the activities I really looked forward to. Our Shasta camper and the heavy tent we used before that had their own distinctive smells. It is great that RST loads paper shells for those of us that enjoy that sort of thing. Too bad they cannot provide the short 10s in paper. It also offers an alternative to shooting collectible ammunition

You guys have really brought out some olfactory memories, which I've always heard are the most vivid. Let me add to yours with the mention of cape jasmine vine blooming in the turkey woods, that odd sweet smell of the woods in false spring, the scent of a cedar turkey box call just unwrapped from its long stay over winter in a plastic bag, a yearling largemouth bass in your hand just caught from a farm pond in February, "Deep Woods Off" sprayed on in dark turkey woods. Can ya'll detect a slight affinity for Spring here?

And Beagle, the insect repellent you refer to was "6-12". I remember it well:
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/14485-6-12-insect-repellent
JR

Out west, our quail country smells are dominated by sage and juniper. Those smells are particularly strong in the late fall when the sun is heating the damp fauna and steam is rising from the fields.

Beagle,

Was that bug dope called '6-12', maybe?

I remember my father and Grandpa using that trout fishing when I was a child, 50+ years ago. Very oily and a distinctive odor.

Didn't mean to hijack, but that brought back a lot of very old, very fond memories...

The smell of the first chinook that comes down from Canada and old man winter is starting to release his death grip on these plains.

That stuff was a very effective paint remover, too, as one particular '61 Chevy could testify.

SRH

The 6-12 came in a really thick bottle and smelled of citronella.Nasty stuff, but every tackle box had one and when it spilled on the rubber lures a whole new aroma resulted. For a good smell alternative, how about the smell from a ruffed grouse crop when you open it to see what they are feeding on? Doesn't really work but I do it anyway just to smell the contents. They eat over 300 plant species. No wonder they're so tasty.