Drew,
Pick any gun built around 1905. Any gun. Can you go to the store (that means a ‘Mart of some sort, in this part of the world) and buy the correct ammunition for it?
How ‘bout a decade ago? Two decades? Three decades? Four decades?
When you get off this board, say, speaking to a young father, and his kids at church, and the topic of bird hunting comes up, do you dive into the subject of “correct” ammunition for that task?
The subject weaves around a little bit. My Father, had you mentioned pressure in shotgun loads, would have been clueless to that term. Shotguns came in one gauge (12) as far as he was concerned, and you had a choice of 2 3/4” or 3”, up until 1991, when he got his SBE. His A5 was 2 3/4”. That was that. This was a guy who instructed sniping in the USMC. Not an amateur, just not too much more concerned about his shotgun loads beyond 2 3/4” and 3” and what size shot was loaded into them. He likely would have thought pressure meant recoil, and Vise Versa.
I don’t think that is unusual for the rank and file with a shotgun in their hands on the weekend, in the fall. The average guns you can get at the “store” are not sensitive to pressure, not at a level you would see in a factory loaded shot-shell, anyway. So, most of them aren’t going to know anything about that, unless they end up here. The topic came up at the firearms safety course my wife and son took together, but, it was way too brief, and not covered in depth. As you can well imagine, Damascus was evil.
There is a fair amount of knowledge that goes into the feeding of older guns. The consensus is not always universal on that subject, either.
Best,
Ted
