The Boy took his time settling the crosshairs on what was about to be his first deer of the season. He squeezed the trigger, said, “Bull’s-eye!” and, 15 minutes later, found the doe at the end of its last trail on his own. At 13, he was in his eighth year of hunting with a rifle, the first six of which were accomplished with a single shot .223 cut to size, the more recent with a .270 ideal for a young hunter.
Recoil was nonexistent with the first and minimal with the second, a feature completely foreign to the deer hunting conversation when I was his age. Once upon a time, any firearm tuned for deer was guaranteed to tune up the hunter as well.
Decades ago, deer weren’t nearly as plentiful and deer hunts in the South weren’t generally conducted the way they are now, so most of my cohorts only got to fire their dads’ field pieces at “the range,” a term that stood in for any handy pond levee, high ditch bank or empty bean field.
My dad hunted with slugs fired out of a Browning Auto-5 Light Twelve. The gun had a vent-rib barrel and a plastic plate on the butt with Mr. Browning’s profile molded into it. Fed low-brass loads of fine shot, it was a delight to use shooting birds. Stoked with super magnum slug loads and fired at paper to see where they’d go, “delight” is not the adjective that comes first to mind.
I was probably eight or nine years old and we’d set up a makeshift range in an empty field using a cardboard box for a target and the back of a Honda 3-wheeler as a rest. Under close supervision I sat in a folding lawn chair, propped the gun across a rolled-up furniture blanket, gently pressed the trigger and set off the Fourth of July. Even today, when the biggest shells go up from the back of Ballard Park to mark our nation’s birthday, when they detonate against the heavens and stream white fire across the sky, when they thump a boom from cloud to ground and take the closest viewers’ breath away, I think of a five-round box of 12 gauge slugs and a November afternoon long ago.
That day I fired the first slug shell because I wanted to and the second because I was afraid if I didn’t, I’d never do it again. I fired the three after that because I couldn’t feel anything by that time, anyway.
The truth is, I was hooked from the first shot. The bruise was the envy of the whole fourth grade and I think I can still see a shade of Mr. Browning’s face stamped into my hide, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I’ve had plenty of misses in my time, but none from recoil-induced flinching. When you start with 12 gauge slugs, nothing really kicks much after that.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
