I spent the first 11 years of my hunting "career" (age 12 to 23) using a Model 42 Winchester (a scaled-down Model 12 in .410 bore) that I bought new for $85 with the first money I ever made by helping my Dad paint some apartments.
People kept telling me the little .410 wouldn't reliably kill pheasants... but it DID! In fact, I never "lost" a pheasant I shot at with the little Model 42... and I still never have!
But then, the Model 42 held 5 shells and, at first, I used most of 'em on a single rabbit or pheasant. After a few hunts, I began to settle down and shoot only as much as I needed to shoot to bring down the cottontails, the brightly-colored cock birds and the speedy, little quail.
Then, when I got married, my wife gave me a new Browning Superposed (made in Belgium) in 12 gauge for Christmas in 1961... and I used it for many, many years for upland game hunting.
When I got into skeet shooting and fell in love with a little 5� pound Charles Daly 28 gauge over/under bored "skeet & skeet" that I used for skeet shooting... and, eventually for birds over dogs. I found I could shoot a round of skeet with it and get the same score or get within 1 "bird" of the same score that I got with a "skeet & skeet" 12 ga. Browning Superposed (a different one than my hunting gun).
Now... skip ahead 45 years... my son called on the phone one night last Autumn to asked me to join him in introducing his 8 month old yellow Lab pup to pheasant hunting at a local pheasant farm. A few mornings later, as I opened my gun safe and looked over the shotguns sitting in their "places", my eyes fell on the lonely little Model 42 Winchester, standing proudly alone and unused except for an annual cleaning over the past 45 years. It stood out-of-the-way in the far "gun-holder" of my gun safe.
I reached deep inside the safe to the far corner, grasp the lithe little .410 pumpgun and drew it out of the safe. I looked at it's clean lines, it's ventilated rib and "glo-worm" front "bead", it's flawless bluing and wood... I "snapped" it to my shoulder and it still fit perfectly... and I decided to give it a try after an almost half century "vacation"... IF I could find any .410 shells.
Down in the basement on the 4-tier steel shelving next to my loading bench, I found the large box with a great variety of different shotgun shell boxes in it... boxes of 12 gauge shells in 00 buck for predators (both 2-legged and 4-legged), #4's for ducks and geese, #6's for pheasants, 7�'s for quail and partridge... 20 gauge shells for my late mother-in-law's sawed off double barrel... 28 gauge shells for my skeet gun... and a very old partially-used box of the familar faded dark green 2�-inch Federal factory loaded paper hulls with big #6 on the shot wad that I remember buying when I bought the Model 42 'way back in 1948... the only time I ever bought the little 2�-inch .410 shells with their � ounce payload of shot.
There was a mixture of old faded blue, 3-inch Peters paper shells and some old red Winchester paper shells in the same box with the new (in 1948) 2�-inch shells. I must have reloaded those 3-inch shells with a little Lee Loader hand-set back in the 1970's or early '80's.
Amazingly, I also found a box of modern dark red, ribbed plastic factory-loaded Federal 3-inch .410's loaded with � ounces of #7� shot! I had NO IDEA where they came from... but I happily picked them out of the big box of shells for use on the day's hunt.
Out in the field, the dog did pretty well for a pup with little experience. He found 8 pheasants for us... I shot 5 times at 4 pheasants and put 4 pheasants in the game bag. My son, using my 12 gauge Browning Superposed field gun that my wife gave me for Christmas those many years ago, shot 4 times at 4 pheasants and put 3 gawdy-colored cock birds in the game bag.
Clearly, the beautiful little Model 42 was still a "winner"... even after it's 58th. "birthday". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.