One of my favorite quotes from classic American literature references shotguns: “… but if there is a law at all, it should be to keep people from the use of smooth-bores. A body never knows where his lead will fly, when he pulls the trigger of one of them uncertain firearms.” These words were spoken by James Fenimore Cooper’s fictional character Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye, from the Leatherstocking Tales.
For those who do not completely understand the shotgun, let me educate you: Shotguns throw a pattern of bullets—pellets—and those individual pellets never land in the same place. This causes shotgun shooters to spend hours doing something called “patterning.” This is arguably a waste of time because all they’re really doing is trying to predict the unpredictable.
I learned this at about age 5 when my father first took me squirrel hunting. He gave me a break-action shotgun, and one morning I fired a box of shells at squirrels. On the way back to camp, I asked if I could borrow Grandpa’s pump .22 LR rifle for our next squirrel hunt. I did, and I’ve hardly looked at a
