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I haven’t posted a shooting report in quite a while. But here’s one I couldn’t resist.
I bought this gun in 2015 and named it The Hefty Hawken.
The elderly gent I bought it from said he had it made in 1976, but he couldn’t remember the name of the builder. The only thing he seemed to be sure of was that it had a Sharon barrel and a Davis lock. The lock is indeed an R. E. Davis Model 0211, but there are no identifying marks on the barrel.
Now here’s the thing. Up until yesterday I’d never fired the thing. I can’t tell you why. I just never got around to it even though I burn quite a bit of powder every year. I guess it was a matter of having too many guns (if there is such a thing). Anyway, now that I’m getting to be an “elderly gent” myself I figured it was time to correct that.
I arrived at our hunting club’s range mid-morning Saturday. After setting up with all the necessary gear on the shooting bench I discovered that the .575 balls I’d expected to use were way too big. No way could I get them into the bore. Fortunately, I’d brought along about two dozen .562 balls. Even the .562’s were very tight with the .015 pillow tick patch I had on hand. So I guess the gun is actually a .57 caliber.
Having no idea how the sights were set, I put a target out at 50 yards, loaded up with a hefty 110 grains of GOEX FFg and took five very careful shots. Here’s the target.
Man! You could not have wiped the grin off of my face with 24-grit sandpaper. I was pumped.
I adjusted the sights a bit to the right, put up a fresh target, and planned to repeat that group. Here’s target #2.
Well, so much for a repeat. After a slice of humble pie, I put up another target and tried again. Here’s target #3.
Come on guys. Give me a break. The sun was in my eyes. It was 82-degrees and humid, my glasses were fogging and slipping, I was getting tired and there was an earthquake in El Salvadore that I’m certain shook the shooting bench.
On the way back from retrieving the target I started looking for the fired patches and found these.
After taking a break back at the camp with a sandwich and a Dr. Pepper, I returned to the bench for another try. This time I loaded up with 95 grains of GOEX FFg and took five more shots at 50 yards. Here’s that target.
And here are the patches from those shots.
Anyway, it was a fun day. I had one spectacular group, several so-so groups, and several cold brewskies while cleaning the gun.
I bought this gun in 2015 and named it The Hefty Hawken.
The elderly gent I bought it from said he had it made in 1976, but he couldn’t remember the name of the builder. The only thing he seemed to be sure of was that it had a Sharon barrel and a Davis lock. The lock is indeed an R. E. Davis Model 0211, but there are no identifying marks on the barrel.
Now here’s the thing. Up until yesterday I’d never fired the thing. I can’t tell you why. I just never got around to it even though I burn quite a bit of powder every year. I guess it was a matter of having too many guns (if there is such a thing). Anyway, now that I’m getting to be an “elderly gent” myself I figured it was time to correct that.
I arrived at our hunting club’s range mid-morning Saturday. After setting up with all the necessary gear on the shooting bench I discovered that the .575 balls I’d expected to use were way too big. No way could I get them into the bore. Fortunately, I’d brought along about two dozen .562 balls. Even the .562’s were very tight with the .015 pillow tick patch I had on hand. So I guess the gun is actually a .57 caliber.
Having no idea how the sights were set, I put a target out at 50 yards, loaded up with a hefty 110 grains of GOEX FFg and took five very careful shots. Here’s the target.
Man! You could not have wiped the grin off of my face with 24-grit sandpaper. I was pumped.
I adjusted the sights a bit to the right, put up a fresh target, and planned to repeat that group. Here’s target #2.
Well, so much for a repeat. After a slice of humble pie, I put up another target and tried again. Here’s target #3.
Come on guys. Give me a break. The sun was in my eyes. It was 82-degrees and humid, my glasses were fogging and slipping, I was getting tired and there was an earthquake in El Salvadore that I’m certain shook the shooting bench.
On the way back from retrieving the target I started looking for the fired patches and found these.
After taking a break back at the camp with a sandwich and a Dr. Pepper, I returned to the bench for another try. This time I loaded up with 95 grains of GOEX FFg and took five more shots at 50 yards. Here’s that target.
And here are the patches from those shots.
Anyway, it was a fun day. I had one spectacular group, several so-so groups, and several cold brewskies while cleaning the gun.
