16ga.com ~ View topic - first day, new gun

Today is the first day of waterfowl season here in Saskatchewan. Had to try out my "new to me" Merkel O/U 16 on some ducks. I skipped work and went for a drive near home with my Pudelpinter in the back of the pickup. In a half hour I shot five ducks with five shots doing the 'ol "sneak and flush" method. Bear did good work on the retireves but we did lose one somehow. I'm really going to like this gun! Bismuth 5's seem to work well so far. We have more ducks this year than I can remember since since the 70's. We'll send lots south to our American friends, so get ready ... It's going to be a great season!

Joined: 28 Dec 2005 Posts: 62 Location: Driftwood, TX

Sounds like a great gun and productive time off....

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

What kinda ducks and how is that gun choked???

Congratulations on the your success with the new gun. I am also very pleased with my Merkel 1620. Very Happy

The ducks I shot were all blue wing teal except for one shoveler. I also shot a couple of coots. The shoveler and coots will be utilized for retriever training, and the teals were stir-fried for supper - Good! there were lots of bigger ducks I passed up - mallard, canvasback, pintail, widgeon and gadwall mostly. They'll be better eating in October.
i can't tell how the gun is choked, don't see any marking on it at all - normally German guns have 1/1 for full 1/2 for modified etc. it seems to pattern about modified out of both barrels, but i haven't done a careful pellet count on paper yet. The other set of barrels is 16 over 7x57R. the shotgun barrel on that set is noticeably tighter than the regular set. Any suggestions how to tell the chokes on this gun? its an older model, 211E I think.
I went out after supper and shot another teal, nice to have the dog working well since it was a challenging retrieve. Last week a friend saw two moose by the slough where we hunted, I was curious if they were still around since this is not moose country - you'd need to go 200Km North or East from here to get to their usual range. Saw some beds and tracks. Gets me thinking of a combo hunt up north in October - Ducks and moose with the Merkel and laketrout fishing for midday fun.

You almost make it sound like it's worth living in the vast frozen north country Laughing

A seriously coveting Drew from 'Furnace, AZ'

I'm asking again if anybody has some advice on figuring out the choke markings on my Merkel. There are several really small stampings on the barrels, but I can't figure out if any are choke designations or if they're all proof marks. Anyone else shoot a 200 series Merkel O/U?

Don't know about chokes, but Merks are lazer guided, bird killing machines

A 16 GAUGE AND A PUDELPOINTER. Your one hell of a good man the combo can't be beat. It's a shame you have to have all that fun with that dog and gun. My pup was retreiving his first geese and doves this weekend but the ducks sound better to me. Keep that dog busy and burn lots of powder.

first days are always great with a new toy

Probably had my last day for birds this season with the new gun on Saturday, will be switching to big game now. My Merkel finished bird season with a bang! I set up in a barley stubble field near home, lesser Canadas had been feeding there for more than a week. Had about a dozen flights come in. Missed my first two shots , then knocked down 7 geese and two mallards with 9 shots. I must have been feeling too sure of myself, since I missed my last shot ( at about 20 yards!) so I figured that was a good time to quit since I was only one Canada goose away from a limit of eight. I set down the gun to to take pictures. Had three more flights actually land in the decoys. Some were only a 3-4 yards away. Shot a short video. What a morning!
Both bismuth 2's and tungsten-matrix 5's worked well for these small geese. So far with this gun I've shot Bluewing teal, Greenwing teal, Mallard, Gadwall, Shoveler, Coot, Snow goose, Canada goose, Ruffed grouse, Sharptail grouse, (and a raccon!).
I'm going to put the 7x57R/16ga barrels on and use it for whitetails in two weeks. i did have the rifle barrel on and used it during elk season, but passed up the only shot opportunity while carrying it and later killed a bull with my .356 win. instead. It's so much fun to have a completely versatile gun! I'm really starting to get attached to it!

Guest

Got to agree with everyone here......especially Drew...this hot weather is the worst! But it didn't stop me from taking the lazer beam and the PPointer out today, got 6 birds. Missed 4 and finally figured out that I am so intent on watching the dog on his first year's hunts that I am not paying proper attention to my shooting form. I'll call it "First dog gun mounting disorder". At least now that I know what it is, I can fix it.

I vote we have a first official 16ga. Society meeting at Longwalker's place..............before duck season ends. Wink

Joined: 01 Oct 2006 Posts: 171 Location: western PA

fdgmd, have suffered from this dissorder befor. Just didn't know it had a name, or that others suffered also. ben