Got fed up with birds in the sheds, bought this smooth bore .22 for shooting the .22shotshells. Pretty fun way to clean out the barn and it seems to hold a decent pattern. Still need to get an aerial kill. Anyone else have a garden gun?

I am curios what the pattern looks like at different distances

my garden is at my house in town , no shooting but my dogs keep most stuff out of the garden till it gets too hot for the Pyrenees to stay out at night.

at the farm 12ga for most everything or the 22lr but rifled

Unfortunately mof6 of my garden pest bitfr are of the song kind.

What yardage are you patterning at?

Just an old springfield 22 rifle. I keep the garden fenced, that keeps most of the issues at bay.

That Henry looks like fun though. Can you get those 22 shells in TSS?

Nice looking Henry

I'll go shoot a couple patterns shortly, so far the patterning has just been a few shots into the snow and then shooting birds in sheds

It would be cool if they made a .22cal led bb for it as well.

What kind of bird shot ammo are you using? I used to shoot a lot of sparrows out of the bus barn at the school with the Winchesters that crimped closed on the end. Shot them out of a Winchester 74 not a smooth bore. I imagine they'd frown on that these days at the school, kept the buses clean though.

The only ammo I have so far is the federal crimped ammo. The blue CCI shotshells are supposed to be best if you only have a rifled barrel as the plastic helps prevent the rifling from spinning the shot.

Be interesting what range you can get, all I know was 38 cal shotshells out of a 4" revolver the results were abysmal, lol and that was under 25 feet...

Not a shot gun deal but since out garden is about a acre big mine is this lil .22 TCM gas gun. Still working on it but got a load about worked up that has a lil more then .22 mag but won't do anything crazy after it goes in still a lil too ....splody on anything barn rat size and down though... Still wan get a cricket hair for use use them sub sonic.22 lrs lil garden sniper

10 yards from the muzzle with federal crimped shells

Another 10 yard from muzzle with federal crimped

Doesn't look terrible....what range do you need to shoot?

Back in the olden days (100 years or less) gun manufacturers produced their "garden guns" that were close to 9mm. The few that I seen were single barrel break-opens like your old H&R's - but there was many store brands.

10 yards is pretty much max for me. I'll be honest, could of probably gotten by with a rifled barrel and the blue cci but I've always wanted a smooth bore and the few times I found used ones they sold for basically new price. I'll probably use this thing a handful of times a year for the rest of my life keeping sparrows out of sheds

why not just use a .22 or .22 mag?

because reloading for rimfires is a real pain
and if wolfie can't reload it what fun is it

looks like about 10 yards is your range

it seems like more of an in the barn gun than garden exactly

but it has uses

I bet it has a 18 inch barrel doesn't it. it falls weirdly into it is a 22cal so it might be OK to be 16 inches but it is also a smooth bore so techincally a shot gun so needs 18

stupid 92 year old BS law

I got one for my birthday last year. Amazing how much better it shoots the shotshells. Snake killer!! 5 yards it demolishes them, 10 yard for sure, and killed a few floating cottonmouths at 20 yards. Missed a few at 20 yards also, or at least not confirmed. My brother in law pulled up to me when I was at a little pond by my house and he asked what I was doing. I told him I was looking for snakes. One came up about 20 yards and I pulled up and shot and it just rolled over dead. He was pretty amazed at my good shooting (thinking I shot it was a regular 22 bullet). I had to confess it was shotshell. LOL

The blue CCI caps due seem to pattern better (further) than the crimped shells.

Wonder if you can take an old cheap single shot and scrub the rifling out?....

I don't have the Garden Gun but I shoot the CCI shotshells out of my 2 oldest single shots... they ain't smoothbore but I can still hit a sparrow at 30-35 feet

I thought that but I wasn't sure how to execute the derifling

You're right on the 18" barrel, I never thought about legalities til you said it.

Looks like it should work well for you. The CCI's are big money for birdshot .22. lol

I got one. Shot it quite a bit. The blue shot shells are a nightmare. The plastic breaks. The crimped brass are better but still have issues with extraction. I shoot carpenter bees with mine and it don’t get much funner. Safety glasses on and let em rip. I’ve prolly went thru 500 rounds over last 4 years. Noticeable lack of bees last year. I’m putting it on em.

A Hopper hunting gun. Boy you could really go through the ammo with a lever action gun. Mine is a single shot Savage Jr-rifled.....jk

you can

There's an article Hal wrote in FFG about it

neither do a lot of people
I was talking to a guy at the gym old marine he just bought himself a new Mossberg 20ga auto , he was going to sell his rabbit gun , I thought I would buy it as a loaner for the 4H kids he is the kind of guy who always takes good care of his gear. he handed it too me , it was about perfect.

but I tossed a tape measure on it 18 1/2 to the end of the poly choke but if you unscrew the poly choke 17 1/4 I told him the law and that I was sorry I couldn't play that close to the line. he had it cut down by a licensed gun smith 20 year ago for his son , never thought anything of it.

well he went home and started researching , I saw him about a week later and he had decided he had to torch cut it because it wasn't worth the hassle he had even contacted the ATF.
it was a single shot 20ga

sometimes I hate to be right because there was nothing wrong with it , just dumb 92 year old unconstitutional dribble.

he said he had stopped with that gun in his hands and talked to the warden a dozen times over the years
I said the warden probably figured it met 18 , the US government sold over a million SBRs before they changed the law , they hadn't thought to toss a rule on a M1 carbine , then in 1967 some one did and in 1968 they made center fire rifles 16 inches as an M1 carbine is 17 3/4
in 1936 they made 22rimfire rifles 16 inches because it had been a common size for boys rifles barrels for many years by 1934 22short started in 1857 22long in 1871 and 1887 for 22lr
1936 also brought about the AOW so that the many Ithaca defender shotguns with 14 inch barrels could be registered for 5 dollars by the congressmen and wealthy business men who owned them.

they had tried to eliminate pistols and were told they could not with CGA 1934 so but they left all the language about cutting down rifles and shotguns in that went with the pistol ban.

Poor killing range will bounce off a bottle pretty easily at a few yards distance, it’s an up close and personal round from my experience.

BB gun BB's will go through the tin on my shed, this doesn't. It'll kill sparrows though

I bet you could load it with shorts fine and it would group ok at 50 feet

things don't need spin stabilization till they start to slow down

Wonder how a Thompson contender might be classified with # 12 shot?I know that works up close on snakes and carpenter bees in 45 cal.

I tried cci 22 shot shells as a kid and found out fast that you’d be better off throwing a handful of sand.

On the barrel it's stamped ".22lr shot shells only"

I have no idea if it's a bit different chamber or barrel size or if that's just a precaution for the lawyers

I use an old Winchester model 62A . A pump gun, tube fed top ejection. I've put a whole bunch of CCI's blue top threw it with no trouble at all. At the farm I called it my relax time. I'd good by the machine lean too where the carpenter bees were trying eat it down and have at it. The Winchester crimped ones would jam in the chamber many times plus they sounded louder. Had yourself some fun but wear some safety glasses.

Bit of an update. I bought this for birds in the barn but the .22 rat shot works great on... Rats! In the feedlot with dogs and cattle around and shots from 1 to 10 yards it works great. The dog and I cleaned out about 50 rats the past couple days, dog killed a ton and the .22 got the runners. Great sport.

that sounds like a blast.

rat blasting

That sounds too fun !

you get good at running rats with them buckhorn sites and you are going to be a running deer master with the center fire lever gun.

My VFW Post has 2 old .22's bored out to smooth bore for our meat shoot fund raisers. Patterns about dinner plate size @ 15 feet. Works great!