AmBraCol , The Center Of God's Grace
The most widely used bore in the Amazon
Saturday, January 27, 2024, 07:05

I grew up in the Amazon Basin. The "36" was THE most common shotgun in the jungles and sertão. The 20 was the pistolero's enforcer gauge and 12 bore was only seen in the hands of rich land owners. The 410 was mostly used in single shot break action shotguns. It was also mostly seen in its full brass, berdan primed, FFFg and jute fiber glory as the alternative paper hulls were notorious for swelling in the jungle humidity. A typical load would be a 38 spl case of FFFg sparked by a CBC berdan primer pushing a jute fiber wad behind three TTT (tres t) shot behind another wad of jute. Alleged patterns were pitiful at anything under near contact distance, but somehow or other they managed to put a huge dent in the fauna with these little blasters.

A typical scattergun of "36" "caliber" would be a rotting, rusty relic (even if only a couple years old) due to the common folk lore of "veneno" (poison) which was "known" to coat the inside of the bore and be transmitted to the shot as it rattled down that bore. This would induce the victim of the shot to die from poison, no faith being placed in the the effects of multiple ventilation apertures being opened in the target.

I learned to reload full brass shells with a Boito 32 gauge that belonged to an Alaskan that had purchased a parcel of land and was developing it during his winter breaks from welding up north. When he'd head back north to work he'd leave that old scattergun with me. We had 11 full brass shells (he'd lost one of the original dozen) and I loaded them "for onça" (jaguar) with a more potent load than was recommended by the manufacturers. I'd take a 24 gauge measure of Tupan powder and dump it in, followed by a wad of jute fiber hammered in with a dowel to compress it well. 9 TTT shot (they fitted nested like 00 buck in a 12 gauge) and then a wad of shredded paper to hold things in place. After firing the brass was readied for the next load by flipping the berdan primer out with the tip of a knife and a new primer tapped into place with the flat of the blade. I had a steel cup with a hole in it that allowed the tight tamping of the over powder wad.

So a few years ago I came across an old Boito singleshot like the one I grew up with. It followed me home and is now in the cache for when we're up north. It's in "36", but marked .410 so folks up north would have an idea what it was. But in my heart I know it's a "36" like accompanied countless garimperos and seringueros and others who walked the jungles of my youth. Someday I hope to obtain a box of CBC brass for it, for old time's sake.

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I'm a peaceful man and prefer the pursuit of peaceful sports. Those involving teams and balls of any sort tend to be deleterious to one's body and promote violence by both spectators and participants.