It was effective and inexpensive – two qualities that worked well in a poor region at a poor time.Īnd of course, this translates well into the emergency prepper mindset. My grandfather bagged his first deer with a cut shotgun shell, and many other critters fell to him and that old shotgun using the same method. To keep meat on the table, the family’s lone single-barreled break-open Iver Johnson 12 gauge shotgun had to be used for everything from pest control to small game hunting to big game hunting. Usually all they had were birdshot loads to make do, so the old waxed cardboard shotgun shell hulls were transformed into cut shells, and used in lieu of slugs for whitetail deer hunting.
