Shotguns A-Singin’ — Prime & Load

In the days of my youth I worked for a time at Pachmayr’s trap, skeet and sporting clays range in El Monte, California. I did a lot of shotgunning. For the first decade or so that we were in Oregon, I did a fair bit of bird hunting.

That slipped away, with my focus landing hard on my Frontier Partisan Biathlon, tactical training and the like. in recent years, I’ve only occasionally unlimbered the shotgun — even though every time I do, I enjoy the heck out of it.

Anyways…

My buddy Ian Reid, who serves as the Sisters District Ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, invited me out for a round of sporting clays at the Redmond Rod & Gun Club last Saturday. It had been a loooonggg time since I’d shot a formal round of clays. It was… a blast (sorry).

Wonderful 18-station course with a nice variation of target presentations. As always with sporting clays, every shooter has a particular target type he or she struggles with: banking, plunging targets; rabbits; the screaming fast ones or the deceptively slow ones — which keeps it interesting. I was a little rusty, but got settled in and shot respectably. And now, of course, I want to get back into it.

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The Almighty Algorithm usually over-serves me. Why it waited until last week to spring the Prime & Load Podcast on me I do not know. This is Tier One nerdery built on the military history of an oft-misunderstood era. The hosts are academic historians who are also re-enactors, and their love of the period is evident in their enthusiasm.

This podcast is dedicated to exploring the pivotal wars, battles, strategies, and figures that shaped the 18th century. From the rise of powerful empires to the dramatic shifts in military tactics, we delve into the stories behind the soldiers, commanders, and innovations that altered the course of history. Whether you’re a military history buff or just curious about this transformative period, we’ll guide you through the battles, conflicts, and the evolution of warfare that defined an era.

The whole of the 18th Century is often overlooked by military enthusiasts in a hurry to get to the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War. But the 18th Century has much to offer in intrinsic interest for the military historian, and in massive geopolitical ramifications.

People with only a cursory familiarity with 18th Century warfare tend to think of it as almost quaint, with lines of colorfully uniformed and bewigged soldiers lining up and taking turns firing at each other, or stolidly marching down a road like cattle while being picked off by marksmen hidden in the trees. That image was graven in my memory by watching Johnny Tremain obsessively in my childhood.

Warfare in the 18th Century was a deadly serious business, and there was a great deal more art and science to it than is generally credited.

The conflicts of the era were world-shaking. In their introduction, the hosts rightly argue that the Seven Years War (French & Indian War) was “the World War II of the 18th Century.” That conflict, sparked by the actions of a young George Washington deep in the Pennsylvania backcountry, was a hinge-point in history. It set Great Britain up for 150 years of dominant status, and set in motion the factors that would spark the American Revolution and the French Revolution, with world-historical consequences.

The 18th Century is known as an era of limited warfare, an interregnum of “rational” warfare set between the religious wars of the 16th-17th Century and the nationalistic wars of the 19th Century. There was a certain rationality to it, at least aspirationally. Objectives were limited rather than existential, and warfare was professionalized – civilians were to be left out of it. A certain formal decorum and code of honor was to be observed. The constraints on warfare were actually an impressive civilizational achievement of the Enlightenment.

But…

We Frontier Partisans know that the reality — especially on the frontiers — was starker, darker, and dirtier than the ideal projected. Warfare escaped its “civilized” bounds and became ravenous and existential. Civilians and their means of living were deliberately targeted — from white settlers in Kentucky to the Cherokee Over-hill Towns. Irregular warfare was as savage and brutal as it has always been.

The episode The American Rifle: Myth, Reality & Revolution with Dr. John Weaver is probably the best treatise I have ever encountered on the origins, capabilities and role of the American Long Rifle. (Dr. Weaver’s doctoral dissertation Rifles and Riflemen: Material Culture, Violence, and Early American Identity, 1720-1820 is available for download.)

I’m very much looking forward to delving into their session with Gabe Neville on the 8th Virginia Regiment, and their multi-part exploration of the Jacobite Rising of ’45.

Prime & Load is a worthy one to add to your playlist, especially in this 250th anniversary year marking American independence.