doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hunting with high quality guns

One of at least two things usually happen to Unused Guns when you die.

1. Your Wife sells them to folks who will use them and scratch them up.
2. Your Wife remarries a hunter who can't believe his luck and who can't wait to take your beauties out hunting.

Just got in from a afternoon in the woods with what most would consider a high quality gun and really can't imagine a better place for it....

Put a triple scratch in my Hellis buttstock a few weeks ago in VT., must have brushed up against a threaded rod or screw in a fence post. I looked at it and smiled. Something to remind me of a great day in the field.

I've always assumed that some good people put many hundreds of hours into a gun so it would perform. As such, I shoot everything I own (with the exception of a gold-plated Colt SA that I bought in a moment of utter madness). Every gun carries battle scars. My favorite rifle shows worn blue where it has sat in the rack in my ph's vehicle through miles and miles of bloody Africa and I wouldn't retouch it for the world. As for bad weather, Brit guns were made to be shot in the worst climate in the civilized world. I will have deep gashes or real damage worked on. Otherwise, each scrape is a memory, like the scratch in a rifle butt where I was leopard crawling towards a kudu.

I hunt with what I have. Right now its a real nice Fox A Grade 16ga. staright grip. I do what I can to protect it but I hunt the thick stuff just the same.
Look, If you had Sela Ward for a girlfriend or wife, what would you do, just look at her all the time? or.........

Use em or look at em. What gives you the most enjoyment.

Not a very good picture. You have to look real close to see my dog and the Turkey. I shot it last week with my 10 gauge Triplex Grip Premier Grade W.C.Scott. I consider it a fine gun, made to use.
L.F.

j0ey, not so - sir!
It is indeed, a very fine picture of you!
To the gun!
As far as I'm concerned, W&C Scott was one of the better English third tier makers.
Use it well.

One of the funniest mornings I ever spent in a duck blind was with a A grade Fox double, shooting ducks over wooden blocks that had been made by the Ward Brothers. My hunting partner was an "expert collector" on Ward Brother decoys and just about died when he saw what we were shooting over. I thought that pompus jerk of a doctor would die before we were done.

I put the decoys out in the dark while he was safely in the blind. At first light he noted we were shooting over "real", wooded, decoys and that pleased him. In about ten minutes he noted that they were a passing copy of the Ward brothers style. In another ten minutes he started to ask if they were just copies or real. Just before I shot a Teal that buzzed the decoys at about 200 mile per hour I mentioned that they were real. I thought that the doctor was going to take a bullet for the decoys.

When I picked the decoys up I did wipe them off and place them in canvas bags to protect them. They traveled first class. Had to keep an eye on the doctor to keep him from pinching one or two decoys. At the time my spread was worth about 50 to 100 Fox A grade doubles. I hunted over them every year for about 20 years just because they were meant to be hunted over. And yes I am sure that they picked up a stray pellet when the ducks came into the decoys. Not every day you get to shoot a decoy worth several thousand dollars. Of course if you shoot them too often they would be worth about what the scrap lead or now bismuth would bring.

So hunt with your nice guns. None are perfect and they deserve to be hunted with and you should use them in the field. If you fall they will give you something to look at until you get up.

Mr. Lowell I'd be happy to loan you a few inches of barrel for yer Beasly.
L.F.

H. Joe,
How about some pictures of the gun, but not you? Good looking turkey.
jas