doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help! I Need a Hammer Gun!

You beat me to it. LC Smith's always had 2 3/4 chambers, can be had readily with steel barrels, and if the stock is glassed you can shoot the crap out of them. I built Francis for under $400 from parts of two guns most people would have thrown away. She isn't winning any beauty contests but she still gets the job done!
CHAZ

Joe,

I concur with Kensal - get a copy of Diggory Hadoke's "Vintage Guns for the Modern Shot." It comes in hard copy and for Kindle. It's a great read. I'm very new to double guns and that that book, plus "Vintage Brithish Shotguns: A Shooting Sportsman Guide" by Terry Wieland have help me learn a lot - along with this forum.

For a relatively inexpensive start the Husky's are a great choice, fun to shoot and you get a lot of what the hell is that's at the clays range. I have my eye out for a nice steel barrel LC Smith but finding one in good shape is hard. Puglisi's has had a very nice one for quite awhile now but asking price is out of my range.
Couple pics of a like new Husky I picked up a couple years ago,late 40's vintage if a remember right.

As long as we�re making up a list of study materials for Joe let�s not forget "American & British 410 Shotguns" by R.S. Gabriel. We don�t want to leave out the ultimate sporting gun!

Steve

Joe, I beg to differ with you, you may want food, water or air to breath, but you need a hammer gun. Lets get our priorities in order here!

Steve

Here's a site to begin a search for a Husky:
http://www.simpsonltd.com/index.php?cPath=350_354_367&osCsid=db9da34f4e14066f801f37f64f49b78a

I have a 16ga Riverside sxs w/exposed hammers I'll let go for $500.Shoots anything I put in it.If interested post.

lots of nice hammer guns for sale on gunbroker and gunsamerica.

but, only buy from a reputable dealer who guarantees what he sells.

Mark Beasland usually has a few Huskys in his inventory. www.mbabllc.com. He doesn't keep a current list of what he has on hand. Just give him a call.

Modern hammerguns . . . Bernardellis are also a good choice.

Hammer Elsies . . . although they came with 2 3/4" chambers (at least in 12ga--did they make any hammer 16's or 20's?), most of those guns predate the advent of the "modern" 2 3/4" shell, the first of which was John Olin's Super-X. That load increased the maximum service pressure by about 1,000 psi. I'd guess there are plenty of old Elsies out there that have been fed modern 2 3/4" shells with no harm done. But if I owned one, I'd reload to lower pressure levels, and I'd keep both the velocity and the payload down (maybe nothing over 1 1/8 oz) to reduce recoil. Might not make any difference, but I'd guess it might give old Elsie a better chance of long-term survival without either shooting loose or fracturing the wood.

You can find many to choose from that won't completely break the bank...

I have hammer guns ranging from a Thos Wild to a Husqvarna to a SIACE.

While I tend to use RST shells for everything, these are sturdy shotguns ready for many years of work. These all feature "modern" steel barrels.

My hammer guns with damascus barrels are lovely and pampered. In picking them, I basically followed the advice given above and tried to find knowledgeable dealers mostly through the Vintagers events.

Now, I have to say I LOVE my Stephen Grant sidelever hammergun the most, so there is that. Talk about a NEEDED gun.