doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com America's LOVE with the smallbore shotgun!?

Good luck with that! Hope there's been more rain up there than the National Weather Service is reporting: they show no measurable rainfall this season. So you gotta hunt the "wet spots" I guess.

Im hoping my friend's place has had water in the resevoir. I have offered to cover the cost of keeping water in it year round several times.

Chuck H, we saw 2 pheasants run by the dining room window as we were eating Thanksgiving [chicken] dinner. Things are looking up in Ks.

GOOD! I am in Boulder, heading for Mexico via C Springs this morning....Pososle was great...seeya

I think here in the US large scale interest in the small bore goes back to when Remington introduced their model 17, ne Ithaca model 37 & Winchester offered the model 12 in 20 bore as did a number of other makers. It was perhaps the general prosperity after WW1 that made for a lot of interest in the smaller framed lighter field guns & repeaters had come of age & were both accepted & affordable by many. They just made good sense for upland game that didn't require much shot payload in order to bag the game being sought. Cartridge weight & bulk as mentioned earlier is also a real enough factor when one is going to be trudging about afield all day.

In a double, one has but to heft or carry any of the older Ithacas in their small bore iterations to understand what a delight afield they are .. a good set of barrels with minimal breech mass and just enough wood to let it be admired and pointed well.

Post WW2, Remington made inroads with their 1148 28's that mostly got pounded to death w/1oz. commercial loadings, but many a Texas bird hunter thought they had found nirvana w/that combination in the 50's & into the 60's. They were ultimately replaced by the 1100 lightweight's, still a modern favorite.

Beretta executed the O/U small bore to prefection in their ASEL 20's & Ithaca brought in the delightful SKB made model 100's w/25" bbls. for a while, which, IMHO, was perhaps the best modern made 20 double out there for overall fit, finish and features in a bargain bird gun!

Today, one has the majority of registered skeet shooters using 20's in the 12ga. events to improved scores and Remington even markets a 'managed recoil' 7/8oz. target load that should be about ideal for most small upland game.

If dove & quail & such are the quarry, a 20 is plenty & so is 25 grams of #7 shot.

OK, enough post turkey day ramble; off to shoot a couple of hundred sporty clays targets w/a heavy 12 and walk off some of yesterday's excesses. Best to all here! tw

Daryl,
Sorry we won't be out to KS this weekend. Myra may have told you by now. With the low numbers of birds and the dry conditions, and Chuck not being able to guide us, it just didn't look good. To add to all that, my mother-in-law is having open heart surgery on Wednesday, which put Kyle out of the trip too. It was just down to me and Mike and state land.

And it just wasn't fair to me since Chuck H would have had so much better company than I would.

I and many of the fellows I shoot with all spent years toting a 12ga.As the years advance and shoulders get more fragile and legs not up to carrying much wt on long walks,we have become good enough shots we don't need 12ga loads to achieve our goal.The lighter gauges do the job just fine with less punishment to our old fragile bodies.When I was 12 yo I went rabbit hunting with an old fellow.I was proud of my Stevens 12ga dbl, and thought I knew it all.I asked him the same ?.Ans-"Hits just as well and lighted for these old legs to carry."Well I'm that old man today.Besides,the esthetics are great!

The reason I like a smallbore's lighter weight [also lightweight boots] is I don't have enough willpower to reduce the weight added over the years to my gut. If I could loose those pounds a 10 gauge wouldn't be a problem.

Mike, I was hoping you'd not notice that and hunt with me anyway.