doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Which Prince of Wales it was who...

I believe that a 14ga shell would not fall into a 12ga chamber in such as manner as to allow a 12ga to go in behind it. As a matter of fact it is a quite rare occasion of oversize chamber & undersized rim that will allow a 16ga to do so. The main danger from this account is the 12/20 combo.

If I recall correctly, Lancaster made one or more 14 gauge guns for Albert, the Prince Consort, who was Edward VII's father. They are discussed in Don Masters' book on Atkin, Grant and Lang. At least one or two of them was breech loading.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your commentaries, even though they have my 'theory' go the same way with the pheasants that passed over these old chaps on a drive

All right, here's what I thought.

You have a bunch of guys shooting big time, and obviously concerned about their performance. Naturally, if you want to know your hit percentage, you want to know how many birds you shot with how many loads. Both numbers were too big to just remember.

The first part was easy, however, as the birds were collected and counted by servants and keepers, and the number each gun shot was announced. But how do you know how many rounds you fired?

For most of us here, it's easy: just deduct the number of shells remaining after the shoot out of the number you had before the shoot. But for these old chaps that wouldn't have worked so easily. They shot so much that even the loaders didn't help, ammunition had to be carried from one drive to another by means of a horse-drawn cart. I expect it wasn't unusual for the cart to carry up to 10,000 cartridges, just in case.

The shooting books of the period, by the way, stress that if you shoot by yourself, you can use just about any bloody gauge you fancy, but if you do driven game shooting, forget about anything other than 12. It just made things so much simpler when everyone shot the same ammo. To avoid the delays caused by servants looking desperately for those 3" 17 bores Lord Something shot, and confusion for Duke Something-Else's loaders which got Lord Something's ammo.

The downside was, however, that you never knew how many boxes of your ammo were accidentally given to other guns' loaders and vice versa.

But, if you shot a true rare bore, like a 14 (and if you're a prince, people to whom you cause discomfort aren't likely to tell you about this), than keeping score of your fired shots became much easier. You could just do a little math after the shoot, knowing that every fired shell went through your gun (and nobody would pick up your shells, either, since nobody needed this rare bore).

Edward VII didn't strike me as a person who would do such a thing, too much of a gentleman, and probably didn't care so much. I suspected George V, because he apparently took shooting more seriously than his father, and was definitely more concerned with his scores. You don't get to Top 12 of the country's best shots if you don't care about your percentages. And, I never thought that this would be anything more than an experiment, probably carried out for one or two seasons, and then discarded.

After all, if you're a prince, you could just order your secretary or some such to watch your shooting with a notepad, ticking every shot and every hit.

Hi humpty

Keeping a tally or score of your self and others while on a Victorian or Edwardian upper class shoot was not the done thing at all. In fact it was rather frowned upon because if you where invited to the shoot it was known by the other guns in the party as well as your host how fine a shot you actually where and if you where not good enough you would not invited to a shoot where the other shots where much more competent than yourself, because the whole ethos was your host wanted the guns to enjoy the delights of a day in the field, giving a total kill tally for the day so no one gun would be embarrassed if they had a poor outing. A good host would have more than one shoot in a season and would invite different parties so all his friends would have a good day�s shooting with other guns of his own level, this in turn was extended down to Keepers days and tenant farmers and sons. Well that was the politics of the thing but we all know competition is in the human psyche so it was best not to let your host know about the gambling and keeping score because there was a very good chance you would not be invited back to another shoot. How times and attitudes have changed!

The Field Oct. 20, 1888 �A Shoot On The Moor� by Thomas de Grey Walsingham
On August 30, when I killed 1,070 grouse to my own gun in the day, I shot with four breechloaders. No. 1, a gun made in 1866 by Purdey, subsequently converted from pin-fire to central principle, to which new barrels were made last year. Nos. 2 and 3, a pair of central fire breechloaders, made also by Purdey, about 1870, for which I have likewise had new barrels. No. 4, a new gun made by Purdey this year to match the two mentioned above, but with Whitworth steel instead of Damascus barrels. The guns are all 12 bore, with cylinder 30 in. barrels, not choked. My cartridges...contained 3 1/8 drs. Hall's Field B powder to 1 1/8 ozs. No 5 Derby shot...



Frederick Oliver Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon. He died on September 22nd 1923 in the field, having killed 51 grouse on his last drive

And mixing shells was a problem then also

Experts on Guns and Shooting George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell 1900
http://books.google.com/books?id=4xRmHkr7Lp8C
On the subject of steel v. Damascus, Mr Stephen Grant is very clear, and much prefers Damascus for hard working guns. He related an anecdote of one of his patrons, whose keeper stupidly put a 12-bore cartridge into his master�s gun without knowing that he had previously inserted a 20-case, which had stuffed up the barrel. Fortunately, no burst occurred, but a big bulge, which, however, Mr Grant hammered down, and the gun is now as good as ever.

�The Shooter� from Shooting Baron Thomas de Grey Walsingham, Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Lord Charles Lennox Kerr, Archibald John Stuart-Wortley, Gerald Lascelles, Simon Fraser Lovat 1886
http://books.google.com/books?id=MT9NF4BnAFIC

p. 134 He is a man with a wonderful aptitude for observing the habits of wild birds and animals, combined with all the physical qualities requisite for a good marksman and a country life. He possesses great precision of judgment as to the pace and distance of any moving object, with a wonderful command of eye, hand, and nerve, and usually excels more or less in all the athletic and amusements dear to Englishmen�He looks, and is, thoroughly workmanlike from top to toe, and you will find that all details of his equipment�are as perfect as may be for practical use. He can�run and walk as few men can�He is cool and self-possessed, never a jealous shot, and lets everybody get and keep his respective chances at birds or animals, for he is quite content to obtain his own proper share. He is kind and generous to keepers�is devoted to dogs, and is generally popular.

When shooting, though rarely in a hurry, he never idles, nor does he move about in excitement here and there. (He)�is ever on the watch�and his gun is, by the way he grasps it, also available for instant use. The gun comes to his shoulder just at the right moment without any flurry, and down comes the object at the right moment too; and though he never endeavours to overreach a fellow shooter, or takes any evident precautions to obtain an undue proportion of shots, somehow he seems to get more shooting than anybody else, not really (as it appears) from chance, but because he by instinct knows where to look for game and which direction it will take. He never, unless directly questioned, alludes to his own skill, though others do not fail to do so, and rather gives the idea that he does not himself know how well he shoots. Last, not least, a true sportsman rarely wounds�

On the other hand, a bad �unsporting� shot is a man who�is never satisfied with his shooting or the behaviour of the game�and is forever explaining why he does not shoot better- an explanation no one cares one jot about. Such a man, too, is usually careless with his gun, as safety is the last thing in his mind, and getting shots the first, anyhow and anywhere.

A shooter, if he be a sportsman, whoever he be, would delight in a 'small' day, provided his skill were taxed in shooting, and more especially in manoeuvring the game. He would far sooner kill his share of the hundred, if sporting and difficult shots, than join in the five-hundred-head day, if the latter were easy shooting, which is very rarely the case. As to whether a shooter account for a score or a hundred birds in the day, this in no way affects the question. A sportsman ought to be, and usually is, a man who takes a delight in using his gun and brains.

Certainly from my experience 14 bores are very scarce with few made after about 1870. They seem to be a hark over from the muzzle loading era where 14 bore guns were quite common and I suppose a lot of tubes were available in that bore for a while. I have some photos on file of a rather interesting Boss 14 bore hammer gun with a Jones underlever that faced forward and closed under the forend rather than around the trigger guard (not a Lefauchaux action). Sadly it was too much money so all I took were a couple of pictures. Lagopus.....

Damascus - don't mean to argue, but how did they know who was good and who wasn't if they never kept scores? A few quotes, if I may:


Shortly afterwards King Edward had a very difl^erent
experience in the same neighbourhood when partridgedriving
with Count Trautmansdorff\ In a short day's
shooting the party bagged 500 brace of partridge, the
King himself accounting for 100 brace to his own
gun.

The keenness of King George's sporting instincts
is shown by several entries in the books, one of which
I may give :
�
" The Prince of Wales and Lord Crichton shooting
at Frankfort Park. Began at 6 a.m. A very
dark morning. i rabbit, i woodcock, 43 duck,
3 teal."

On November 20, 1874, 42 woodcock were shot here.
Three years later, on the 9th of the month, 27 were
added to the bag ; and Wolferton Wood, exactly three
weeks later, oddly enough yielded precisely the same
number. In one year I find that 118 woodcock were
killed at Sandringham ; it is not unusual to come across
mention of days when 30 or thereabouts have been
shot. There is record of 31 on November 26, 1878 ;
on the 13th of this month in 1885 the total reached
47 ; that for the year 144. On January 27, 1893, 36
cock were obtained, his present Majesty King George
having accounted for 16, including a left and right.

Among monarchs whose names appear in the books,
in addition to that of the German Emperor, is His
Majesty King Alphonso, who was one of the guns on
November 7, 1907, when 725 partridges constituted
portion of the bag, the King of Spain entering vigorously
into the spirit of the sport.

From "King Edward VII as a Sportsman"

Partridge-driving was,
perhaps. His Royal Highness' favourite sport, and
was admirably managed under his personal instructions
to Jackson. The guns drew their numbers in
the morning, and after each drive moved on one place
to the right, so that each had a fair and even chance
of central or outside places, the Prince himself following
the same regulation. A score was kept by
each gun, and at the end of the day these seldom
exceeded the return, or, if a few birds were missing,
they were generally found by the keepers on the
following morning. There was some keen competition
on these occasions, but if any one killed a bird
which should have been left for his host, no one
regarded the incident half so good-naturedly as the
Prince himself. I always thought him a comparatively
better shot at driven partridges than at pheasants,
although, of course, the percentage of kills was less
than with the easier game.

From Lord Walsingham's contribution to "King Edward VII as a Sportsman".

And, a lovely anecdote told by Marquis Ripon, from the same book:

Two gentlemen, both, alas ! dead, were invited by
me to shoot grouse at Studley. I was most anxious
to see them compete in each other's company, for they
were both very fine shots. Mr. B. fancied himself
quite as good, if not better than, Mr. A., whilst I
considered the latter the better of the two. I did not
shoot myself, but during the first drive lay down in
the heather behind A.'s box. There was a sharp sidewind
blowing along the line of butts, and A., who
was up-wind of B., dropped a considerable number of
birds on to B.'s ground and the outskirts of it. The
moment the drive was over A. went to pick up his birds up-wind, and I, who had remained hidden in
the heather, saw B. come straight into A.'s ground,
collect as many birds as he could carry, and return to
his own ground, where he proceeded to drop them,
leaving them to be picked up later. This happened
several times during the day, but at the end of the
afternoon, notwithstanding the depredations of B., A.
beat him by something like eighty birds. Of course
I never told either of them what I had seen.

On another occasion when grouse driving, between
two of the drives I was much astonished to see a
shooter bombarding the butt next to him with dead
birds. As I approached I heard him shouting as he
cast the birds at his neighbour, ' Take the d__d
lot ! I don't care ! Take the lot, d__n you !
'
He was under the impression that his neighbour had
picked up some of his birds�and he very likely had !

lagopus - Interesting idea about the 14 bore tubes being left over from muzzleloading days. I'd expect Prince Albert's collection to be quite a variety of contemporary designs; it looks like every gunmaker and inventor of the day was eager to present him with a sample of his craft, and those were days of much experimenting.