doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bill Hanus Birdgun

I know BH stressed hard, small shot and open chokes.I can't remember if lengthened forcing cones were in the mix. I had some of his old news letters and advertisements. I wish I could find them now.

Terc;
Sorry I misinterpreted your statement the gauge bottomed out at 4�". I just thought you meant it had reached bore diameter. The .070" difference from chamber to bore is fairly constant when they are to nominal sizes. A lot more variation will be found among bore sizes than chamber sizes though. For the 16 gauge nominal is .732" chamber & .662" bore. With the .024":/inch taper you are looking at a cone length approaching 3" in length. This will present no problems with current plastic obturating wads but could not be recommended for use with old type card & filler wads as they would let gas escape around them in the cone

Thanks all, for my continuing education.
terc

The Hanus 28ga Birdgun I bought a few years ago (Ugartechea) was marked skeet/skeet . . . but the Spanish markings were cyl/IC. The chokes measured .000/.004, so the Spanish markings were the accurate ones.

Terc, I also recall that Bill liked small shot and open chokes. He sent me some Lyalvale 9's and some Activ 7 1/2's to try out. I didn't think much of the Lyalvales. The Activs were 16ga, an ounce of nickel plated shot pushed by something like 3 (or maybe even 3 1/4) DE of powder. I don't recall the velocity, but they were very "snappy" to say the least. I figured the high velocity might result in blown patterns. Not in that case. Those shells threw great patterns, although I hesitated to shoot many of them at paper, because all my 16's were pretty light. Used them very effectively in the open barrel of my 16's on mixed bag quail/pheasant hunts in Iowa (back when we had good numbers of both). There was a bit of "killing on both ends" involved, however.

MY AYA #4 Bill Hanus birdgun made in the 1990's did not have long forcing cones, just 2-3/4" chambers.

Little Creek, did yours also have double triggers? I seem to recall that Hanus got away from his single nonselective trigger on the later versions of his Birdgun.

Didn't Dale Tate (formerly of Purdy??) do his gun fitting for a while. A friend and I went to the Benfield show once and I believe the 16 double he was fitted for was a BH. He first ordered a 20 and thought about it on the way home and changed the order to a 16. Still shooting it and loves it. Deadly on pheasant, quail and chukar.

Larry-My Bill Hanus Birdgun was a double trigger AYA #4. Really a pretty nice gun in all ways. I shot ruffed grouse with it, but ended up selling it and keeping a Fox 16 gauge for my grouse gun, which also had skt 1 and skt 2 barrels. I sold it , too.

I saw the AYA in a gunsmith's shop a little while back. It had a badly broken wrist. I offered to buy it as is from the owner, but he couldn't get a grip on the gun's value. I would have restocked it myself.

I had the privilege of doing all of Bill's stock work for the last 8 years of his life. I have done Dale Tate's major stock work for the past 15 years. Both men are/were men of integrity. I was honored by Betty Hanus to dispose of all of Bill's shop materials. I bought Bill's quail gun, a DS Lefever 20" Cyl/Cyl shotgun. It is murder on quail (if I do my part). Bill did indeed like small shot at higher speeds. I was given some shells with #9 shot which was used by several people at Flatwater. Good shooting and softer than anyone thought possible for the speed and size of the shot. Many inkballed the targets in the sporting clay course.

Bill had dealing with several gun companies in his 50 years in business. He explained to me that most of his associations with gun companies had to deal with price point for his clients. He wanted quality, reliability in service, and something he could be proud to have his name on. He was very picky in what he accepted. I got to see several of the newer offerings from several companies he dealt with. He was always conscious of the weight and handling properties of the guns. He was not adverse to looking at all brands during the SHOT Show each year to see if he could find a better value for his brand. I miss talking to Bill. He was a fountain of knowledge and experience that I drew upon often for my meeting of customer needs in stockmaking/repairing.

Back when I did a couple articles on SKB, I had a chance to look over Bill's old SKB Newsletters. I wasn't even aware of them back when I bought my first couple Ithaca SKB sxs. Lots of good information, for sure.