doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Well Known & publicized "Facts"

Miller,
I may have pointed this out prior to today, but, one Francis E. Sell seemed to have a lot to say about those Richland guns, and may have had a hand in designing them for the US market.
There is a copy of an article he wrote promoting all things 20 gauge, 3 inch, backbores, long parallel chokes, and, what not, in the 1968 Richland Firearms catalog. In 1977, an article in "Gun Digest" goes into great detail of how a 20 should be chambered, bored, choked and used to get good results with modern 3" 20 gauge ammunition.
I still have the NIB 707 20 gauge copy that showed up here as a gift from a friend. It is heavier than I imagined, a full 6 1/2 lbs, heavier than a very similar Spanish 12 gauge boxlock that greatly resembles it, but, were a guy to lay in a supply of 3" 20, you could use the stuff, at any rate. The Spanish 12 is also chambered for 3", and I'd sooner sit in sh!* than try a 3" round in that gun! I tried a few rounds of 3" 20 gauge loads in a Ruger Red Label I owned many years past, patterns were truly unimpressive for the cost and pounding that came with those loads.

Maybe things have changed?

A visual inspection shows a lot of effort went into polishing the bores of the 707 gun. Beautifully done.

I will give it a run on pheasants later this year, most likely with 1 oz of 6s in a standard 2 3/4" high brass loading.

Best,
Ted

Ted;
Yes I am quite certain the 707 was built to Mr Sell's specifications. Mine had the slight over-bore & 1�" forcing cones that he championed. I seem to recall him writing about one of them he had with 30" barrels & he stated it weighed 6 3/4 lbs. Mine had 28" barrels & I weighed it on what I though at the time was an accurate set of scales & it only hit 6� lbs. Those 1 1/8pz loads I mentioned were rather comfortable from it but for much of the full 1� oz loads I would prefer it at 6 3/4 lbs minimum. You start getting up around 7 lbs you may as well have a light 12.
I no longer have any desire for a 3" 20 nor one weighing in at much over 6 lbs. I also have no desire for a 28 if it weighs more than about 5� lbs (5 would be even better) nor for it to throw more than 3/4 oz. Beyond that & that's what the twenty is for. I liked the old "Heavy Field loads of 2�-1 in a 20 or the 2 3/4-1 1/8 in a 16. Heavier than these I'll still take the 12.

I recall reading (but I don't remember where) that there weren't many of those 707's ever sold in the States. Something on the order of a few hundred. I've always wondered about the accuracy of that "fact", because I owned 2 of them. Committed the cardinal sin of having the barrels whacked off a 30" gun; gave it to my son when he was in his early shooting days. I tried hard, but I couldn't keep the kid on the straight and narrow. He ended up liking OU's better.

Poor John Browning has been blamed for every reasonably successful gun out there. Wouldn't surprise me if someone's Benelli duck gun has been attributed to JMB.

I roll my eyes when some scribe says an O/U will have more/less recoil because of its hinge pin position.

The Benelli 'system' was invented by JMB contemporary Sjogren.

The well known 'fact' is that Benelli invented it.

"Fish bite least when the wind's in the East". Only if you are fishing a shallow West shore...Geo

George east wind makes very poor fishing! Bobby

Bobby, you are probably a better fisherman that I am and after all it is a "well known & publicized fact". I can get skunked on any wind at all...Geo

William Foster wrote in his grouse book that there were no lightweight doubles made in America, Fox and the Ithaca Flues small bores could be ordered as light as any imported double. Bobby

If he'd said no lightweight 12's, he would have been on pretty solid ground.