doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gun weights for specific applications?

Seven pounds max if you're walking a lot, more if you're hunting with heavy loads, like for turkey or blind hunting waterfowl.

Liverwort: I can live with that. Turkey and waterfowl are also not (usually) all day affairs

I just weighed my 1887 Parker Fishtail and it's 7lbs6, so...no wonder I noticed it's weight so-much last Fall. My Elsie hammer is 7lbs12, which is fine for targets (or waterfowl) but also not fine for all day carry.

Lloyd,
Until about age 30, I didn’t care what the gun weighed.

When I was 20, I had a good job at FMC, and I bought my brother a 12 gauge, 30” barrel Savage Fox 12 gauge. It tips the scales at just over 8 pounds, and I had a Remington 1100 12 gauge that was similar. I used both guns for pheasants, (brother wasn’t much of a hunter, ‘cept about two weekends of deer hunting) and kept a 20 gauge Model 17 Remington for grouse. Had I not handled a long barreled Darne 20 gauge that was under 6 pounds, I might never have had anything else.

But, I did. Here we are.

I didn’t NEED that Darne, but, for grouse and woodcock, it was the cat’s meow, and I used it for pheasants, too. Light and well balanced were good features even when I was young enough to lug a heavy 12 around. There was a Ruger Red Label 20 in that mix, too, but, honestly, it weighed about the same as a 12 gauge Silver Snipe.

I paid for my lessons, over the years. I have a 5 3/4 lb. 28 gauge Darne that is really difficult for me to shoot well, so, there is a limit on how light something can be in my world.

Best,
Ted

Ted: We live and we learn, right?

Until you are exposed to a true "birdgun" you tend to think all guns are pretty much the same (heavy, clunky and mostly ugly). That epiphany certainly doesn't come for everybody and then if it does, it usually comes later in life.

I had been exposed to a Featherweight Smith 16 early on (1970s), so I knew "better" was out there. My first English gun experience was a lovely Lancaster BLE down at the Gart Brother's Sport Castle back in the middle/early 90s. I was having my grandfathers Smith 12 worked on and Bart Miller handed me the Lancaster to mount for fit. The "realization" of what I was holding was a bit devastating because it re-ordered all of my understandings of the gun lore that I'd been taught to that point in Hillbilly Hell (my affectionate term for it).

Ever since then, I've been chasing that particular dragon. I still like American guns (I do!) but...I have been corrupted by that exposure to my detriment (well...that's my wife's well-founded opinion).



See! The typical American gun (that weighs-in at 8lbs11) and my current "target" gun.

A lightweight bird gun around the 6 lb. range is a special treat, but I don't think it is an absolute must-have necessity. Carrying an extra pound or so really shouldn't make that much difference over the course of a day to a grown man in reasonably good physical condition.

Getting older certainly does make a difference, but proper conditioning, or the lack thereof probably pays a bigger role. I noticed a long time ago the level of fatigue I had after a long day of hunting depended upon what sort of shape I was in. Specifically, it didn't matter how much I walked at work or around home, as much as HOW and WHERE I walked. We use a much different set of muscles when walking in the woods or brushy fields than we do when walking on smooth level ground or pavement. Being out in the woods working with a chain saw cutting firewood before the hunting season will naturally get you in better shape for hunting than any amount of walking on flat floors at work, or even on a nice manicured golf course or lawn.

Very soon after you stop using the muscles you used during hunting season to drag heavier boots through brush and tangled grasses, you lose strength in those muscles you stopped using. When your feet and leg muscles no longer have to accommodate uneven ground and stepping over tree limbs and logs, you soon lose that special sort of conditioning that hunting demands. Use it or lose it. And no amount of walking on a treadmill at a gym is going to get it back. Walking and jogging may improve your cardiovascular system, but you still won't be fully prepared for climbing hills in the woods and busting through brush. Same goes for hiking through deep snow, or swampy ground. Until you are actually in shape for the type of terrain you encounter while hunting, your tail will still be dragging after the end of a long day, even with what you think is a magic under 6 lb. shotgun.

And if you want to make a 7 1/2 lb. gun seem light, all you need to do is carry something heavier for a while. It really works.

For woodcock hunting, I prefer a gun under 5.5 lbs. or within a few ounces, definitely under 6. For turkeys, my main carry are single-shot .410s and 12 ga. that are 3.25 lbs. and 4.25 lbs. respectively. I'm not an all day turkey hunter and while my "running and gunning" has evolved into "stumbling and bumbling" , I hunt over 5 times a week during gobbling season. I also use a mountain bike to cover suitable trails and woods roads where appropriate. Hunting uneven terrain does more to improve my core strength and balance than cardiovascular conditioning, but there is overlap. I walk an hour each day when not hunting over uneven terrain. I cover over 2 miles and my dogs, 3-4 miles. Gil

Keith and Gil are so-right about core-strength. My best gunning years were about 10-years or so ago now. Traveling and in the field for work, good eyesight yet (& decent hearing) & regular river wading (for trout) all contributed to better function with a scattergun. Injuries, illness and then time start to take their toll as you roll into your later 60s (it is starting to feel like it's becoming a war of attrition).

But...I still think that long tubes, great balance & 6lbs in the uplands is very hard to beat.