doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Decline of the Side-by-Side

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_F._McManus

The recurring elements section is most relevant

Would you rather hunt with an interesting fellow that thinks guns are just tools or a tool that thinks his gun is interesting?


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Ernest Hemingway with a Model 12
or
Col. Lonny Rhodes with a Purdey
(I know the Col. personally. He�s actually a nice guy)

Hemingway had other guns.

How �bout you?

Best,
Ted


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You went from Lance to Larry Brown in pretty short order.

I'm just a Kentucky Colonel. Larry's the real deal.


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Buckin' for PFC Lonny Rhodes

I just picked up a very nice and clean 11 gauge english percussion sxs last week for $300.
34" barrels, 9 1 /4 pound well balanced beauty that fits like it was made for me.

I'll choose Don Ernesto-- His first shotgun, as an adult, was his M12- field grade 12- 30" full choke with solid rib. You might enjoy the books "Hemingway's Guns" by Silvio Calabi, Roger Sanger and Steven Helsey- 2 editions, the second revises the guns Ernest and Mary had in Cuba.

Hemingway started hunting in Sun Valley, ID in Sept 1939- fell in love with the whole area, in 1940 he met actor Gary Cooper, and their lifelong friendship began.

Unlike his father, Dr. Clarence E. Hemingway, Ernest was afflicted with poor eyesight, that factor kept him out of the US Army in WW1- so he served with the Red Cross in Italy, as an ambulance driver.

Somehow, he overcame the vision problems, and was a top rated shot at live pigeon shoots- He won a Browning Superposed 12 ga. in the 1930's-- and used that and his M12 for a variety of hunting and sport shooting. I am sure the gentleman who has the taste (and deep pockets) to own and shoot a Purdey gun would also be a fine field companion.

In the book "The Idaho Hemingway" Tillie Arnold describes Hemingway and being a kind and gentle man, who never drank until the hunt was over, and tried to give others in the group chances at the best shots on pheasants, ducks, rabbits, whatever.

Hemingway's youngest son Gregory won several live bird matches in Cuba, using a .410 L.C. Smith, competing against grown men with 12 gauges- apparently, the acorn didn't fall too far from the tree with his 3 boys, all were keen game shots-

FWIW-- Of all my M12's- my "pet" is a 1937 mfg. Tournament grade, 12 gauge- 30" full, solid rib, red factory solid pad-- Whenever I handle it, I think of Hemingway. RWTF

That is just flat out biased and wrong. The O/U is the superior design over the S x S, all else being equal, for higher percentage hits on all types of presentations. That is exactly the reason there are no top elite competitive shooters in FITASC, sporting clays, skeet and trap that are using S x S guns. To say it is all a ploy by the shooting press is to deny the sunrise.

I shoot S x S guns almost exclusively when hunting. I compete with them in S x S specialty events and shoots. Why?........... because I love shooting them. But, when the money is on the line I will be shooting an O/U, because I, and thousands of other open-minded people, know that I can kill a few more birds out of 100 with it. I cannot imagine a reasonable, level headed, unbiased person giving S x Ss and O/Us both a fair, and equal, shakeout and determining the S x S is the equal for percentage shooting. I gave a 32" well balanced and well fitted S x S a fair run in sporting clays competitions and found it lacking. Yet, I still prefer them for hunting.

We have gone through this dozens of times over the years on this board, and there always seems to be someone who is so biased as to deny the obvious. I don't get it. Why can't people enjoy what they enjoy without belittling other's gun buying decisions? When you claim that the popularity of O/Us over S x Ss is the result of the shooting press you are insulting tens of thousands of shooters who have, through years of trial and error, come to their decision. You can continue to grope around in the darkness, salopian, but the sun has indeed risen. Open your eyes.

SRH

Amen...pass the plate.

I would rather hunt with an interesting fellow that likes his gun.

Different strokes for different folks.

Hunting for me 1/3 about hunting, 1/3 about spending time with friends and 1/3 about using one of my guns.

If I had to hunt with someone else's gun it just wouldn't appeal to me.

I just like sxs because the shallow gape works better for me in duck boats and while laying in shallow blinds, plus they make it easier for me to look down the bores for possible obstructions. They also seem a bit easier to swing laterally when hunting in emergent vegetation.

Stan�s comments four posts above are about as dead on as you�ll find. I shoot SXS guns exclusively at everything but I also don�t shoot competitively. I just enjoy them and have no ego that needs currying. The O/U wins on every point except, with a very few exceptions, it can never have the soul a hand crafted double has. Heck, if I�m hunting four legged game I�ve got a flintlock rifle in my hands and love every minute of it though any centerfire rifle ever made runs circles around it. There is so much more to life than having to get more than the other feller.