doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What guns will you be shooting into your dotage?

If a little, light gun with almost no recoil keeps you making trips into the woods when you get real old, bully. The guys past 75 years or so of age mostly can’t swing or deal with the weight or recoil of a 12. Some guys much younger than that don’t either.

Some of you might recognize the name Ron Schara. He was visiting in the Ruffed Grouse Society booth I volunteered in this weekend at the Game Fair. This guy made his living hunting and fishing and telling people in the Midwest about it on his TV show. Ron doesn’t hunt anymore. Would love to, but, just can’t do it anymore. Same eye injury as me, and 15 years on top of me in age.

Hope he still goes fishing.


https://www.ronschara.com/

Best,
Ted

I'm in my dotage at 75, but still in pretty good condition. I really enjoy .410s on doves, probably keep my Citori Lightning Feather with 30" barrels and one of my 42's and one of the doubles. For 28's, it's my 30" Miroku Mk70 first, and then an RBL with 30" barrels or my Red Label with 28" barrels. 20 gauge goes to my favorite dove gun, original Beretta 686 Onyx. 16 would be my Dad's Parker VHE, hands down. 12 gets tougher, because I have a bum shoulder and a bad eye. Waterfowl and pheasants get the Winchester SX3, but I'll keep a couple of hammer guns and my 3" WingMaster. Everything else is expendable, but I can't bear to part with them yet. The guy we inherited out duck blind from was shooting ducks on his 93rd birthday. I hope to duplicate that.

I'll be hunting with what I use now.

Charles Daly 16ga (5# 12oz) & (5# 7oz)
John Dickson round body 12ga (6#)
Francotte 16ga (6# 1oz)

I will never be down to one.

Goes against something within me to start thinking that way, Lloyd. Certainly not a put down on anyone who chooses to, just not me ....... at least not for awhile. If I start thinking that way I'm afraid it will affect my "drive". I push myself in that regard. I'll be seventy-one in October. Twenty-nine to go to reach my target of taking a limit of doves on Oct. 13, 2051.

Not everyone wants to reach that goal, and I'm not fooling myself. I know things can happen to cause that goal to be unattainable. But, it's my belief that if you work towards it you've got a better chance of attaining it than if you don't. There really is something powerful about positive thinking. However, I may be more susceptible to negative thinking than others. My buddies can swap choke tubes like Liz Taylor did husbands, but it introduces negative thoughts when I do so. It's like I'm admitting "I probably can't hit that bird with this tight a choke, so let's open up a bit". I'm referring to clay birds, now.

Interesting reading your, and other's, comments though. With my love of long barreled .410 doubles I suspect my final dove shoot will be with one.

Like those before me, a Woodward 28 gauge over under.
Possibly a skeleton Macnaughton.

I have miles to go before I sleep though.

For game, I hope I will still be able to lift my Edwinson Green 12 bore BLE and afford some bismuth to feed it on.

On clays I have a .410 Rottweil over and under. Both are about 6 1/2 pounds.

I can't handle the eights any more at 75, but I won't give up on the twelves, even when I reach 90 or more. My last one may be my grandfather's E Grade Lefever pigeon gun which has been in the family for 135 years. My VH Parker 28 has been with me for 63 years and would be my last lightweight. Second choice in either weight class would be a very late hammer bar in iron Purdey 12 bore pigeon gun in 1 1/4 ounce proof and a .410 VHE Parker skeet gun. I think these four are not too many to keep until the end.

As for dotage I am already in mine a lot would say, Over the years I have been shooting unknowingly in a way I have made my choices of the death do us part guns, Some of the reasons are practical and others sentimental.

This gun is the sentimental gun I made more practical it belonged to a shooting buddy who is no longer with me, leaving the very best of memories and the very best of English hummer Derek Bates known to many as Blaster bates making the finest Pub evenings ever after a days shooting, so I do hope he agrees with my modifications.

A very early Baikal under/over twin trigger non ejector.



My next choice is a gun for nearly all occasions Webley & Scott 700.

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This is an other Webley & Scott 700 this being a very early straight hand stock extremely light with not so common with 2 1/2 " chambers, I can just carry this gun all day in the field.

[url=https://imgur.com/HV78o1F]

One of my last two guns I consider my self to be extremely lucky to own though I do know I am only its keeper until the next lucky person comes along when I have slipped of this mortal coil. The one advantage in owning this gun is back in the Club house or the start of a shoot. It brings to an end those loud spoken cost of my gun XXXX and what a fabulous XXXX maker it has to a very abrupt end, when you quietly slip it out of its gun slip.



Finally a gun that if I do meet up with some of my now passed on then young shooing friends after it is my turn leave this blue planet we may be able to have a couple of full moon nights of youthful poaching, good British Ale with a few lines of "The Lincolnshire Poacher" with these words ringing in my ears from many days past "O h it's my delight on a shining night in the season of the year" at a pub with a hot wood fire in an ingle nook fire place.



I do hope you find this an interesting mix from my dotage.

I heard Blaster Bates give an after dinner speech and still have couple of his vinyl records.

That Baikal will no doubt outlast us all,even if it was fed on these:-



Is the wood a new piece or was the factory timber that nice?

I'll go with 3 firearms, all passed down to me by my late Father, he was born in 1914 and passed away in 1986. A Model 12 field grade 20, made n 1931-28" mod solid rib. He gave me that shotgun on my 14th Birthday, and as Hemingway said about his M12 in "True In First Light"--well, you can read that section at your leisure- but it sure describes that fast handling and reliable under all conditions that the M12 was legendary for. I have 7 Model 12's, all built prior to 1950- but this one is "special". A Model 70 SuperGrade in 30-o6 made in 1939- tons of venison fell to that old sweetheart-all with Rem 180 grain Core-Lokt ammo. Wears a Leupold Vari-x now, also is deadly on coyotes, and wild pigs- and a Model 63 Deluxe Grade that Dad bought from Aubrey Brennan in 1956- made in 1948, one of Aubrey's personal guns--I can't begin to count the number of squirrels, rats, woodchucks- OK, one more, Dads Colt Match Target Woodsman, 1939- the early series with the elephant ear style grips- RWTF== addedum: As this is a double gun based forum, I should pick one of the 6 side-by-side ejector guns in my safe- easy choice- the 12 gauge M21 Dad left me in 1981- made in 1940- field grade 28" IC & Mod- ej and sst- fits me like an Armani suit on a Goombah-- back when we had pheasants in MI- this double was my "game bag filler-upper" for many seasons. Not a Churchill or even a graded Parker, just as solid reliable shotgun for hunting-wait- I just also described a Model 12 didn't I.. RWTF