I was going to introduce how and where my interest in double guns comes from but got a bit carried away. The lists givven certainly help, essentially what i wanted to avoid was anything that approaches the subject too simplistically so i think going with the respected authors and reading samples and reviews online i will be able to work out whats the most interesting. What i didn't want was to read the blurb to find i had bought a book explaining the difference between a sidelock and a boxlock.
In any case for my own amusement and your boredom i will explain where my interests in double guns comes from. ( okay so this basically turned into a biography, so i added some pictures )
I am from a non shooting family, therefore i never had "dads gun" or "grandads gun" as a historical curiosity and my first gun was a winchester supergrade 101 which i got when i was 15. Rough shooting, ferreting and driven game is generally my sport.
Around the same age i shaped my first lump of walnut into a air rifle stock and learn a little about tuning airguns, and ended up making some stocks to sell.
( one of the stocks i made to sell )
They were fit for purpose but aside from oil finishing my Winchester, i wouldn't have dreamed of opening up a shotgun to see how it works or to repair it. Which was unusual as i was one of those children who aged five would have received a gift on Christmas day, and have broken it by boxing day due to opening it up to see how it works.
( My first gun which i still have which i refinished )
I have always been a history nerd, i say nerd as its a blinkered imaginative version of history, while i love to read accounts and i love accurate detail, i am not the type to learn dates and events in an academic sense.
This lead to the purchase of my second gun which was a horrid muzzle loading repro hawken smooth rifle it was unreliable as hell and i had to fettle the lock and swap out the nipple to get it where it would work reliably for me.
(that Hawken .54 smooth rifle )
What was important about this is that the guy who sold me the hawken had seen some of the air rifle stocks i had made, and showed be this beautiful box lock non ejector, which sadly had a broken stock. The kind gent offered it to me for free provided i promised him i would try and restock it.
At this time i had already fostered an interest in double guns but they were out of the depth of my pocket at the time. As an aspirational interest i read widely to find out more about different guns and along the way learned bits and bobs and met collectors and learned mostly through speaking to collectors, taking the guns i had available to me apart to see how they worked, so i already had a good idea of what was a nice gun and what was junk and restoration methods.
Anyway so i was thrown in at the deep end and had to restock this boxlock non ejector which took me the best part of a month of work with tools limited to a 6mm chisel and a pointy tool i made by grinding a screwdriver (Yes i used other things but as far as inletting goes that way my lot ).
(restocking that boxlock non ejector)
As you might not expect i genuinely spent a ton of time on it and worked very patiently, and did a good job and really loved the process. After shooting it for three seasons its as good as it was when i made it and it just continually brings me joy and has become like an extension of my body.
(too fat two seasons ago )
I learned to love double guns and sold my repro muzzle loader to buy an original double percussion gun which i restocked - the original having been cracked and repaired extensively. As a collector the thought of restocking due to and ugly but sound repair now horrifies me but it was just how i thought at the time.
(while there was nothing wrong with the stock i did here it was just wrong for the time period of the gun in pretty much every respect. As i became more collector - ish i realized i had committed a horrible crime here -not legally i mean i just should have been true to the history of the gun- so i threw this stock away and intend to restock it properly and in keeping with how it should have been done)
I began collecting, being severely limited by crossing what i wanted with what i could afford which lead to a couple other restocking projects
(backing the action on to the head of the stock. Not quite there yet. This is a back action sidelock gun and is the gun i was taught to relay ribs on )
At one point i ended up with a gun needing the ribs relaying and had to take it to my gun smiths, after being quoted twice the value of the gun for the work i talked him to a very reasonable price which involved me doing most of the work and him just doing the soldering.
(Being able to re lay ribs comes in really useful )
I left it with him over the weekend and he rang me back on the monday and we came to a deal where i would make and chequer a forend from scratch for him and he would help me out with the barrels and it would benefit everyone.
(that forend, pretty good contact? )
Which then introduced me to a world of gunsmiths and gunsmiths repairs. The work i carry out at the moment is all wood work, repairs and alterations, but in my own collecting and restoring i am constantly learning more and more mechanical stuff and metal working which is obviously great.
