Woodpigeon and rusty relics

8 x 60 · Dec 3, 2015

Anyone else like chasing Woodpigeon with rusty relics?

Lightly seared pigeon breast with a dollop of mashed potato and maybe some cranberries…Brought down by a 140 year old (and that's not me by the way!)

Hardly big game hunting but a staple where I live.

Ade

AZDAVE · Dec 3, 2015

Here I use a couple old english hammer guns on dove just can't bring myself to shoot anything newer than my great grandfather Winchester model 97 (Built in 1911). My english doubles are 1880's vintage.

Red Leg · Dec 3, 2015

No - But I use a 10 bore 1880's era Lindner hammer gun for ducks and geese (2 7/8" 1 1/4 ounce bismuth loads). It hits like an 88mm dual purpose and drives the Beretta and Benelli semi-auto guys to distraction! You have a great looking gun.

billrquimby · Dec 6, 2015

Beautiful shotgun. When my friend Lynton McKenzie still was alive we used to shoot mourning doves with a pair of flintlock double-barrel shotguns built in very early 1800s by a gunmaker named Manton. The click, flash, boom, and a cloud of white smoke every time we pulled a trigger took a while to get used to, but it forced us to keep swinging. Every bird we hit was a trophy.

Bill Quimby

8 x 60 · Dec 6, 2015

Double flint-locks. Great little story. What a great way to hunt. Marvellous, and Manton's as well. To shoot with those must have been fabulous. Yes swing through. Even longer "lock-time" ("discharge-time" is probably a better description) than percussion cap. What we now know as driven shooting did not exist in the days of the flinter. Back then it would have been walked-up game over Spaniels or Pointers. You can understand why that was when you have had a chance to shoot these old guns. By the time you had reloaded, all the birds would have flown over.. Centre-fire cartridges and prior, to a lesser extent pin-fire (and the commensurate fast re-load) , brought a whole different discipline to the game and that, of course, is what heralded the arrival of driven bird shooting as we know it today.

Witold KrzyÅ¼anowski · Dec 6, 2015

Great shotgun 8 x 60.
I use old Pieper Bayard 12ga, Herstal, Belgique.
Witold

browningbbr · Dec 6, 2015

I'm still looking for the right "rusty relic". I don't want to spend a ton of money.

To feed it, I have about 60 vintage (antique?) all-brass 12 ga. shells and a genuine, complete, antique reloading set for them. The set even came in the original wooden box. I did have to carefully dispose of some vintage primers that I found in the box. I'm guessing that they were mercuric and therefore could be unstable.

A friend found an equally old set of loading information for black powder shells. I've tested a few loads in a modern shotgun. While the velocities are a little low (1020 fps), I think they would work just fine for mourning doves.

8 x 60 · Dec 6, 2015

Witold KrzyÅ¼anowski said:
Great shotgun 8 x 60.
I use old Pieper Bayard 12ga, Herstal, Belgique.
Witold

Picture(s)?

Witold KrzyÅ¼anowski · Dec 6, 2015

I'm not at home 8 x 60.
Tomorow will pics.
Witold

8 x 60 · Dec 6, 2015

Witold KrzyÅ¼anowski said:
I'm not at home 8 x 60.
Tomorow will pics.
Witold

Look forward to seeing

8 x 60 · Dec 6, 2015

browningbbr said:
I'm still looking for the right "rusty relic". I don't want to spend a ton of money.

To feed it, I have about 60 vintage (antique?) all-brass 12 ga. shells and a genuine, complete, antique reloading set for them. The set even came in the original wooden box. I did have to carefully dispose of some vintage primers that I found in the box. I'm guessing that they were mercuric and therefore could be unstable.

A friend found an equally old set of loading information for black powder shells. I've tested a few loads in a modern shotgun. While the velocities are a little low (1020 fps), I think they would work just fine for mourning doves.

Sounds like you are nearly there with your quest. I would love to get hold of some genuine brass cases. Keep your eyes open, you won't need to spend too much. Many old guns get sold for a low price because people think they are maybe not safe when in fact they could well be fine. Not sure how it works with proof marks where you are but that is always a good place to start (certainly if it happens to be a British made gun) . If using BP then pressures should generally be pretty low so long as you keep the shot load light… Plenty of info out there on the subject.

Pondoro · Dec 6, 2015

I hunt for ptarmigan along with my gundog in our mountains..
I use a 1896 Purdey game gun, 28" barrels, 12-65.....she is still 100% thight and with shiny original barrels..

billrquimby · Dec 6, 2015

8x60:

I was fortunate to have hunted with several original high-quality muzzleloaders from the 19th and 18th centuries because my friend bought, restored and resold a lot of them.

(He had worked in the Tower of London as a restorer before becoming one of the world's best-known firearms engravers.)

One of the finest guns I ever hunted with was an original .45-caliber caplock made in Edinburgh by gunmaker Alexander Henry at the peak of his career. I borrowed it when I was invited to shoot a bison in Colorado and write a magazine article about it.

Thinking it would shoot round balls, I questioned using a relatively small caliber on a large animal until I saw the long, 500-grain bullets Henry had designed his rifle to shoot with paper patches. I've forgotten the load and velocity, but one shot at about 50 yards upended the moving bull in mid-stride and it died with its feet in the air.

Bill Quimby

8 x 60 · Dec 7, 2015

Pondoro said:
I hunt for ptarmigan along with my gundog in our mountains..
I use a 1896 Purdey game gun, 28" barrels, 12-65.....she is still 100% thight and with shiny original barrels..

View attachment 52421

View attachment 52422

Cracking looking setter you have there Pondoro. Does he/she point, flush and retrieve for you?

8 x 60 · Dec 7, 2015

billrquimby said:
8x60:

I was fortunate to have hunted with several original high-quality muzzleloaders from the 19th and 18th centuries because my friend bought, restored and resold a lot of them.

(He had worked in the Tower of London as a restorer before becoming one of the world's best-known firearms engravers.)

One of the finest guns I ever hunted with was an original .45-caliber caplock made in Edinburgh by gunmaker Alexander Henry at the peak of his career. I borrowed it when I was invited to shoot a bison in Colorado and write a magazine article about it.

Thinking it would shoot round balls, I questioned using a relatively small caliber on a large animal until I saw the long, 500-grain bullets Henry had designed his rifle to shoot with paper patches. I've forgotten the load and velocity, but one shot at about 50 yards upended the moving bull in mid-stride and it died with its feet in the air.

Bill Quimby

DRT!

Pondoro · Dec 8, 2015

8 x 60 said:
Cracking looking setter you have there Pondoro. Does he/she point, flush and retrieve for you?

He does not retrieve but he is very good at finding the birds and point and flushes when given the command.

Witold KrzyÅ¼anowski · Dec 9, 2015

Hi 8x60
This is my old Pieper Bayard 12ga, Herstal Belgique, 1930.
All the best.
Witold

8 x 60 · Dec 9, 2015

Thanks for posting the pictures Witold. Handy looking gun.

Woodpigeon and rusty relics

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