doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com No need to baby.

For me it's an AyA Matador. 12 gauge, 32" barrels, 3" chambers, ST, PG, BTFE. Weighs over 8 lbs. I've shot ducks and geese using 3" bismuth. Even shoot some late season doves with it. With the Winchester low recoil shells its soft shooting as can be. I'm sure it would handle about any shell I put in it.

You know, I've hunted elk with a 70's "classic" Weatherby Mark V Rifle out here for well over 20-years now, white-line spacers and all. (It was a used, relatively inexpensive left-hander 30-caliber Magnum when I need just exactly that). It clearly screams it's era when you see it but... recently (last few years) when other hunters see it on the trail or in the parking lots, they seem to be mildly reverent. It sure doesn't look like all the other guns I see out there (plastic, parkerized, etc.) When I do my part, it does it's part & the freezer stays full. I bead-blasted the finish so is isn't so shiny but otherwise...

John,
I have one of the last articles Francis E. Sell wrote pertaining to his thoughts on the 20 gauge for duck and goose hunting. It is in the 1977 Gun Digest, and is titled "The 20 Comes of Age". Although his own Richland 20 magnum makes appearances in several photos, he makes no mention of the make, and states he restocked it for himself. He appears to have moved on from Richland to Knight & Knight, a firm in Florida that imported and customized Bernardelli and Perazzi guns. He was very specific about bore dimensions, forcing cone lengths, and choke diameter and lengths, and an article from 1968 (and, my skeets gauge) shows that it was all the same specs when he was with Richland.


I often wonder if the steel shot requirements that came in around the same time broke his heart, as they made all the work he did irrelevant.

Dr. Sane,
In 1968, I could buy a gun with white line spacers, a polyester leasure suit, and bell bottom jeans.

Save buying used at the Salvation Army store, I can't buy any of those things, today. Not even a new gun with white line spacers. Plastic, elegant, or, refined white line spacers.

"Contemporaneous" sure seems to fit.

Best,
Ted

Ted, bell bottoms I'm 1968, I can believe.. Polyester leisure suits though didn't come in until circa 1975 and the disco craze. Sorry - I was there too. And by the way 60's-70's music is still in vogue. Believe it or not, Hendricks, The Who, ZZTop, Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers, The Band..... kids still listen to it.

Keep the white spacer...it's unique and will come back like long barrels did.

Last gun I bought prior to having to fill out a Form 4472 or whatever the number was under the new '68 Gun Control was a Richland 707 in 3" 20 gauge. I had read several articles by Sell & believe I may have that 77 one you mention. Mine had 28" barrels with M/F chokes. My Son still has it.

I did change the recoil pad on it. The one it came with was so soft firing it was about like holding it off your shoulder & giving it Jumping Room to Stomp you. It had 28" barrels choked M/F & weighed 6� lbs. After putting on the firmer pad I could shoot the full power 3" loads with reasonable comfort. Before that it had been a brute even with mild field loads. Killed my first Goose with it using a 1� oz load of #4, a young Blue.

Kids??? Shoot, I still listen to it everyday. I keep my Sirius XM Radio preset to the Classic Rewind and Classic Vinyl channels. Oh yeah, it's Hendrix, not Hendricks. "There's a red house over yonder, that's where my baby stays"...............

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us5sfT17hws

SRH

Leisure suits go back to the 1930s. The poly version got popular in the 1970s, but were available prior.

There exists out there on the �net, a photo of Peter H. Johnson, the author of the Parker book, in a polka dot suit, circa 1961. It was quite snazzy I imagine, in the era. Horrific, today.

As I said, I�ve no desire to alter the gun. Or, buy a leisure suit, or bell bottom jeans, or, another gun with white line spacers.


Best,
Ted

Miller,
I would be willing to bet the recoil pad on mine would be too soft as well, were it not 50 years old.

It seems OK to me now. I tried 3� loads for a 20 a long time ago, and wondered what all the fuss was about. More recoil, worse patterns in my Ruger red label.

Best,
Ted

A �nudder:



2 3/4� chambers as built, in 1937. I bid $257 on this one, even though I didn�t have a good reason. The barrels had some furry rust, which our own (former?) Ken61 blued up. The rest of the gun appeared unused.

It mostly gets used with non toxic loads. The Nitros seem quite capable of handling off the shelf ammunition, even the promo junk. The barrels are the despised and useless 26�, with CYL and MOD chokes, that seem to work out just fine for Ruffed Grouse.

Best,
Ted

Leisure suits, the poly version, were loved by a good friend of mine. A surgeon, who just loved the light blue denim and the patch work denim. He went into thrift shops and bought them after they stopped being carried in the stores. His wife truly hated them.

Normally, I would not prod the bear, but she was such a pain in the ass as a wife of my hunting friend. I had a aunt who sewed clothes as a hobby and did alterations to make spending money. I commissioned four suits for him in his favorite colors. Gave them to him for Christmas one year. I don't think she spoke to me for two years. I considered that a second gift to myself. Those poly suits wore for ever. He was wearing them ten years later and she still hated them and me.