doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gene Hill's H.J. Hussey hammergun???

Gene's hammer gun was on sale at the Vintagers also several years ago. I may be wrong but I think Gary Downey had it. Gene was shooting here in England with me and he left the gun with me for me to make an extra pair of barrels for it. The next time I saw it was at the Vintagers.

John Foster.

Me Too-Gene Hill was the best writer of our time, with Corey Ford a close second. Best of all his best? Hard to say, but I'll go with "The Stranger" by Gene Hill and "The Road To Tinkhamtown" by Corey Ford. Loved Gene's "advice" about sneaking in a new Perrazi or Purdey.

Many years ago, when $40.00 was something to talk about, our nickel-dime-quarter three-raise limit Friday game. Ed hosted, had an old hammer double over the mantle, a late uncle left him. Ed had a red-hot night, won over $40, but his wife had the nasty habit of ransacking his wallet from time to time, so he told me he had stashed two Twenties- one in each barrel of the old beater shotgun- the one place his wife, who apparently hated guns, would ever look.

Ed came home from work, sat down, and said to his wife "Hey, Honey, did you take the old gun down from over the mantle?", as it was missing. "Nope", she replied, "I got tired of looking at it so I gave it to the trash man when he made the pickup today"..

I think Gene would have chuckled a bit at that sad but true story. Women, clever little minxes, and as the team leader said in "The Bridge On The River Kwai"- well, there's always the unexpected, isn't there..

Thanks for all the replies. Does anyone know if Mr. Hill's Hussey was a pigeon gun or a game gun?

Mr. Foster, do you remember?

Eightbore, is the Foster/Hill 2bbl set the same gun that you saw at the Balitmore show?

Or was the one you spotted another one? Was the one you save top quality and fully engraved?

Thanks again.

OWD

I have no idea whether the gun I saw at Baltimore was Gene Hill's gun. I discussed the gun with the seller and he didn't make any claims about its provenance. It was definitely a big pigeon gun with at least one set of barrels 30" or 32" and fluid steel in both sets. I tried to get a friend to buy it because I couldn't and I wanted to know where it was going to be.

WHY,? did his wife shhot at him?

OWD. The gun I rebarreled for Gene was a pigeon gun a very nice one with full engraving. When I saw the gun again at the Vintagers it didn't look so good, it had a broken stock that was poorly repaired. A friend of mine that was with me at the Vintagers asked me to look at the gun for him and I told him that it was Gene's. When I told my friend that he remembered it from when he shot with Gene and I in England about 25 years ago.It's a small world.

Mr. Hill's Hussey hammer pigeon gun is alive and well. It was back in action at Hausman's Great Northeast SXS shoot and the Fall Southern SXS this year. It was sold by Griffin & Howe a decade ago and changed hands this past year. It looks in fine shape, though with a replacement stock. The original stock is being looked at for restoration. It has 31" original long chamber barrels and 28" modern proofed barrels. Hill wrote a chapter entitled "Hammers" about the gun in his book A Listening Walk.

The chapter was also reprinted in Field & Stream: http://books.google.com/books?id=6v3PyL--_GIC&pg=PA15&dq=%22gene+hill%22+hammers&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nas7Uu-tEI7u8ASF4oGADA&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22gene%20hill%22%20hammers&f=false

The artist's sketch in the article doesn't really look like the gun, which has very fine scroll engraving.

Not long before my son was born in Feb. of 1983, I boxed up all my Gene Hill books and mailed them to him along with a quart of Va Gentleman bourbon,some Peychard bitters and a long letter. ( There were nine of them, some purchasedi in the early 70's) He returned them along with a hand written letter. They all had personal inscriptions such as " To TM, the greatest shot in the Confredacy". They reside on my " special" book shelf along with my other personally inscribed books. I communicated several times with his widow who was working with a friiend in Selma who had country sport books at the time. She promised me one of his pipes but I never pursed it,much to my regret.

There was a Hussey gun for sale last year on Gunbroker with two barrels like the one described. I bid over 8k on it but ended up losing the auction. There was another Hussey hammer gun a yera ago at Jaquas for sale. I beleive I know where it is and the dealer who has that one. I remember looking at that one in person at an event. It needed some work and was quite heavy if I remember correctly.

DGM showed me and several others this gun at a Virginia Vintagers event this summer. At the time I did not know its provenance. Very nice gun. Makes me want one too.