On the few occasions I've shot an O/U in any volume I've done quite well with it and enjoyed the day. It may have even performed better than my SXS, I dunno. But, it was a tool lacking any emotional attachment for me. Almost all my SXS guns stretch back to the early 1900's or earlier and there is an instant bond with that piece of metal and wood. It's character, history, craftsmanship that pulls me to them. To realize that the first buyer of my gun could have easily witnessed all the history of the mid-1800's is a mighty magnet to me. I love to hold one in the evenings and ponder just where it has been and who might have owned it. I love to follow the lines that were made by a craftsman carefully filing it--no computerized machines here. I love to see the old photos of the workmen standing by their bench wearing soiled aprons. I guess I'm a historyholic and always will be. Which shoots best? Frankly, thinking about it, I don't give a damn. I'll always carry my beloved relics of another age.....one that I sorely miss. I've sorta become a relic myself.
My favorite hammergun is a plain W&C Scott from 1870, probably made for the American market. I can't hold it without thinking it was around a half dozen years before the first white man determined to settle in my home country--the Texas Panhandle. Custer was still romping around chasing bad injuns. Robert E. Lee was a tired old man still presiding over Washington College in Virginia. The huge buffalo herds still roamed the Great Plains. Birds in incredible numbers still covered our skies. All this comes back to me as I hold the gun. This example is why I shoot a SXS--it's so much more than a tool.
Last edited by Joe Wood; 06/26/11 11:45 PM.
