doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com vintage trap guns

I wonder who else shoots trap with a vintage sxs besides myself and Mike? Anyone care to share a picture or two of their favorite trap double gun?

I shot ZZ with a load of Texans in Houston last month a lot of them were shooting vintage SxS guns.

I have a good selection of old live pigeon guns on my website - have a look at the photos if you are interested. I have hammer guns, sidelocks and boxlocks - even a single trigger hammer pigeon gun!

I am currently re-barreling and re-stocking a W&C Scott hammer gun which belonged to Capt. Brewer and with which he shot 100 straight in competition in 1897 according to the barrel inscription. There are some photos of that on my LATEST NEWS section, under 'FROM THE WORKSHOP.

Capt. Jack Brewer was a bit of a shamelessly self-promoting sociopath with some substance abuse issues. He declared himself the "Champion Wing Shot of the World" and "The Best Shot on Live Birds the World Has Ever Known". He was defeated by E.D. Fulford when they shot three, 100 bird matches at Al Heritage's grounds, Marion, New Jersey in November, 1891 for $3000 a side. Fulford killed 204 birds straight during the match. That was serious money in 1891.
Fulford won the re-match January, 1892 at Woodland Park, Long Island for $1,000 a side, killing 100 birds straight to Brewer�s 99. In preliminary practice and in the match Fulford scored 421 birds straight. After the loss, Brewer declared "I will shoot against any man in the world for the World's Championship Cup which I now hold with $5000 or $10,000 a side, Hurlingham or London Club rules to govern." There is no record that match took place.

In 1898, Fred Gilbert held the American "E. C." Powder Company Trophy Emblematic of the World�s Championship at Inanimate Target Shooting, the Kansas City "Star" American Wing Shot Cup "Champion at Pigeons" and defeated J.A.R. Elliott to regain the DuPont Grand Smokeless Handicap Live-bird Championship

Jan. 22 1898 Sporting Life
�New York. Jan. 15. Once more the DuPont, trophy changes hands, and Fred Gilbert, of Spirit Lake, Ia., is able to claim the possession of it. The DuPont trophy has been changed around considerably of late, in fact ever since J. A. R. Elliott of Kansas City, went after all of the championship trophies. Elliott first won it from Budd, lost it to Gilbert; won it back from Gilbert, and finally at Dexter Park, L. I., yesterday afternoon, lost it to Gilbert by the score of 96 to 91 out of 100 live birds in a driving rain, and under protest by Elliott.�
�Gilbert used an L. C. Smith gun, 7 1/2 pounds, 3 1/2 drams DuPont powder. 1 1/4 ounces No. 7 chilled shot in 3-inch Leader shell, loaded by the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.�

�After the match was finished J. L. Brewer announced that he would shoot Gilbert a match on the same grounds for $25 to $500 a side. On the following Wednesday Ed. Bingham who came on with Gilbert to look after his interests, said that they were not looking for matters of that kind, but if Brewer wanted to shoot with Gilbert he could come to Chicago and shoot against him for the DuPont trophy. Brewer said that there was no money in that for him and offered to wager $1000 that he could defeat Gilbert on Watson�s grounds in Chicago. Here is a chance to make a good match or call a bluff.�
There is no evidence that match took place.

Brewer shot a Greener for most of his career.

Interesting. I noted that the original barrels on Brewer's Scott have been deliberately bent downwards. The stippled rib has an intermediate bead as well as the ivory bead at the muzzle. I am putting new chopper-lump 32" barrels on it, with Teague chokes, for the current owner.

Drew:
Do you happen to know if these were live bird matches or perhaps glass balls?
Jim

Dig,

I'd hope you take the time to both measure & pattern the original bbls. on that old 'pig' gun. Suspect the downward bend was to get it to shoot exactly where he was looking.

It would also be most interesting to know what kind of patterns it threw w/something close to what was loaded at the time vs. a more modern similar load.

I'm aware of the old card competitions for penetration & patterns, but they were from earlier times mostly as listed in books like 'Experts on Shotgun Shooting'. Not often one has a chance to see what one of the big dogs was actually using from that time period.

Best, tw

I will get it to the pattern plate before it goes back home. I'll test both barrels on the gun but the stock is being replaced so point of impact is hard to show for sure in terms of what it did for Brewer unless someone the same physique as him is shooting the gun and we are using the original stock unaltered.

The original stock is broken.

An image of Brewer is here on p. 120
http://books.google.com/books?id=e34EmE3tkfkC

Jim: the glass ball era ended with the introduction of the Ligowsky Clay Target in 1880. The first "International Clay Pigeon Tournament" (or inanimate target tournament) was run by Geo. Ligowsky's and J. E. Blume's National Shooting Association in Chicago in 1884; the second International Tournament was in New Orleans in 1885.

Seeing the load Gilbert used posted above gives me an openning!! I have been wondering about the pressures of those old shells from before the days of progressive burning smokeless powders for some time. From the late 1890s to the early 1920s, the heaviest factory loaded 12-gauge shells were loaded with 3 1/2 drams of bulk smokeless powder or some number of grains of dense smokeless powder (28 grains of Ballistite was one of the most popular) and 1 1/4 ounces of shot. In several of the old sporting books I've read the authers expressed the opinion that these loads were excessive and were of the opinion that the 3 1/4 dram 1 1/4 ounce was a better balanced load.

I've now scored some old DuPont Smokeless Shotgun Powders books from the late 1920s and early 1930s. Thes booklets are very lengthy tomes, 96 and 103 pages, promoting their DuPont Oval progressive burning powder, which allowed the development of the high velocity loads like Western's Super-X, Remington's Nitro Express, etc. In the manual they show a table giving the pressure of the 3 1/2 drams DuPont Bulk Smokeless pushing 1 1/4 ounces of #6 shot as 11,700 psi, with 3 1/2 drams of Schultze 11,800 psi, and the same load pushed by 28-grains of Ballistite at 12,600 psi!! Velocities were all given over 40 yards, not the muzzle velocity figures we are use to seeing today. The DuPont bulk gave 943 fps, the Schultze gave 941 fps, and the Ballistite 966 fps. Meanwhile 40 grains of their DuPont Oval gave that 1 1/4 ounce of #6 shot a velocity of 981 fps with a pressure of only 9,400 psi.

Here are my clay guns. Top an Ithaca 5E 12 ga.I use for sporting clays and
a 4E for the traps. Both have 30 inch vent ribbed barrels. I have a 32 inch 5E at Gunter's getting fit.