Here are some photos and a little narrative concerning an abused shotgun I picked up circa 1908.
The shotgun is a SxS, double trigger, medium game gun, made by Lucio Loyola in 1946 (maker's mark CK, proof year code Q) for retail sale by Trust Eibarres. This was a time when live pigeon shooting was a very popular sport in Spain, and Trust Eibarres (then a major retailer of sporting goods) was a major supporter of live pigeon matches.
Back then (1908) I was browsing Gun Broker and came across this shotgun:
[errr... make that 2008]
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/o0s8...rlkey=nwbw3zlu48njw4h2lzi85m9ei&dl=0 What caught my eye was the steel butt plate. That's right, the original butt plate/recoil pad had been replaced with a steel butt plate. The shotgun had a small price, a warning of "no returns", and had been initially sold by a retailer who commissioned/sold some interesting guns, so I bought the thing.
Once I had it in hand I came to the conclusion it had been purchased for and used in the live pigeon circuit. Why someone would use a medium game gun as if it were a heavy competition gun is still beyond me, but it's good example of some of the things that can happen with that kind of abuse.
The continuous pounding of shooting pigeons competitively apparently started the firing pin bushings to walking out of the standing breech and the owner heavily staked the bushings:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8se3...rlkey=y22vgnl9q7peyoyv263iqorfw&dl=0 The butt stock was essentially shattered and was held together at the head by the lock plates and at the rear by the steel butt plate.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/94pp...rlkey=iauqmrajj5a4pk36wvbm67egz&dl=0 The splits in the stock don't show up well in the photo but can be seen in the inletting with the lock removed. One can see where bits of the stock have been chipped away by recoil. Also note the absence of any provision for an intercepting sear in the lock, as was common in purpose built live pigeon guns.
I'm of the opinion, based on the amount of wear I can see, that this shotgun was used for some years as a pigeon gun and may have a couple of hundred thousand shells run through it. Despite the wear and stock damage it still functioned well when it came to me and was a terror on the trap field. I eventually sold it to a fellow who said it was exactly what he had been looking for (yet another puzzle for me).
Be all that as it may, I think this shotgun is a good example of the potential results of a good gun badly used.
