doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com DGJ; Henry Holland's live pigeon gun ???

I just got the latest DGJ and with a quick flip thru I noticed a picture with the note that it was Harris Holland's personal 4 bore live pigeon gun in Dig's auction review.

was that a typo or was mr Hollland actually using a 4 gauge double gun for live pigeon (I ASSume in the ring and not eliminating flocks of them at a time)?

I haven't had a chance to read all the articles yet so this one thing just caught my eye.

If he did; I don't know how quick the gun would have been to move but there certainly would be NO doubt about a one shot kill, ecxept the evidence might only be a cloud of feathers tha had a hard time landing in the ring!

As far as early live pigeon guns go, big bores were actually fairly common. There are several accounts of shooters using 6 bores in the muzzle loader days and I've seen quite a few 8 bore pigeon guns. They weren't using wildfowling type loads in these, they were loaded way down for pigeon shooting. Something about a light shot charge in a larger bore throwing a better pattern.


Destry

It is generally thought that a high quality big bore that has no provision for a ramrod is a gun made for pigeon competitions.

I wonder about the size/weight on that since theonly 4 bore single muzzle gun I saw was quite a handful to heft.

Perhaps Dig will enlighten us more on this particular one.