doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Sxs for sporting clays on regular basis

If you were going to shoot 100 clays every week always using light 7/8 oz loads in a older 12 ga gun, which would you choose between Dickson Round Action, Purdey, English boxlock? All comparable condition, fit etc. Do you think they would hold up equally well?

It is one of those how long is a piece of string questions! Though if I was pressed I would say the box lock on the grounds of fewer moving parts to give mechanical problems.

I wish I were so lucky...

since I started this maybe I should clarify. I use the 7/8 oz loads for a number of reasons. Recoil is one as they are more pleasant to shoot, especially when shooting 100 clays. When hunting I use either a 12 ga B&P 1 oz High Pheasant load in my older doubles or a 1 oz factory load like AA in a newer 20 sxs. The only competition I enter is the Medford SxS Classic and I am pretty realistic about my performance, so most of my shooting is for fun although I always want to do my best. When I am on, the 7/8 oz loads I use crush birds so I don't feel I would gain much from a heavier load. A big part of using that load though is trying to preserve guns that are 100 plus years old. Years ago I used a newer Webley and Scott finished off by Dickson and shot 5,000 rounds a year for several years without any issues. I succumbed to a prettier face and switched to a sidelock and have had more issues, primarily mainspring breaks, when used in cold weather I might add. I try to learn from experience but wanted to hear others views and experience. I appreciate those that answered within my parameters.

I believe that volume shooting in good guns is a non existent problem for most of us. Most of us spread our shooting over our extensive collections. Most of us are of fairly advanced age. I hardly know anyone in my group of shooting friends who could wear out one of their guns before they give up shooting, much less all of their guns. Even as a competitive shooter who was on the field four or more days a week, I always shot more than one gun. I'm just not worried about breaking a sidelock. A broken spring or whatever can happen on lightly used guns as well as hard working guns. I don't like searching for a gunsmith to fix a good gun, but it's part of the game.