doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com General Billy Mitchell's guns

I was reading the November 1924 National Geographic and there was a very interesting article by General Mitchell on his tiger hunt in India. He mentions his Springfield sporter, Bury 450 double rifle and a Winchester 1995 in.405 and their effectiveness on game. My problem is someone tore out 4 pages of the article and I was hoping someone had a copy that was complete. I am wondering if there was any information on the whereabouts or details about the guns he used still extant?The Springfield is pictured but it is hard to make out details and I wonder who made it.

Perhaps National Geographic could provide a copy or reproduction of the issue you need.

Regards, Neil

I just found one on ebay for $1 and bought it. It had some other articles clipped but the Mitchell article was intact with additional pictures.I love ebay,at least for the time being.

I just got a paperback copy of his autobiography. I'll check for gun references.

What page is the Springfield on? When I was researching Adolph I bought a complete set of NG on CD's.

Page 578 I looked it up, even with a big picture I can't tell much.

I wonder how many famous people had nice guns that we don't even know about and are still in circulation? I had a Model 31 Remington 2 barrel set that supposedly belonged to Johny Weismueller.Nice set and I got it from a guy who said he bought it from Johny on the set of one of his movies.The guy worked in the industry as a sound man, I believe.The movie set didn't used to be so shy about hunting and shooting back in the day.

[quote=RHD45] November 1924 National Geographic
Now I am sure that these will last forever!
From fine firearms to beanie babies to vintage cars some people will collect anything. Just kidding of course.
Regards
Shepard

There was a discussion about Mitchell and his guns on an internet forum a few days ago, maybe the L.C. Smith Collectiors Forum. Some of Mitchell's guns were documented in The Parker Story. Many of his guns were sold in Northern Virginia in the seventies, long after his death. He lived in Middleburg, VA and his family probably remained in the area, storing the guns, for many years after his death.

The discussion is, indeed, on the L.C. Smith forum, in a thread titled "2E Wm Mitchell". The thread died on July 8, but most threads die pretty quickly over there. Maybe someone will link that thread here and we can pick it up. There are many identified Mitchell guns out there and maybe some will surface if we talk it up. The most interesting Mitchell gun, in my opinion, is his Parker BHE ten gauge duck gun. I believe it briefly appeared several years ago, to go deep pretty quickly. The Mitchell Parker CHE that I thought I had bought many years ago has not been seen since, at least by me. I try to keep up on such things. My opinion is that it was not identified as a Billy Mitchell gun when it was sold. I identifed it pretty specifically on the Smith forum so someone may actually find it. Bill Murphy

Mitchell was a Parker guy apparently. A Parker that was being hawked, or at least displayed, at the same time, and in the shop that sold many Mitchell guns in the seventies, was probably also Mitchell's, but was not identified as such. It was, as I recall, a unique GH Grade 16 gauge with 40" original Parker Vulcan Steel barrels. I took the gun to be a parts gun or a sleeved gun at the time. However, knowing more now about the Parker records, I am thinking it was an original Parker, assembled at the factory "the easy way", with a set of 40" barrels that were in stock, rather than building a new set of barrels with the steel marking proper for the GH grade. Another possibility is that the gun was rebarrelled with Vulcan Steel, at a price a little lower than the Parker Special Steel barrels would have cost. Mitchell's known Parkers were mostly very unusual in configuration, indicating that he had ordered them himself, rather than buying them used. Murphy