doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com is it safe to shoot smokeless in twist barrels ?

Why do you put the dollar sign after the number?

Hard to say really, maybe because I deal with foreign currencies often.

Everytime I see one of your ads or post with it written that way, it’s like I’m chewing on tinfoil. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Oh, that is just the start of my grammatical short comings......

The Webley is a newer, nicer, gun, wearing a level of proof and chamber length making it ready to be used with typical American loads. Choked a bit tight in one bore, but, I could make that work.

I know a few newbs coming up into the field, millennial guys that will shoot an A5 Stalker, but, low and behold, they want a double, just not one that they have to play games with ammunition to use. The beards and tattoos throw me, but, they are guys who are inheriting hunting camps or spots in them, and they will be the guys I see in the field, for the most part, from now on.

I owned guns like the E C Green. I appreciate them, but, no longer use one. The price you have on it, and the lack of it moving demonstrates that it is a piece that has fallen from favor. Different people have different ideas about that, but, it is hard to argue it hasn’t happened.

Good luck with the sale. I’ve lived in times when it would have sold in five minutes, but, that ain’t now.

Best,
Ted

Key word there is “from”

Best,
Ted

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An ugly place, with ugly folk and their ugly motorcycles.

The beard guys are probably much closer to my age than the average board member on here (I am even debatably a millennial). I don't know anyone else my age who is into doubles, old doubles, or even hunts really, but I like those things and expect others like myself will eventually grow to appreciate them as well provided there is reasonable access and exposure.

In addition to classic doubles, I have owned a few Citoris and a Silver Pigeon, and just got bored with them very quickly. No feel, and no soul. The case of my Leech SLE smells hauntingly of century old oil and tobacco and creates this fascinating link between the past and the present for me. I also enjoy learning or attempting to learn the provenance of these items that have lived through the entirety of the 20th century and into the 21st. I think that sort of thing appeals to many people intuitively, like, say, quirky British bicycles, vintage vehicles, or weird tea pots. There are some minor annoyances to owning old guns, but those are easily overcome once the interest is stoked.

What I also find is that everywhere I take an old double, people of all ages are pretty fascinated by it and want to know more about it so I think there is the potential for an expansion of the hobby, it is just a question of how to bridge that gap. Notably, my first gun ever was a 1921 LC Smith featherweight 12 in decent shape that I paid $300 for a pawn shop in 2012. I had pretty much no experience in guns or shooting at that point. I had a gunsmith glue the hairline cracks at the lock plates for $100 and I was in business and shooting for a total investment of $400. I later sold it for over $600 and now have "graduated" to British SLEs. In any event, vintage doubles are financially accessible to pretty much every budget in my opinion. Frankly, if you shoot a lot, the main expenditure is ammo, not the implement itself anyway, right?

I could write ten pages about why I think this and other hobbies are stagnating, but my analysis would likely be anecdotal and the effort misspent. The one thing that I can recommend is that anyone who laments the demise of the hobby make some effort to spread it beyond your natural social and demographic boundaries...might help, might not, but at least an attempt was made.

keith, just read your post here...


makes sense re the topic...and cleverly done...

My first gun was a .410 single shot, Stevens. Passed down to me by my older brother. Second one, and the first I bought with my own $, saved up from pumping gas and fixing tires: Savage 420 OU, made back in the 30's. Came out about the same time as the Marlin 90. A Savage 420 actually makes a Marlin 90 look and feel sleek. The 90 survived WWII; the 420 did not. From then on, Savage offered only imported OU's.

And my experience with the 420 might explain why I'm a sxs guy.

But getting back to new vs old guns: AyA 4/53 suffered a broken striker recently. Just discovered that my SKB (late Japanese version) is in need of a top lever spring. Meanwhile, I have a 100+ year old Parker 16 I've shot a lot this year, as well as a nearly that old Fox Sterlingworth 20ga. Both those guns acquired new wood somewhere along the line. But as far as function goes, they keep on ticking.

I've been shooting old SxSs from around 2004. At this time I own around 14 SxSs, 10 of them are Damascus barreled guns, and nitro loads are shot in all my guns. Pressure is pressure, whether it comes from BP or nitro loads. No problems and the only break downs are the occasional broken spring, usually the top lever. They're all Parkers, Remingtons, or Uncle Dan Lefevers. All except the C grade 1894 Remington were 1000$ guns, give or take a couple of hundred bucks. Most were lower grade hunting guns - well used but still in nice condition. None are money pits. Oh I've spent 3 to 4 hundred on getting the Damascus barrels redone. Sometimes just to see what the Laminate barrels looked like when new or what nice case colors looked like, but that was a personal choice, not something that was necessary to keep it shooting.

I run the shotgun venue at my club, maybe 50 shooters . We shoot three times a week. I put on a SxS Shoot once a year in the spring. Out of the maybe 10 serious SxS shooters we have at the club, I can't remember anyone having any gun problems. Most the guys shoot the old guns and all shoot nitro powders. Guess we're all lucky to have all our body parts and guns not breaking down every other week. JMHO