doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Speed features in doubles

"In the nineteenth century the quest was for speed. The development of sporting guns was driven by the customers' desire for guns which would work faster. They opened quicker, closed quicker, all the rest of it."

That was then. How about now? How important is speedy manipulation to your usual double gun use?

Do the speed features- self opening, ejectors, even self cocking, make any difference in regular hunting (as opposed to driven game shooting)?

Since 1954 the vast majority of my hunting has been done with cock-on opening, non-ejector double guns. I have never felt in the least bit handicapped for my uses. I have hunted some with ejector guns, but saw no real improvement for my use. I have also hunted with a percussion cap-lock muzzle loader & felt handicapped on only a few occasions, such as on a dove shoot where you might sometimes get a sudden flurry of birds coming in with long stretches in between.
One can of course fire more shots in a short time with a magazine gun up to the number of shells it can legally hold, but a double is quicker & easier to reload so if one just wants to be able to fire a maximum amount of shells in the shortest possible time frame an ejector double is hard to beat.

I guess this need for speed came mostly from the Brits. Think of the driven hunts, which are, or at least were, contests in who killed more birds - and the game was about speed. Actually, I think that three ejector sbs's with two loaders is the limit of human ability in terms of rate of fire on live birds. In most other places now there's a thing called LIMIT. There's only so many birds you can take, often as few as 2 or 3. When you have so few opportunities, you tend to want to prolong the process, to increase the pleasure. Accordingly, you want to decrease the speed, rather than increase it.

I've done pretty well in flurry shoots using DT's and extractors. That's predicated on using ammo that isn't sticky on extraction.

While it could probably be proven that a ST and ejectors can make a gun go boom faster for 4 shots, my contention is that, if you feel limited by the speed factor, you're trying to shoot too fast.

Certainly makes no difference to me in hunting. If filling the bag were such a priority that speed mattered, then an auto stuffed to the legal limit would be the way to go. Nothing can beat an auto for the greatest number of effective shots in the shortest time because an auto can be reloaded without disabling the gun.

Humpty dumpty you have a point: "you want to decrease the speed, rather than increase it."

Outside of the UK most hunters operate with bag limits, which makes the speed features a bit of a puzzle in the spec sheets of double guns. There are also voluntary limis, like in the French woodcock hunters club self imposed two bird daily limit (if I recall right).

A double rifle is best when confronting dangerous game for the very reason of having two shots in an instant and quicker to reload .

I thought the double rifle had more to do with reliability...essentially 2 independent single shot rifles in one...than with speed?

I shoot just as bad with a double as with a pump. Autos are out of the discussion.

For Shooting flurries and barn yard pigeons, an ejector gun can't be beat! Otherwise I don't feel the need for the extractors... except for re-sale!

I have Tony G's RBL with assisted opener and it really should be called the slow you down closer as it really makes it hard to close the gun more than any assists in opening it.
JMO

Jerry

Humpy Dumpty is right, as far as decreasing speed, for low limit birds that may come along at undetermined times. But, only if you know the birds are there to give you ample opportunity. Doves are a different story, particularly late season doves. Late season doves may well involve a situation where many hundred doves may come into a field to feed in a 20-30 min. time frame. I scout doves extensively, and have counted up to 700 coming in to feed in a field in a 20 minute time frame. The limit is 15. This requires every help possible to take the limit, ejectors included. I have dug hulls out of an extractor Sterlingworth, and I've used ejector doubles. Give me ejectors.

Types of gunning are so different that it is a rare man that has experienced all types to the extent that he can comment fairly on them all. For my part, on a hot dove field, give me an ejector S x S or O/U. Ducks, really doesn't matter, quail either. Doves, whole different ball game.

SRH