Wingshooting

Both catalogues arrived this week, one from Purdey and the other from Holland & Holland. Tell me how bad the economy really is, when you look at the price of London Best guns each year skyrocketing.  The matched set of the Purdey Side By Side Game Guns going for just £129,000, just $211,126 at the time of writing.  And the matched set of the Holland & Holland 'Royal" Side by Side Shotguns at £122,500, just $200,557.  The photography and stories are exquisite.  These are simply the Best London side by side shotguns. Of particular interest is the 150th anniversary of The Field Magazine, shotgun with is a side-by-side, round actioned 12-bore embellished with bespoke engraving with flushed pheasants on one side, a fox and hounds on the other, and a stage at the base with a salmon caught in action leaping across the trigger guard.  How about a pair of those? Purdey produces 70 bespoke guns and rifles a year.  It takes between 18-24 months to complete a Purdey.  And the good news is that while the price has increased by 50% in the last 15 years, the dollar has risen against the pound by about the same, so the net affect is not too much greater for us Yanks, if you are looking for a matched pair of the finest side-by-sides.  Or you can go the more country Squier method with a Greener or Churchill but for now I’ll stick with the Garbis. The Old Man said that if you just confined life to preparation you’d never really be disappointed when the actuality arrived.

Many of my shooting friends, even those that are well-traveled, are surprised to learn shot shell sizes are not the same everywhere.  So when you read that Lord Ripon was shooting driven pheasants with size 7 shot, it was really an American size 6 shot.  This rich English tradition on even the toughest of driven birds, known for being shot well overhead, when understood in the proper pellet size, undermines a lot of American thought towards bigger shot sizes, longer shells, and more powerful shot shells. American Size English Size European Size Australian Size Pellet Diameter Inches Pellet Diameter mm Pellet Weight (grains) Lead Pellets Per Oz. Steel Pellets Per Oz. 11 12 12 .062" 1.57 .35 1250 11 11 .066" 1.68 .42 1040 10 10 10 10 .07" 1.78 .52 848 9 1/2 .075" 1.91 .63 688 9 9 9 9 .08" 2.03 .75 568 8 1/2 8 8 .085" 2.21 .97 472 8 7 8 7.5 .09" 2.31 1.29 399 7 1/2 6 1/2 7 .095" 2.41 1.46 338 7 6 7 6 .10" 2.59 1.62 291 423 6 5 6 5 .11" 2.79 1.99 218 317 5 4 5 4 .12" 3.05 2.57 168 243 4 3 4 3 .13" 3.25 3.12 132 192 3 2 3 2 .14" 3.43 3.65 106 154 2 B 2 .15" 3.81 4.38 86 125 1 BB 1 BB .16" 4.09 5.47 71 103 BB A .177" 4.50 6.25 55 72 BBB AA AA .19" 4.83 7.29 42 61 T AAA AAA .20" 5.16 36 53 F .22" 5.59 27 39 #4 Buck .24" 6.10 21 30 #3 Buck SSSG SSG .25" 6.83 19 28 #1 Buck SSG .30" 7.62 11 0 SG 00/SG .32" 8.38 9 00 .34" 8.64 8 000

Bird dogs are usually interested in chasing anything that moves, which can include rattlesnakes.  The first sequence shows a dog who hears, smells, sees, and then tries to chase a rattlesnake which has been defanged for use in this specialized training.  The dog suffered no pain, as there were no fangs in the snake and, after being bit, he went right back to trying to chase it again, so the bite itself is not a future deterrent. The second sequence shows a dog being trained to avoid snakes.  The tape flags mark an e-collar around the dog's neck, as they train multiple dogs at the same time during these sessions.  The dog is corrected when he clearly hears, smells and sees the snake.  Usually this process takes just 1-2 corrections and they won't even look at a snake again (and will avoid one if they hear or smell it), as shown in the third photo where the handler is trying to get this Brittany to walk near the snake, but he wants nothing to do with it. There is a new trainer in Denver for this as well as our trusted Colorado Gun Dog Snake Avoidance Clinic Process and Registration.

Being a voracious reader, I am often asked about my favorite books for upland bird hunters.  All books by Jim Fergus, such as A Hunter’s Road and A Sporting Road, are among my chief favorites.  And,  I enjoy reading Mike Gould again and again, especially Plateaus of Destiny.  But, I have to confess they all feature Brittanys, so that may be part of the allure for me.  Gould's Labrador Shooting Dog (it features pointing labs, but this training method works for all pointing dogs and is the method I follow, having studied under Gary Ruppel.  And  Bob Wehle’s Wing and Shot features the more traditional methods and is well written.  If you had to stop with just these few, you really wouldn't need any more to become fully educated on pointing dog training, especially for Gary Ruppel’s natural method of dog training, which is not focused on the electric collar and force breaking methods.   The others mentioned above will show you what you can accomplish with this training method. But if you will not be satisfied knowing that there are so many more books out there to read, one could move on to all of the books written by the late, great Bill Tarrant would be next to add.  Bill was a gentle soul, a voracious writer and focused heavily on learning from and writing about professional trainers.  He praised most, both in his writings and in his conversations with me, Mike Gould and (his protégé at the time) Gary Ruppel, for the “new school” of professionals.  Some of Bill's books are more how-to, others are more interviews, and some are fictional.  The titles tell you which way they go, there are about 8-10 of them all together. Then you could add one more book directed at Brittany lovers, which features a very natural method but a bit more directed to

Most think that paper was the original casing material to be used in shotshell making, but this is not the case. Paper came as a close second, making it onto the scene in the 1870.  Paper shells were preceded by brass shells, which would last forever, but were difficult to machine and expensive to manufacture, even back then. Paper hulls are wound into tubes, impregnated with wax.  The center fire mechanism was evolved from the pinfire mechanism by a Frenchman.  Most agree that paper shells shoot "softer" (with less felt recoil) than their plastic brothers.  They even smell better, which is a tribute to the slightly different powder used by most manufacturers and they don't litter plastic wads everywhere.  The only downside, which is a serious one, is that paper shells are waxed but not waterproof, which can create swelling and safety issues, and have a short reloading life. You still find some shooters who use paper constructed shot shells, but numbers are dwindling, due to safety concerns, great costs of finding these shells, and rapidly decreasing availability.  Most buy them for their chambering sizes, which are often still for the shorter British 2" or 2 1/2" chambers, instead of the modern 2 3/4".  Chamber sizes is another debate, but just for fun, measure one of your American shells, it's 2 1/2", as the 2 and 3/4 size is measured before the shell is crimped, as is true with all shells.  Check your manufacturer's instructions before using any shells in a shotgun, as too big or too small of chamber size shells can pose a serious safety issue.