16ga.com ~ View topic - GBE would have sold his soul for patterns like my WR throws.

Gentlemen,

After patterning my 1904 Westley Richards Best gun, I come to admit the skeet choke on this 12 guage gun makes this gun an outstanding Grouse gun.
GBE's Purdey was a very nice 12 gauge Grouse gun, however it was choked more fully than my WR, for most of his life. The WR with the skeet choked 1st barrel throws a great Grouse killing pattern out to 40 yards, and my WR only weighs 6.037 lbs to carry thru the Grouse woods, where George's Purdey was over 6.8 lbs. Both being 12 gauge Best Brit guns, I believe my WR is the better Grouse gun. George's Purdey never thru Grouse killing patterns like my WR gun does either. Ofcourse there were no SpredR shells back in the day, to use in George's Purdey. If I remember correctly George had his 1st barrel finely opened to IC, which allowed him to become the very best Grouse gunner he could be.
If George was alive today and got the chance to use my WR gun with SpredR loads in her, he would've sold his soul to own my WR or had his Purdey opened up to have a skeet Choke also.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith/Westley Richards Man

I am sure glad Kirby Hoyt made this Westley Richards Best gun available to me as my retirement gift.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1681 Location: Denver, Colorado

Kirby Hoyt is a pleasure to deal with (I've owned several of his guns). Not surprised this transaction worked out well for you.

Enjoy your new "toy" Dave, it should be alot of fun come this Fall.

British shotguns aren't too-bad after all.

Lloyd3,

Not to bad after all! The Best ones even have L.C. Smith One Triggers in them.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith/Westley Richards Man

Member Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 446 Location: Maine

Do grouse shot with a WR taste better than if shot with a Mossburg?

pumpgun,

They taste the same, however the enjoyment each sportsman gets in taking the Grouse with as much respect as possible, rests on the way he feels about his gun and his dog. As GBE wrote a man should own a gun and a dog worthy of pursuing the king of God's game birds. Each man understands whether he has a gun and dog worthy of pursuing a Grouse. It's not the cost of the gun, it's how the individual sportsman feels about his gun and his dog that counts, showing the ultimate respect for God's gifts to us as he hunts.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith/Wesley Richards Man

Pine Creek Huston looking over his just taken Grouse & Woodcock. We lost Heston this last month, he now hunts in God's never ending Grouse forest. He was almost 18 years old when God took him home.

Joined: 19 Apr 2014 Posts: 450 Location: Maine

Midcoast Maine had a famous old grouse hunter named C. Cockbird Freeman. C hunted with a M12 16ga and a junkyard kerr named Bingo. He and Bingo were legends among the grouse community. C believed in fair chase and didn't think fancy guns and fancy pedigrees were very important. He didn't write books about grouse hunting or his success, he lived it. To C Grade 6 guns and fancy dogs don't make a good bird hunter. I don't think a grouse gives a hoot about what type of dog or grade gun he prefers when trying to escape a load of 7 1/2s.
When C passed he gave his guns away to the guys at our skeet club. Nothing fancy but highly treasured.

Ah, the inevitable “opinions on the pursuit of happiness” discussion. I shall crawl out from the lurk rock and step on the soapbox for a few seconds.

First off, congratulations PC Dave on your fine purchase. I truly find your collection of Elsies, hammer guns and now this WR marvelous. Out of my budget’s reach, and not my present preferences but impressive nonetheless.

We as a society do not need to take grouse, or any game bird for that matter. So the pursuit of grouse is an individual sport that we choose to participate in for enjoyment. I think we as sportsmen recognize the need to be in the wild, and as gun owners the need to exercise our 2A rights. How we choose to elevate our pursuit of happiness is, thankfully, up to our own discretion, while at the same time we exercise our rights to undeveloped land and gun ownership.

Had I been more successful with the Sears pumpgun I bought as my first firearm, maybe I would’ve been a pump guy. But after a few successful seasons with a barely functional Steven’s double it became my preference. I have multiple shoeboxes filled with dried and spread grouse tails that the rescue Labahoula dog didn’t mutilate. And while I couldn’t tell the difference in taste between those taken with my Citori or my Flues, I can savor the memories of those special shots I made due to the characteristics of those guns, or due to the confidence I had in them.

“Mmm, winged grouse shot in the air, eating mountain ash on the south side of Maineac Mountain, shot with a pumpgun and a smidgen more than an ounce of chilled 7-1/2”

“Ayuh, pretty close. But Ah don worry me much bout taste anymore since Ah ate them doodles from the ol’junkyard. Everything kinda tastes like tranny fluid now.”

Shoot what you like and what makes you shoot better. Memories of the hunt are the everlasting gravy bowl. Bad ideas make for the best stories. Pride goest before the fall. Resentment wears bad makeup and hides in restrooms.

And with that, I’ll grab some popcorn and sit down on my lurk rock.

Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 267

I have hunted with pumps,autos,OU,and SXS’s.After all these years I have fallen in love with old English sxs’s for these reasons.lightweight for their gauge,excellent balance,quik to the shoulder,and great hand workmanship and now is a good time to buy.Dave enjoy your new gun.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1681 Location: Denver, Colorado

C. Cockbird Freeman is a fellow I'd of liked to have met. I've often imagined that if I had to have just 1 gun, it'd be an early M12 in 16.

Thankfully, the years have been kind to me in that regard and I've gotten to try several types of upland guns to see what worked best for me.

I've had less and more fancy guns over the years and they all have their charms, and if money was no object then...(well, if money was no object then I'd likely never got to go grouse hunting, eh?).

Member Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 446 Location: Maine

Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1543 Location: Western WA

I have gravitated to SxS for grouse, as the twin barrels provide a prominent visual frame of reference in heavy cover. But a shotgun is like a pair of shoes - either it fits, or it doesn’t. It should be an extension of the eye. I am fortunate to own such a gun. The Brits thoroughly understood the art and science of SxS gunfitting, so it should be exciting and hopefully deeply satisfying for Dave to discover the joys of a perfectly suited SxS for the grouse in his neck of the woods. I look forward to his reports.

B.

Brewster11,

I agree with you 100%, and I am also looking to acquire a Westley Richards Drop Lock 16 gauge SXS double gun to go along with my incredible Side Lock gun.
The Westley Richards Side lock gun is like an extension of my arm when shooting,
I can't wait till Grouse season to be ale to get it into the woods, and shoot some Grouse with it. Having had Brit Best guns before I was not all that impressed with them, until I held a Westley Richards true side lock, once I shot the gun I wanted one badly, however I could never afford one, until Kirby made this gun possible for me to purchase.

I know it will be a while before I can acquire a Westley Richards Drop Lock 16 gauge double gun like my buddy Galens. The Westley Richards Drop Lock gun is an engineering marvel, probably the best gun ever engineered. After seeing Galens gun disassembled and then reassembled I definitely want to acquire one. I would like to purchase a Westley Richards 16 gauge Drop Lock gun with DT, I am hearing this is almost impossible unless I want to Special order one myself, which will be very very costly. I will keep looking for one of the originals, however they are like the Westley Richards real side lock double guns, very few were made.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith/Westley Richards Man

My buddy Galens Westley Richards 16 Gauge Drop Lock SXS double gun with the L.C. Smith Hunter 1 Trigger.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1681 Location: Denver, Colorado

Dave: The drop-locks are very impressive but are also very expensive these days. Sub-gauge versions are beyond rare.

The only one I've ever handled (in 20) was ordered and built by a friend in 2017. The price tag on that one was frightful.

[url=https://imgur.com/Dlm8Nnw]

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Lloyd3,

A very expensive piece of gun engineering no doubt about it, the 20's are almost as rare as the 16's with DT, well I can always dream as I did for my beautiful side lock gun for many years. Maybe I will eventually be lucky enough to own one before I pass into God's great forest in the sky. I can always borrow Galens and let him carry my side lock for a while, he would like that I think. His 16 gauge Westley Richards Drop Lock is a very serious double gun, as is my Westley Richards real side lock. Both are big time Best guns for sure and both great Grouse guns! Galen also owns a real nice light 12 gauge box lock Brit gun that is very light to carry in the Grouse woods ,in fact he carried the light 12 gauge gun the last time we were in the woods together. I can not seem to remember the gun maker, however the gun is another big time Brit gun. Galen knows how to purchase high quality double guns. He taught his boy who just acquired a matching pair of Purdey 16 Gauges Best guns himself. The ownership of high quality double guns gets passed down thru the family in most cases. In fact both father and son also own some very fine Best L.C. Smith double guns, and hunt with them also.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith/Westley Richards Man

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1681 Location: Denver, Colorado

Dave:

It's important to have a dream, even old guys need that.

My latest toy...

[url=https://imgur.com/MWyrPgj]

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I'm going to compare it to my Smith hammer as a hunting tool. It seemed to work on turkey just fine last month for it's previous owner.