Hunter’s Guide: Classic American Hammer Shotguns

Hunter’s Guide: Classic American Hammer Shotguns

Some of the finest shotguns ever made in America were hammer shotguns produced in the last decades of the 19th century. However, by the end of World War I, most had been retired to gun cabinets to be only admired, not fired. Their barrels had not been designed for the...
Dump the Slump

Dump the Slump

Ralph Waldo Emerson once pronounced, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” It was, and is, true in the context that he meant it. It’s important to not allow yourself to be confined to “the box.” In this day and time, you’ve got to be able to look...
New England Woodcock and Storied Shotguns

New England Woodcock and Storied Shotguns

Storied is not exclusive to price tag or class. Occasionally the twain rub shoulders and have a bountiful supply of tales to tell, but there are no guarantees. This Purdey, however, had it all. Scratches and dings and rubbed-smooth spots. Cost? Likely something...
Rifle Cartridges: All in the Family

Rifle Cartridges: All in the Family

The old, plodding 30-’06 Springfield, for instance, is not just yesterday’s news; it’s moldy, too, and so is anyone who hunts with one, according to millennials or whatever they call the most recent come-of-age generation. In contrast, the 6.5 RPM from Weatherby is a...
Long-Range Shooting at Game

Long-Range Shooting at Game

There is probably no subject connected with shooting about which so much nonsense has been written and spoken as the distance at which game can be killed with the rifle. This was bad enough in the days of muzzleloaders. It has become doubly bad in these days of...
Twin Tubes: Side-by-Side or Over/Under

Twin Tubes: Side-by-Side or Over/Under

The double shotgun took its form when Joseph Manton (1766 – 1835) put two shotgun barrels side by side with their independent flint locks. Manton spent lots of his time working on explosive ordinance for the British Army, but we fondly remember him for establishing...
A Joyous Process: Joseph Sulkowski

A Joyous Process: Joseph Sulkowski

In his vivid sporting scenes and in his nostalgic still-lifes of well-worn guns and fishing tackle, classically trained artist Joseph Sulkowski continually imparts his notion that a painting “should look like a lot of fun.”