Knives
- Thread starter Str0ud
- Start date
LOL! Oh man, this thread is good.
"Matched pairs serve no purpose? c'mon John, I expect more."
The concept of matched shotguns has always made me crack up. What exactly is their purpose? Of course the oft stated purpose is so that one can hand the empty weapon to his gunbearer and take the loaded weapon. But is this the real purpose? I don't think so. Rather, I think the real purpose of matched shotguns is to show off that one can afford two shotguns, a gunbearer, and beaters to walk through the grass and flush out game birds. It's sort of like polo, where the snob appeal comes, not from playing polo, but rather from being able to afford several different horses to last through the match.
Another purpose of matched shotguns is to tag as many birds as possible during a shoot, as if "more is better". I have never understood the need to tag as many birds as possible on a particular day. I find this practice excessive and rather distasteful actually. It is not unlike those hunters who are driven by the need to make the Boone & Crocket or Rowland Ward's record books for trophy size and type, and judge the success or failure of their hunts by their trophy size.
I say just reload your shotgun when it's empty. I think it's actually fucking cool when you're a practiced hand at reloading a double quickly. It shows just as much skill as tagging difficult double shots. If you shoot an ejector, simply hinge the gun open, quickly insert two more shells, close the gun, and go to town. If you shoot an extractor gun, so much the cooler as you tilt the breeches downward and let gravity do its thing. To me, that is much cooler than comparing the number of dead birds at the end of the day.
We're not talking about hunting elephants with muzzle-loaders here. There, I can see the need to hand the empty gun to a gunbearer while taking shots at elephant with a loaded weapon that the gunbearer just handed to you. That's a life and death situation. Here, it's very different. We're talking about pegging birds at a social outing. Why is the biggest possible bag desirable? Why not enjoy the experience for its own sake?
I say the matched pair thing is basically a joke. It's main purpose is to show off wealth. It's secondary purpose is to obtain the largest possible bag. Neither is a desirable thing in my opinion.
"What's this bit about being shotguns making them toys? Of course, they are toys. They are the implements of leisure. They are not there to put food on the table or to save or take a life. They exist for sport alone."
This is true. All guns are toys to one degree. But some guns are definitely more toy-like than others. From my way of looking at things, shotguns are lower on the totem pole than rifles are. This runs contrary to the way things are, as shotgunners usually have money while rifleman are usually broke. But I think walking around a clay target course with a shotgun and basically playing golf with a gun, or shooting as many birds as possible with a shotgun during a driven shoot are basically games. Hence the "toy" comment.
There is nothing wrong with games, but we should recognize games for what they are. Rifle shooting is much less of a social spectacle than shotgunning is and doesn't lend itself to such. I think that makes rifles much more serious tools than shotguns, and the best-quality rifles are much better examples of the gunmaker's art and skill than shotguns are.
"The engraving isn't there just to enhance the gun, the gun is merely the medium of the engraver. Much of the engraving on London best guns is done out of house and those who are fortunate enough to own these weapons often put just as much stock in the man who carved the rose scroll and game scene as the one who did the lockwork."
I must disagree with your first statement. The gun is not the medium of the engraver. Rather, the engraver serves to enhance the gun. I don't doubt that there are many who put more emphasis on the way a gun looks than the way it shoots, but that is not to say that is how things should be. To place more emphasis on the engraving than on the gun itself is backward thinking. The gun comes first, always. The gun most shoot well. It must handle well. It must be supremely reliable. Its parts must fit together properly and perfectly. Every one of these attributes is elemental. Without each of these, the gun is a failure. Only when the gunmaker obtains all of those essentials, then and only then gun may be engraved.
"You can't call these guns "pimp" for having been engraved. Engraved is the standard. Plain "field" grade guns ( a term that really can only honestly be applied to American guns) are set of firearms all to themselves. They are not in the same class and they are not used for the same purpose. No one shows up to a driven shoot with an Army & Navy boxlock N/E. I mean you could, but you might as well wear jeans and a fleece while you're out."
Those guns aren't pimp because they're engraved. Rather they're pimp because they are over-engraved. Engraving alone does not make a gun pimp. For example, here's that Holland's again:
This weapon has been engraved. A lot. But it's not pimp at all. It's actually quite stunningly beautiful. There's scrollwork everywhere, but it's tastefully done. And while the case colors have faded with age on this weapon, the maker tastefully camouflaged the engraving with case colors rather than highlighted them with a coin finish. The top lever is checkered instead of engraved with useless engraving. The forward trigger is lightly checkered but the rear one is not, so that shooter knows in an instant which barrel is going to fire. What gold appears on the weapon, such as on the cocking indicators, is there primarily for function rather than mere decoration. This is some nice shit.
"You have to love engraving to understand these guns. They aren't gaudy examples of some needless extreme they are a few of thousands just like them. These guns look the way they do because THAT is the dress code. To bring a lesser firearm to a shoot is like wearing a suit at a Black Tie affair. The tuxedo is the uniform. It's not there to make you look more extravagant than everyone else, it is there so that all attendees look equally well dressed."
I'm no authority, but I believe I understand engraving on guns and why it's there on various weapons. And I feel comfortable saying that ANY deep-relief engraving is pimp. Big time pimp.
"These guns are done with game scenes because they are used to take game. What would you have the subject matter be? I've seen guns chiseled with other subject matter and they look ridiculous. As before, you buy your guns for the good engraving as much as anything else. It is a large part of what makes them worth the money."
I must disagree again. Game scenes are just as pimp as deep-relief engraving. And deep-relief game scenes are doubly bad. They're not as bad as naked women engraved all over the sidelocks, but they're bad still. They're gaudy and actually detract from the gun rather than enhance the gun.
"The engravers work just may be the most specialized and difficult part of the entire process. Why not stock all these guns with basic unfigured blanks? Is hand oiled Turkish walnut "pimp"?"
I could not disagree more. I believe it takes greater skill to regulate a double rifle properly than it does to engrave metal. There are fewer around who can regulate a double rifle than there are engravers.
I also think it takes a lot more skill to inlet a stock with skin-tight inletting than it does to engrave metal. The finest stock makers have a magic touch and are able to make the wood look as if it grew around the action and barrels. This is very difficult to do.
And speaking of wood, fine wood is a lot like engraving. People who prize fancy engraving invariably prize fancy wood. Just like engraving, there is good wood and there is pimp wood. Here is an example of pimp wood:
That stock is hideously ugly. I'm sure that blank cost a pretty penny, but it's so ugly. There's too much marbling in that shit and the gunamaker didn't darken the stock and left it in its natural finish to highlight the color contrast of the marbling. But I'm sure there are many people who drool over that ugly shit. In contrast, here's a nice piece of fancy wood:
That H&H buttstock is "fancy" by any definition, but it's not pimp. It has contrasting colors and such, but it's not gaudy at all. The stock maker dyed the walnut red with alkanet root stain to minimize the color differences and give the stock a more subdued appearance. I think this stock is a perfect match with a "Best" sidelock.
For a more subdued wood for a more "working" gun like that Rigby's magazine rifle, I like wood like this:
That is a very attractive piece of walnut, but is not fancy. It's a better match for a repeater with minimal engraving. The color on that stock is a little light for my taste, but it would naturally darken with age and use.
So I'm not against fancy wood or embellishment for its own sake. But I dislike gaudy stuff. To parahrase Shakespeare:
"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For embellishments oft proclaim the gun."
"The snap caps are for the weekend at the shoot. What you see are motor cases. They are not slips. The maker does not intend that you should constantly be breaking down and reassembling your guns between drives or after the days shooting when they are taken to be cleaned. The snaps are to be used before you put your gun in the slips to relieve the strikers in the short term. When you store the gun for longer periods in the motor case you must use a striker block to let down the pins."
I gotta disagree here as well. If you are putting your shotguns into gun slips, that is temporary storage. It's more than OK to leave the hammers cocked for this short duration. It's leaving the hammers cocked for very long periods that ruins the leaf springs. Those snap caps in that storage case still don't make any sense to me at all. They're there for fluff and show more than anything else, which ruins that case in my mind.
"These guns are not the Rolexes of the shooting world because they are not even wristwatches. They are not even pocket watches. They are grandfather clocks.
They don't serve any of the same uses as other firearms and are not interchangable with those other sorts of guns. They can only be compared to their own kind."
I gotta disagree on this one as well. These weapons are not grandfather clocks. They are more wristwatches than anything else. The parallels are numerous.
Up the time right before World War II, these London Best guns were state of the art in every way. Cartridges like the .300 H&H were the choice of Wimbledon Cup shooters. The London Best doubles locked up tighter and held up to repeated use better than any other doubles in the world. The London Best shotguns patterned better than other shotguns of their day. Telescopes had yet to be perfected and were very delicate, and thus most seasoned hunters still used the express sights on the London doubles and magazine rifles. So not only were the guns the most beautiful weapons in the world, they were also the most functional. They were, quite literally, the state of the art.
It was not until after World War II that these guns started to be eclipsed in functionality. As knowledge of ballistics progressed, we discovered such things as backboring and extended forcing cones on shotguns to improve patterning quality. The London Best guns do not and cannot feature these improvements as they will not meet London proof standards (which are intended to be used with things such as felt wads and require the bore to remain of uniform diameter from the forcing cone forward to maintain a tight seal). Gunmakers have also developed locking systems that surpass the locking systems employed on the London Best guns. The Greener crossbolt and Purdey's hidden third bite system pale in comparison to the locking stength and wear resistance of the Krieghoff K-80 system. We also have synthetic stocks today, which are better in almost every way over wood stocks. Today, these guns are still very usable for their intended tasks but they have been eclipsed. However, they are still way more than the vast majority of people require. And this includes professional hunters in Africa who literally stake their lives on their rifles on a daily basis.
Wristwatches are very similar. Up until the late 1960's, the top watchmakers like Rolex and OMEGA made the best performing watches available anywhere. The quartz and digital movements had yet to be perfected and thus the mechanical movement was still the best movement around. When NASA wanted the best performing watch it could possibly obtain, it tested the watches from the finest Swiss watchmakers.
These best-grade watches have undeniably been eclipsed in performance terms by the modern quartz and digital watches. But these finest examples of watchmakers' art still exist today and they are more than accurate enough that they can be used with total confidence by the vast majority of people who need a watch. Even in our age with super-accurate atomic clocks and timers, many many professional divers and astronauts, people who rely on their watches to keep time under very difficult circumstances, use these fine Swiss watches for their livelihood.
"Matched pairs serve no purpose? c'mon John, I expect more."
The concept of matched shotguns has always made me crack up. What exactly is their purpose? Of course the oft stated purpose is so that one can hand the empty weapon to his gunbearer and take the loaded weapon. But is this the real purpose? I don't think so. Rather, I think the real purpose of matched shotguns is to show off that one can afford two shotguns, a gunbearer, and beaters to walk through the grass and flush out game birds. It's sort of like polo, where the snob appeal comes, not from playing polo, but rather from being able to afford several different horses to last through the match.
Another purpose of matched shotguns is to tag as many birds as possible during a shoot, as if "more is better". I have never understood the need to tag as many birds as possible on a particular day. I find this practice excessive and rather distasteful actually. It is not unlike those hunters who are driven by the need to make the Boone & Crocket or Rowland Ward's record books for trophy size and type, and judge the success or failure of their hunts by their trophy size.
I say just reload your shotgun when it's empty. I think it's actually fucking cool when you're a practiced hand at reloading a double quickly. It shows just as much skill as tagging difficult double shots. If you shoot an ejector, simply hinge the gun open, quickly insert two more shells, close the gun, and go to town. If you shoot an extractor gun, so much the cooler as you tilt the breeches downward and let gravity do its thing. To me, that is much cooler than comparing the number of dead birds at the end of the day.
We're not talking about hunting elephants with muzzle-loaders here. There, I can see the need to hand the empty gun to a gunbearer while taking shots at elephant with a loaded weapon that the gunbearer just handed to you. That's a life and death situation. Here, it's very different. We're talking about pegging birds at a social outing. Why is the biggest possible bag desirable? Why not enjoy the experience for its own sake?
I say the matched pair thing is basically a joke. It's main purpose is to show off wealth. It's secondary purpose is to obtain the largest possible bag. Neither is a desirable thing in my opinion.
"What's this bit about being shotguns making them toys? Of course, they are toys. They are the implements of leisure. They are not there to put food on the table or to save or take a life. They exist for sport alone."
This is true. All guns are toys to one degree. But some guns are definitely more toy-like than others. From my way of looking at things, shotguns are lower on the totem pole than rifles are. This runs contrary to the way things are, as shotgunners usually have money while rifleman are usually broke. But I think walking around a clay target course with a shotgun and basically playing golf with a gun, or shooting as many birds as possible with a shotgun during a driven shoot are basically games. Hence the "toy" comment.
There is nothing wrong with games, but we should recognize games for what they are. Rifle shooting is much less of a social spectacle than shotgunning is and doesn't lend itself to such. I think that makes rifles much more serious tools than shotguns, and the best-quality rifles are much better examples of the gunmaker's art and skill than shotguns are.
"The engraving isn't there just to enhance the gun, the gun is merely the medium of the engraver. Much of the engraving on London best guns is done out of house and those who are fortunate enough to own these weapons often put just as much stock in the man who carved the rose scroll and game scene as the one who did the lockwork."
I must disagree with your first statement. The gun is not the medium of the engraver. Rather, the engraver serves to enhance the gun. I don't doubt that there are many who put more emphasis on the way a gun looks than the way it shoots, but that is not to say that is how things should be. To place more emphasis on the engraving than on the gun itself is backward thinking. The gun comes first, always. The gun most shoot well. It must handle well. It must be supremely reliable. Its parts must fit together properly and perfectly. Every one of these attributes is elemental. Without each of these, the gun is a failure. Only when the gunmaker obtains all of those essentials, then and only then gun may be engraved.
"You can't call these guns "pimp" for having been engraved. Engraved is the standard. Plain "field" grade guns ( a term that really can only honestly be applied to American guns) are set of firearms all to themselves. They are not in the same class and they are not used for the same purpose. No one shows up to a driven shoot with an Army & Navy boxlock N/E. I mean you could, but you might as well wear jeans and a fleece while you're out."
Those guns aren't pimp because they're engraved. Rather they're pimp because they are over-engraved. Engraving alone does not make a gun pimp. For example, here's that Holland's again:
This weapon has been engraved. A lot. But it's not pimp at all. It's actually quite stunningly beautiful. There's scrollwork everywhere, but it's tastefully done. And while the case colors have faded with age on this weapon, the maker tastefully camouflaged the engraving with case colors rather than highlighted them with a coin finish. The top lever is checkered instead of engraved with useless engraving. The forward trigger is lightly checkered but the rear one is not, so that shooter knows in an instant which barrel is going to fire. What gold appears on the weapon, such as on the cocking indicators, is there primarily for function rather than mere decoration. This is some nice shit.
"You have to love engraving to understand these guns. They aren't gaudy examples of some needless extreme they are a few of thousands just like them. These guns look the way they do because THAT is the dress code. To bring a lesser firearm to a shoot is like wearing a suit at a Black Tie affair. The tuxedo is the uniform. It's not there to make you look more extravagant than everyone else, it is there so that all attendees look equally well dressed."
I'm no authority, but I believe I understand engraving on guns and why it's there on various weapons. And I feel comfortable saying that ANY deep-relief engraving is pimp. Big time pimp.
"These guns are done with game scenes because they are used to take game. What would you have the subject matter be? I've seen guns chiseled with other subject matter and they look ridiculous. As before, you buy your guns for the good engraving as much as anything else. It is a large part of what makes them worth the money."
I must disagree again. Game scenes are just as pimp as deep-relief engraving. And deep-relief game scenes are doubly bad. They're not as bad as naked women engraved all over the sidelocks, but they're bad still. They're gaudy and actually detract from the gun rather than enhance the gun.
"The engravers work just may be the most specialized and difficult part of the entire process. Why not stock all these guns with basic unfigured blanks? Is hand oiled Turkish walnut "pimp"?"
I could not disagree more. I believe it takes greater skill to regulate a double rifle properly than it does to engrave metal. There are fewer around who can regulate a double rifle than there are engravers.
I also think it takes a lot more skill to inlet a stock with skin-tight inletting than it does to engrave metal. The finest stock makers have a magic touch and are able to make the wood look as if it grew around the action and barrels. This is very difficult to do.
And speaking of wood, fine wood is a lot like engraving. People who prize fancy engraving invariably prize fancy wood. Just like engraving, there is good wood and there is pimp wood. Here is an example of pimp wood:
That stock is hideously ugly. I'm sure that blank cost a pretty penny, but it's so ugly. There's too much marbling in that shit and the gunamaker didn't darken the stock and left it in its natural finish to highlight the color contrast of the marbling. But I'm sure there are many people who drool over that ugly shit. In contrast, here's a nice piece of fancy wood:
That H&H buttstock is "fancy" by any definition, but it's not pimp. It has contrasting colors and such, but it's not gaudy at all. The stock maker dyed the walnut red with alkanet root stain to minimize the color differences and give the stock a more subdued appearance. I think this stock is a perfect match with a "Best" sidelock.
For a more subdued wood for a more "working" gun like that Rigby's magazine rifle, I like wood like this:
That is a very attractive piece of walnut, but is not fancy. It's a better match for a repeater with minimal engraving. The color on that stock is a little light for my taste, but it would naturally darken with age and use.
So I'm not against fancy wood or embellishment for its own sake. But I dislike gaudy stuff. To parahrase Shakespeare:
"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For embellishments oft proclaim the gun."
"The snap caps are for the weekend at the shoot. What you see are motor cases. They are not slips. The maker does not intend that you should constantly be breaking down and reassembling your guns between drives or after the days shooting when they are taken to be cleaned. The snaps are to be used before you put your gun in the slips to relieve the strikers in the short term. When you store the gun for longer periods in the motor case you must use a striker block to let down the pins."
I gotta disagree here as well. If you are putting your shotguns into gun slips, that is temporary storage. It's more than OK to leave the hammers cocked for this short duration. It's leaving the hammers cocked for very long periods that ruins the leaf springs. Those snap caps in that storage case still don't make any sense to me at all. They're there for fluff and show more than anything else, which ruins that case in my mind.
"These guns are not the Rolexes of the shooting world because they are not even wristwatches. They are not even pocket watches. They are grandfather clocks.
They don't serve any of the same uses as other firearms and are not interchangable with those other sorts of guns. They can only be compared to their own kind."
I gotta disagree on this one as well. These weapons are not grandfather clocks. They are more wristwatches than anything else. The parallels are numerous.
Up the time right before World War II, these London Best guns were state of the art in every way. Cartridges like the .300 H&H were the choice of Wimbledon Cup shooters. The London Best doubles locked up tighter and held up to repeated use better than any other doubles in the world. The London Best shotguns patterned better than other shotguns of their day. Telescopes had yet to be perfected and were very delicate, and thus most seasoned hunters still used the express sights on the London doubles and magazine rifles. So not only were the guns the most beautiful weapons in the world, they were also the most functional. They were, quite literally, the state of the art.
It was not until after World War II that these guns started to be eclipsed in functionality. As knowledge of ballistics progressed, we discovered such things as backboring and extended forcing cones on shotguns to improve patterning quality. The London Best guns do not and cannot feature these improvements as they will not meet London proof standards (which are intended to be used with things such as felt wads and require the bore to remain of uniform diameter from the forcing cone forward to maintain a tight seal). Gunmakers have also developed locking systems that surpass the locking systems employed on the London Best guns. The Greener crossbolt and Purdey's hidden third bite system pale in comparison to the locking stength and wear resistance of the Krieghoff K-80 system. We also have synthetic stocks today, which are better in almost every way over wood stocks. Today, these guns are still very usable for their intended tasks but they have been eclipsed. However, they are still way more than the vast majority of people require. And this includes professional hunters in Africa who literally stake their lives on their rifles on a daily basis.
Wristwatches are very similar. Up until the late 1960's, the top watchmakers like Rolex and OMEGA made the best performing watches available anywhere. The quartz and digital movements had yet to be perfected and thus the mechanical movement was still the best movement around. When NASA wanted the best performing watch it could possibly obtain, it tested the watches from the finest Swiss watchmakers.
These best-grade watches have undeniably been eclipsed in performance terms by the modern quartz and digital watches. But these finest examples of watchmakers' art still exist today and they are more than accurate enough that they can be used with total confidence by the vast majority of people who need a watch. Even in our age with super-accurate atomic clocks and timers, many many professional divers and astronauts, people who rely on their watches to keep time under very difficult circumstances, use these fine Swiss watches for their livelihood.
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LOL-Admit it, you are jealous of the Cairngorm (UPS truck) Brown Range Rover. That fact that you aspire to own elitist, aristocratic firearms is ample evidence of this.
Your white (not a color but rather the lack of all color) D1 is sadly lacking in the traditional "Britishness" you so obviously desire. No Connolly leather. No burr walnut. No Royal Warrants...
Your white (not a color but rather the lack of all color) D1 is sadly lacking in the traditional "Britishness" you so obviously desire. No Connolly leather. No burr walnut. No Royal Warrants...
"The 577 Nitro Express was quite something. It still is. It is a 'super heavy': one of two hunting rifles in that category, the other being the 600. It fires a bullet that weighs seven hundred fifty grains at an initial velocity of two thousand fifty foot-seconds. It is not the most powerful hunting rifle ever built, but it was certainly the most popular, and probably the most effective, piece of its kind. It outshone the 600 during the era of big ivory by a considerable margin, probably due to its reputation for superior penetration.
"The super heavies are very specialized instruments. They are not just 'elephant guns'; they are guns for tackling elephants under the most desperate circumstances. They are useful only to the tradesman, not the sportsman. The sportsman who hunts elephant does not need such devastating power, since he hunts in the company of competent professional is also powerfully armed, he chooses his one bull with care, and he avoids any single-handed confrontations with an enraged herd. On the other hand the tradesman?the money hunter?hunted by himself, and his objective was all the ivory he could gather in one session. He went right in among them and he worked like a tight-end amid 12,000 lb. linebackers. His shot had to work?every time?or he was squashed like a bug. Often shooting from the hip at ranges of a few steps, he needed all the power he could hold. Hence the super heavies.
"An elephant's skull is made of spongy bone much like styrofoam, with the brain?the size of a football?situated deep inside that huge mass. Shooting at the head and hoping to hit the brain is like shooting at the Pentagon and hoping to hit the gymnasium. A brain shot with any gun will stop any elephant, but the head shot with a super heavy will knock an elephant out. With a super heavy all you had to do was hit the head, solidly. And you may have had to do that just as the trunk was reaching to seize you. That is why you squandered a year's profits on a pair of rifles that only a duke could afford.
"Jim Wilkinson, the renowned hunter from Prescott, Arizona, recently acquired a magnificent 'Best Grade' Westley-Richard 577, and when he showed it to me I all but lost my composure. Here was a true work of art?from the zenith of the machine age?manifesting man's ultimate genius in steel. The concept is Euclidean, the design is Archimedean, and the execution is worthy of Benvenuto Cellini. Everything has been foreseen, nothing has been sacrificed to economy, and the workmanship is such as we will never see again. The action rolls open and shut with soft, silent precision and the seams, when closed, can scarcely be seen without a magnifying glass.
"Such artifacts have never been cheap, and today they are very costly. Jim's rifle is worth about four times what I paid for my first Porsche (in 1953) and now you might buy its sister for half what a new, top-of-the-line, street Porsche costs. In the twenties, when this rifle was made, one of its cartridges was worth the price of a first-class dinner in a first-class restaurant. It still is today.
"Despite the intimidating cost of such a piece, it was not conceived as a rich man's toy. While the very rich might buy it for display, it is a completely serious weapon. Such gold as it bears is not placed there for show, but rather to assure by bright contrast that a vital message will be unmistakably transmitted. 'Safe' and 'Bolted' glow on the tang, and 'L' and 'R' below denote which barrel will fire first.
"The lockwork is instantly detachable, without tools, and the fitting of these parts can only be appreciated under glass. This is not mere affectation, for this rifle was intended for use months beyond the help of any gunsmith. It had to work. Your life depended on it.
"Jim's example is fitted with a selective single trigger and automatic ejectors, both of which features were optional and debatable in the brave days of old. Barrel selection is an advantage if one lock has broken, but it does make for complexity?a thing to be avoided. Automatic ejection is fast but noisy, and it tends to lose brass in tall grass. (The noise of ejection always seemed irrelevant to me, in view of the immediately preceding blast, until it was explained that the beasts are not alert before the shot but are very much so immediately thereafter. The bang comes as a bolt from the blue, but any clink that follows is a dead giveaway. We American hunters tend to forget that the hunting of really dangerous game is often an arm's-length business.)"
See? Jeff Cooper gets it. I wonder why the concept of a proper London Best is not better understood.
"The super heavies are very specialized instruments. They are not just 'elephant guns'; they are guns for tackling elephants under the most desperate circumstances. They are useful only to the tradesman, not the sportsman. The sportsman who hunts elephant does not need such devastating power, since he hunts in the company of competent professional is also powerfully armed, he chooses his one bull with care, and he avoids any single-handed confrontations with an enraged herd. On the other hand the tradesman?the money hunter?hunted by himself, and his objective was all the ivory he could gather in one session. He went right in among them and he worked like a tight-end amid 12,000 lb. linebackers. His shot had to work?every time?or he was squashed like a bug. Often shooting from the hip at ranges of a few steps, he needed all the power he could hold. Hence the super heavies.
"An elephant's skull is made of spongy bone much like styrofoam, with the brain?the size of a football?situated deep inside that huge mass. Shooting at the head and hoping to hit the brain is like shooting at the Pentagon and hoping to hit the gymnasium. A brain shot with any gun will stop any elephant, but the head shot with a super heavy will knock an elephant out. With a super heavy all you had to do was hit the head, solidly. And you may have had to do that just as the trunk was reaching to seize you. That is why you squandered a year's profits on a pair of rifles that only a duke could afford.
"Jim Wilkinson, the renowned hunter from Prescott, Arizona, recently acquired a magnificent 'Best Grade' Westley-Richard 577, and when he showed it to me I all but lost my composure. Here was a true work of art?from the zenith of the machine age?manifesting man's ultimate genius in steel. The concept is Euclidean, the design is Archimedean, and the execution is worthy of Benvenuto Cellini. Everything has been foreseen, nothing has been sacrificed to economy, and the workmanship is such as we will never see again. The action rolls open and shut with soft, silent precision and the seams, when closed, can scarcely be seen without a magnifying glass.
"Such artifacts have never been cheap, and today they are very costly. Jim's rifle is worth about four times what I paid for my first Porsche (in 1953) and now you might buy its sister for half what a new, top-of-the-line, street Porsche costs. In the twenties, when this rifle was made, one of its cartridges was worth the price of a first-class dinner in a first-class restaurant. It still is today.
"Despite the intimidating cost of such a piece, it was not conceived as a rich man's toy. While the very rich might buy it for display, it is a completely serious weapon. Such gold as it bears is not placed there for show, but rather to assure by bright contrast that a vital message will be unmistakably transmitted. 'Safe' and 'Bolted' glow on the tang, and 'L' and 'R' below denote which barrel will fire first.
"The lockwork is instantly detachable, without tools, and the fitting of these parts can only be appreciated under glass. This is not mere affectation, for this rifle was intended for use months beyond the help of any gunsmith. It had to work. Your life depended on it.
"Jim's example is fitted with a selective single trigger and automatic ejectors, both of which features were optional and debatable in the brave days of old. Barrel selection is an advantage if one lock has broken, but it does make for complexity?a thing to be avoided. Automatic ejection is fast but noisy, and it tends to lose brass in tall grass. (The noise of ejection always seemed irrelevant to me, in view of the immediately preceding blast, until it was explained that the beasts are not alert before the shot but are very much so immediately thereafter. The bang comes as a bolt from the blue, but any clink that follows is a dead giveaway. We American hunters tend to forget that the hunting of really dangerous game is often an arm's-length business.)"
?Jeff Cooper, Crumpler!
See? Jeff Cooper gets it. I wonder why the concept of a proper London Best is not better understood.
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Kyle said:
I don't think many conciously do, but the outcome of what many individuals and companies do results in them being certainly over complicated, if not uptight.
Heck, look at Land Rover, and that's just a minor example.
As for the gun topic, I guess I'm just way out of my league. I have my Krag and Mosin Nagant, and no desire or need for more. Though I'd have loved to have had my grandfather's side by side double barrel. Alas, my evil aunt sold it, along with all the other family heirlooms, when my uncle died.
K
Kyle
Guest
"As for the gun topic, I guess I'm just way out of my league. I have my Krag and Mosin Nagant, and no desire or need for more. Though I'd have loved to have had my grandfather's side by side double barrel. Alas, my evil aunt sold it, along with all the other family heirlooms, when my uncle died."
Out of your league in what way ? I disagree.. The value and effetiveness of a gun is directly relative to the person holding it. Like I said before , its for one thing and one thing only. Have you ever not participated but sat back and watched someone that was truley gifted with a shotgun go to work on something ? I dont consider myself gifted in that way and I have been playing "Catch up" for most of my life when hunting , but I have watched on many occasion when my old man hit the right note and just really went to work with that old AL2. On these occasions you rarley pay any attention at all to the gun or if its etched or pimped or whatever. You are more focused on what the pair are doing to whatever it was that came under fire.
As for heirlooms.. Well , I am quite certain that there isnt a gun pictured that has the worth of a gun with history that has been handed down through a family. If you come from a hunting family then you know these guns almost as relatives and have seen them age right along with everyone else. You can recall events in thier lives , good and bad , and would feel pretty strange if they werent there anymore. To carry sucha gun and kill with it is not even in the same zip code with these guns in this thread. I dont care if its a Sears special , it worth more in every way and simply cant have a price put on it. I dont give a rats ass about Jacks traditions and what people would think. As far as I am concerned , if I ever found myself standing on one of those lines with that old AL2 I would be quite positive that I would have everyone there upstaged.. And ofcourse the guy there that has his grand fathers Purdy would feel the same...
Out of your league in what way ? I disagree.. The value and effetiveness of a gun is directly relative to the person holding it. Like I said before , its for one thing and one thing only. Have you ever not participated but sat back and watched someone that was truley gifted with a shotgun go to work on something ? I dont consider myself gifted in that way and I have been playing "Catch up" for most of my life when hunting , but I have watched on many occasion when my old man hit the right note and just really went to work with that old AL2. On these occasions you rarley pay any attention at all to the gun or if its etched or pimped or whatever. You are more focused on what the pair are doing to whatever it was that came under fire.
As for heirlooms.. Well , I am quite certain that there isnt a gun pictured that has the worth of a gun with history that has been handed down through a family. If you come from a hunting family then you know these guns almost as relatives and have seen them age right along with everyone else. You can recall events in thier lives , good and bad , and would feel pretty strange if they werent there anymore. To carry sucha gun and kill with it is not even in the same zip code with these guns in this thread. I dont care if its a Sears special , it worth more in every way and simply cant have a price put on it. I dont give a rats ass about Jacks traditions and what people would think. As far as I am concerned , if I ever found myself standing on one of those lines with that old AL2 I would be quite positive that I would have everyone there upstaged.. And ofcourse the guy there that has his grand fathers Purdy would feel the same...
I meant it's like me dreaming about how cool it would be to own a P-47, or a B-17...just ain't gonna happen, so there's no point in me even thinking about it. Though I admit they are nice to look at. But that's because functionally they were at the top of their form.Kyle said:
I can't imagine that any of these guns are 1-2000 times more accurate and reliable than a 2-300 dollar shotgun from your local gun store. To me a gun is a tool, not art. But it's fine if people want to look at some as art, it's just not for me. Kinda like spinners on a Land Rover.
Hmmm..maybe I'll have my 36" aluminum Rigid pipe wrench engraved
Does anyone have that link of that video where the guy is hunting a lion and it attacks him and kills it as it's in the air? It's the one where they are taking people on a hunt and shit goes wrong. I need to watch that again.
RD
RD
Actually, I dont really like watching a video of any animal being killed.
However, if that close to a water buffalo, I might shoot too.
The sound he made was just like my pointer after a long day on the trail.
Just curious, its really not obvious, I might guess, but why do you like that video?
I wish I could find the video of the 50 cal. sniper rifle tests from 1km that I found one day. Awesome practice shooting on something like a 5 ton truck.
I did however like this one:
http://www.serveroptions.com/humor/11.mpg
However, if that close to a water buffalo, I might shoot too.
The sound he made was just like my pointer after a long day on the trail.
Just curious, its really not obvious, I might guess, but why do you like that video?
I wish I could find the video of the 50 cal. sniper rifle tests from 1km that I found one day. Awesome practice shooting on something like a 5 ton truck.
I did however like this one:
http://www.serveroptions.com/humor/11.mpg
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I like that video because it shows some some skillful shooting and gun handling, as well as the dangers involved in hunting dangerous game like Cape Buffalo. The guy's first shot was at something like 20 yards or less. The shooter didn't take forever to aim but immediately went to work. I presume he placed his first shot correctly, although the video really doesn't show this. But assuming he placed his first shot correctly, it shows the tremdenous punishment a Cape Buffalo will take.
The moment it was shot, I love how the Cape Buffalo first runs left from pure reflex and then spins around to face the shooter. The hunter was shooting a bolt-action rifle, and you can hear him reload immediately after the first shot, which is what he should be doing, instead of just standing there in awe and admiring the buff. After the buff spun around and faced the shooter, the buff might have been preparing to charge or might have been ready to drop and die, but I don't know because the shooter wisely tagged the buff a second time as soon as he got the chance. This wasn't a snap shot or anything, but the shooter was quick to aim and fire and presumably he placed his second shot correctly because the buff went lights out. When the buff keeled over, the shooter wisely topped off his rifle. You can hear him flick open the bolt, stuff one cartridge into the magazine, then another, and then shut the bolt.
The shooter was doing all of this almost by reflex. I don't think the brain works too well under such circumstances. That shit has to be second nature or it's not going to happen at all under that kind of stress and adrenaline rush. Watching that video for the first time, the video seems to happen so fast, much faster than the 25 seconds listed for the video length. I'm sure it seems to happen even faster in real life.
Pretty textbook, and good shooting and gun handling all around I think. Oh if only the shooter had been doing his good job with a London Best..... LOL.
That other video is you see is an A-Square repeater chambered for .577 T-Rex. It's a bolt-action version of the .577 Nitro Express double rifle that Jeff Cooper described earlier. You can see the kind of power generated by a .577. James Sutherland said that the super heavies are suited to "men of quite extraordinary physique" and I have no doubt he was correct. The weapons are very heavy to lug around all day and they recoil tremendously. They require great skill to shoot accurately.
A lot of non-shooters dismiss dangerous game hunting as easy or non-fair or whatever, but you can see here that it's not child's play, both in terms of the tools and dangers involved.
The moment it was shot, I love how the Cape Buffalo first runs left from pure reflex and then spins around to face the shooter. The hunter was shooting a bolt-action rifle, and you can hear him reload immediately after the first shot, which is what he should be doing, instead of just standing there in awe and admiring the buff. After the buff spun around and faced the shooter, the buff might have been preparing to charge or might have been ready to drop and die, but I don't know because the shooter wisely tagged the buff a second time as soon as he got the chance. This wasn't a snap shot or anything, but the shooter was quick to aim and fire and presumably he placed his second shot correctly because the buff went lights out. When the buff keeled over, the shooter wisely topped off his rifle. You can hear him flick open the bolt, stuff one cartridge into the magazine, then another, and then shut the bolt.
The shooter was doing all of this almost by reflex. I don't think the brain works too well under such circumstances. That shit has to be second nature or it's not going to happen at all under that kind of stress and adrenaline rush. Watching that video for the first time, the video seems to happen so fast, much faster than the 25 seconds listed for the video length. I'm sure it seems to happen even faster in real life.
Pretty textbook, and good shooting and gun handling all around I think. Oh if only the shooter had been doing his good job with a London Best..... LOL.
That other video is you see is an A-Square repeater chambered for .577 T-Rex. It's a bolt-action version of the .577 Nitro Express double rifle that Jeff Cooper described earlier. You can see the kind of power generated by a .577. James Sutherland said that the super heavies are suited to "men of quite extraordinary physique" and I have no doubt he was correct. The weapons are very heavy to lug around all day and they recoil tremendously. They require great skill to shoot accurately.
A lot of non-shooters dismiss dangerous game hunting as easy or non-fair or whatever, but you can see here that it's not child's play, both in terms of the tools and dangers involved.
10-4 on that. I would have been busy dirtying the drawers and been killed by the buff.
Thanks for pointing out the details for a relative novice, I did catch many of those details, but just could not point them out as well.
The dude definitely seemed very experienced, which supports the reflexes that you mention.
Thanks for pointing out the details for a relative novice, I did catch many of those details, but just could not point them out as well.
The dude definitely seemed very experienced, which supports the reflexes that you mention.
I just watched that video again, and I can't help but wonder if the buff keyed in on the reloading noise. First the buff rockets off to the left, then homeboy reloads, and the buff bulls a bitch and comes around. The buff seemed to turn around the moment the shooter began his reload. If the buff keyed in on the reloading noise, that is just way cool. What an awesome creature.
K
Kyle
Guest
I have rarely seen any large game animals that were stuill standing after the first shot , not get a second one in him. If its still standing the PH usually tells you to hit him again.. The old man went through a similar situation with his brown bear last year...
The PH in the lion Vid turned out to be a friend of a friend and did indeed catch hell for that whole thing happening. There was same talk about him losing his papers... I doubt the buff would have made it much further before that PH put one in him..
And yes John , as cool as that was. Imagine that being an Elephant that just took two and the shooter stands there calmly and cracks the breach , slips two more of those howitzer rounds in there and then drops him 10 yards out at a full run....
The PH in the lion Vid turned out to be a friend of a friend and did indeed catch hell for that whole thing happening. There was same talk about him losing his papers... I doubt the buff would have made it much further before that PH put one in him..
And yes John , as cool as that was. Imagine that being an Elephant that just took two and the shooter stands there calmly and cracks the breach , slips two more of those howitzer rounds in there and then drops him 10 yards out at a full run....
I recall reading as a kid an article called The Most Dangerous Game by a guy who'd hunted alot in africa. He compared a number of animals, rino, buffalo, elephant, cats and others. His choice was the elephant because they are smart enough that if they are given the chance, they run, circle around and hide in tall grass and trample you as you walk by looking for them. His second was the buffalo, as I recall, because of they have such a keen sense of smell that if you're upwind, even at a great distance, of one that's got it in for you, you better hope you see it before it see's you.
In any case, I've never had the slightest desire to hunt anything other than an animal for meat.
I was watching one of those nature shows some years back and there was a great scene of someone doing tests on elephants. I can't remember if it was one that woke up from being drugged, or a mate or what, but the guy is sitting in his Land Rover some distance away when the elephant comes charging, hits the Land Rover in the front and pushes it bacwards for a pretty good distance until it hit a tree, then gave a trumpet and went away, assuming I guess that it had killed the Rover. I expect the guy in the Rover had to do some serious laundry and hose out the rover.
I wish I could find that video clip on the net.
In any case, I've never had the slightest desire to hunt anything other than an animal for meat.
I was watching one of those nature shows some years back and there was a great scene of someone doing tests on elephants. I can't remember if it was one that woke up from being drugged, or a mate or what, but the guy is sitting in his Land Rover some distance away when the elephant comes charging, hits the Land Rover in the front and pushes it bacwards for a pretty good distance until it hit a tree, then gave a trumpet and went away, assuming I guess that it had killed the Rover. I expect the guy in the Rover had to do some serious laundry and hose out the rover.
I wish I could find that video clip on the net.
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K
KEJ
Guest
References to this thread came up elsewhere on Dweb, so I had to look it up. Fascinating read, on a number of levels. One thing I can tell you about with certain authority is polo. Real players are in it for the game, nothing having to do with anything else but. I've played, and even at the extremely novice level I played it was a stone-cold rush. It is NOT about flashing wealth; that bullshit is left to the wanna-bees and groupies. Real horsemen/women go to the expense and trouble because it's a gas. Interestingly, it's also considered the most dangerous sporting event one can engage in. Human fatalities occur with some frequency, in practice as well as match play. As for fox hunting with hounds and horses, it's more accurately called fox-chasing. RARELY (in this country, at least) is a fox ever caught, and that is really not the intent in modern times. Many hunts don't involve foxes at all. These are called drag hunts and are merely scent trails left by riders who start out ahead of the field.
Back in the day in the UK, the fox was considered vermin and the intent was extermination. Times and farming practices changed, but the sociability and fun of galloping cross country endured. If you know anything about me you'll recall I'm typically repelled by firearms and blood sports. I've never gone on a fox hunt, but know tons of people who have gone hunting for years. It took a long time for me to understand that my negative notions of fox hunting were not really accurate. Hunt clubs are poorly understood, at best. Much like many NRA-type supported activities, modern horse-and-hound hunt clubs do a lot to preserve and protect farm land and open space in ever-shrinking rural America. Statements based on Disney-esque notions of people's attitudes and motivations are rarely factual.
My dos centavos.
KJ
Back in the day in the UK, the fox was considered vermin and the intent was extermination. Times and farming practices changed, but the sociability and fun of galloping cross country endured. If you know anything about me you'll recall I'm typically repelled by firearms and blood sports. I've never gone on a fox hunt, but know tons of people who have gone hunting for years. It took a long time for me to understand that my negative notions of fox hunting were not really accurate. Hunt clubs are poorly understood, at best. Much like many NRA-type supported activities, modern horse-and-hound hunt clubs do a lot to preserve and protect farm land and open space in ever-shrinking rural America. Statements based on Disney-esque notions of people's attitudes and motivations are rarely factual.
My dos centavos.
KJ