Sporting Notes

The gun-auction survival kit: Catalogue, tape measure, chamber gauge, flashlight, bore lights, caliper, micrometer. Add an unencumbered credit card, and you’re ready for the fray.

A Boy’s Guide to Gun Auctions

As I write this, the three-volume catalogue for the Rock Island “Premier” gun auction in…
This iconic (and archaic) engraving of an old-time trap shooter appeared on the frame of the famous Ithaca 4E, almost from start to finish.

Revisiting the King of Trap Guns

Trap guns, especially old trap guns, have a magic all their own. They are to…
The Starr carbine.

Paper Trails

Every so often, it’s good to delve into the past and see how things used…
The .264 Winchester Magnum from 1958 (left) compared with the .26 Nosler, 55 years later.

Twisted History

Way back in 1988, I bought a Parker-Hale chambered for the venerable 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser,…
Cimarron Arms’s Colt Walker reproduction, exactly duplicating the original 1,000 military guns and aged to look authentic. Earlier this year, the Walker Colt was named the offical handgun of Texas.

Notes From the Percussion Section

Never — I repeat, never — did I expect to become interested in muzzle loaders…
The frame of the Reilly, out of the Varsol and freshly scrubbed, its engraving inviting admiration.

Recalled to Life

In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens tells of a doctor who, having been…
The .300 Weatherby with 150-grain bullets did the job on the Alaska brown bear, but it was a close-run thing.

Spoiled By Choice

Among the key advances in shotgunnery, according to all the books, are the inventions of…
The Twigg and the wherewithal for its care and feeding.

Shooting the Twigg

Among my many failings, I have minimal interest in any gun I can’t take out…
The locks of a Joseph Manton fowling piece — masterpieces of gunmaking that influenced all who followed.

Twigg — Root and Branch

The name John Fox Twigg is not as well known as it might be. I…
The Blaser F3, darkly handsome in fine walnut, here shown in a field configuration that does equally well for skeet.

One and Only…Maybe

Every so often, the question arises, “If you could own only one shotgun, what would…
A 52-caliber flintlock duelling pistol, by London gunmaker John Fox Twigg (1732-92).

On a Whim and a Prayer

The Rock Island auction is alive and well, and back once again almost — almost…
TimberLuxe was developed by stockmaker Brian Board, who did the ebony extension for this W&C Scott. The result speaks for itself.

Timberluxe and the Beauty of Oil

For the better part of two centuries, the term “London oil” has been acknowledged as…