Auto's And Pump Action Guns On Game Shoots ?

[Stimo22]

Personally I like to give my old WW Greener 16g an outing when on a peg, but if lead gets banned and we start to use heavy loads of steel, I can see more semi autos being used. If used correctly and a flag inserted at the end of use, then no more unsafe than any gun

[enfieldspares]

53 minutes ago, Stimo22 said:

Personally I like to give my old WW Greener 16g an outing when on a peg, but if lead gets banned and we start to use heavy loads of steel, I can see more semi autos being used. If used correctly and a flag inserted at the end of use, then no more unsafe than any gun

I have, off an on, owned now and again a Browning A5.My first in the late 1980s was in 16 bore and on the then recently introduced s1 rules on multi shot guns. It was fpr flocking birds (seagulls) on my pond. I now again own an A5 for the very reason I've underlined above. That it is cheap to simply replace a barrel damaged by steel shot with a fresh barrel. 

[RCB56]

I thought the government website says you cannot load more that 2 cartridges in a shotgun to shoot game birds.

[Scully]

9 hours ago, Downforce said:

Agree with the sentiment but having enough money doesnt excuse lack of consideration to others or as pointed out by others unsafe practices, but at the end of the day its what the organisers are happy with and theres formal shooting and less formal shooting. On the evidence of others in this and the other mentioned thread it seems most people pick and choose the event thats fairly appropriate for them.

That said the example of the person shooting three shots on an end peg is indicative of someone that actually knows they're out of kilter with expectations and staying out the way to "get away with it"!

D

Which ‘unsafe practices’ did you have in mind which solely apply to self loaders and pumps? 

[Scully]

2 hours ago, London Best said:

All this begs the question of who would actually WANT to go on a formal driven shoot with a semi auto? 

Well anyone who wanted to basically, although in my experience it’s usually those who have shoulder injuries and prefer a softer recoiling shotgun. 
In our syndicate anyone is free to shoot any mechanism as long as it’s legal. 
 

21 minutes ago, RCB56 said:

I thought the government website says you cannot load more that 2 cartridges in a shotgun to shoot game birds.

It is illegal to shoot game with a S1 shotgun in the UK, which is why you find traditionalists getting around this law by the use of loaders ( ‘stuffers’ ) or double gunning. 🙂

[London Best]

19 minutes ago, Scully said:

In our syndicate anyone is free to shoot any mechanism as long as it’s legal

From your previous posts, rightly or wrongly I formed the opinion that your syndicate was not a formal driven shoot?
 

 

which is why you find traditionalists getting around this law by the use of loaders ( ‘stuffers’ ) or double gunning. 
 

Now you know that’s not true. Nobody uses a loader to circumvent the S1 shotgun law.

 

[Scully]

Yes, our syndicate is a formal driven shoot. 
I‘ve never heard any shooter state they use a loader or double gun to circumvent the S1 law, but I know plenty who use a loader or double gun when the opportunity presents itself on a busy peg, because it gives them the opportunity to shoot more birds.

Thats traditional ‘sportsmen’ for you. 🙂

I’m not sure what other reason there could be for its practice. 

The ironic part is that anyone familiar with a double ejector can get off more shots over a given period if both guns are reloaded to capacity once empty. I believe It was proved when the banning of high capacity shotguns was mooted following Hungerford. 🤷‍♂️

[Downforce]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

Which ‘unsafe practices’ did you have in mind which solely apply to self loaders and pumps? 

I didn’t 

[enfieldspares]

1 hour ago, Scully said:

 

The ironic part is that anyone familiar with a double ejector can get off more shots over a given period if both guns are reloaded to capacity once empty. I believe It was proved when the banning of high capacity shotguns was mooted following Hungerford. 🤷‍♂️

 

Yes. I (for one) did in for the old ATV television regional programme. Or maybe Channel4. Either way I got paid £100 to do it. Used a Baikal SBS BLE with a 24" barrel and a Winchester 1897 with a 20" barrel.

[Scully]

1 hour ago, Downforce said:

I didn’t 

Strange you felt the need to allude to the reference of others then really, considering you had none in mind. 

[Downforce]

34 minutes ago, Scully said:

Strange you felt the need to allude to the reference of others then really, considering you had none in mind. 

It isn’t strange at all

When I referred to the points other people touched on I was not being specific to anyone just using a pump/semi. What I was saying was that some people think money entitled them to do anything and disregard others and that’s not okay when it comes to safety with any firearms, irrespective of type.
 

3 hours ago, Scully said:

Which ‘unsafe practices’ did you have in mind which solely apply to self loaders and pumps? 

I didn’t think it solely applied to self loaders and pumps. I have both and regularly shoot my Nova and A5 at clays - normally with 2 shells. 😉

Edited February 16, 2023 by Downforce

[Scully]

On 16/02/2023 at 21:24, enfieldspares said:

Yes. I (for one) did in for the old ATV television regional programme. Or maybe Channel4. Either way I got paid £100 to do it. Used a Baikal SBS BLE with a 24" barrel and a Winchester 1897 with a 20" barrel.

Did you also demonstrate the Franchi SPAS and the melon? 🙂

Thats the only one I recall. 

[enfieldspares]

22 minutes ago, Scully said:

Did you also demonstrate the Franchi SPAS and the melon? 🙂

Ah well now that's the thing. If it's the same clip then the melon and any SPAS was not me it was done elsewhere but then edited in by the programme makers. A lesson in that unless you've editorial control over these things you never know what the finished product. But yes there was a melon in the clip when it was aired on television. Some was filmed at Leicester Shooting Centre (the scene in the gun shop and its manager) and some (my shooting of the Baikal and the Winchester) at the Derby SC Gas indoor range. The melon? Nobody knows where that came from!

Edited February 18, 2023 by enfieldspares

[Smudger687]

There generally appear to be three points of contention regarding the use of pumps or SA's.

The first is safety. I do wonder how many people that object to using a semiauto or pump action have actually used one, because anyone that has would quickly realise they're no more or less safe than a break-action gun. Does a pump-action contain within it an evil impish spirit, that will suddenly and without warning, cause the sears to slip and the gun to fire when it is loaded? Or is it just someone with poor trigger discipline? 

The second is that it is not "traditional". Well neither is the use of smokeless cartridges, nor the use of non-damascus barrelled guns, nor the use of good quality lead shot, or the use of modern chokes, and neither is the use of breachloading guns.

And the third is that it is "unsporting". Yet has anyone making this claim ever stopped to consider why they think double-barrelled guns are sporting? At one point in time, they were in fact the cutting edge of shotgun technology, and that when side-by-sides started being used on driven game days, that muzzleloading flintlock shotguns were also available? The reload time from swapping from a muzzleloader to a breachloader would have gone from minutes to mere seconds. This enormous increase in the rate of fire dwarfs any possible advantage a modern semiautomatic could give over a modern double, yet our ancestors, far from being troubled by this, embraced the advantage it offered.

Who among those complaining on the basis of tradition, or "sporting chance" chooses to shun modern guns and smokeless powder in favour of black powder muzzleloaders? 

Very few, if any. And that, I'm afraid, demonstrates that these are nothing more than the age-old, poisonous objections of snobbery.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Smudger687

[London Best]

Autos and pumps are not “ modern guns at all. 
They were designed specifically for the American Market Gunners, so they could kill more wildfowl from each flock which came in to the hundreds of decoys around the sink-box hide.

[Smudger687]

35 minutes ago, London Best said:

Autos and pumps are not “ modern guns at all. 
They were designed specifically for the American Market Gunners, so they could kill more wildfowl from each flock which came in to the hundreds of decoys around the sink-box hide.

John Browning designed and produced the auto-5 for market hunters? I've yet to see anything like that myself. 

[London Best]

2 hours ago, Smudger687 said:

John Browning designed and produced the auto-5 for market hunters? I've yet to see anything like that myself. 

I read it somewhere many years ago. 
It may have been in the book, ‘The Outlaw Gunners’, which is the story of the US market gunners and their methods and kit, and how some continued to operate after market gunning was banned, some time around 1920 I think. The A5 received specific mention as being designed for that purpose. 
It may not be where I got the information, but if you can find a copy of the book it is a fascinating read.

Hope this helps.

[enfieldspares]

3 hours ago, London Best said:

 A5 received specific mention as being designed for that purpose. 

I've read that John Browning designed his "Superposed" gun as, yes, he believed that the use of the Auto-5 would be banned in the USA for some or other purpose. For sure when we speak of one gun being more "traditional" that the other the Auto-5 is some twenty years before the arrival of the "Superposed". 

My understanding of market gunning was that in fact you'd have perhaps two shooters and that, in many cases, they'd BOTH shoot at the same bird to ensure a certain kill.

I guess that many books haven't been digitalised and made their way to the internet so, just as reading something on the internet doesn't make a thing true neither does not reading it in the internet make it untrue. There's many books still not accessible on the web as a readable work however both the pump and semi-auto are mentioned below:

https://www.wildfowlmag.com/editorial/destinations_wf_1107_03/281039

Edited February 19, 2023 by enfieldspares

[Smudger687]

I'm surprised any market hunter would opt for a 12 gauge semiautomatic over a 10 gauge, 8 gauge or punt gun.

[Pushandpull]

Market gunners were, in general, shooting at plentiful birds coming in to big rigs of decoys. Heavier "pass shooting" loads were not required. There was an amount of punt gunning, often at night, but it seems to have been the less favoured option. Most of the published material - and there is a fair bit of it - deals with the US east coast where the tidal range is much less than over here so conditions were (are) different. Michener's novel "Chesapeake" promoted some myths. For example setting to fowl in an open single punt with a 100 lb CBR as passenger ? No.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Blimey, off at another tangent!     

[Old farrier]

Biggest problem with semi auto and pumps is they have only one barrel and only one choke 

the more generally used side by side or over and under has two and a choice 

enabling the shooting of the closer birds with the more open barrel and the more distant with the tighter choke 

I’m not sure how you choke one barrel to enable the shooting of both different birds 

just my thoughts on it 

 

[enfieldspares]

4 hours ago, Old farrier said:

Biggest problem with semi auto and pumps is they have only one barrel and only one choke 

the more generally used side by side or over and under has two and a choice 

enabling the shooting of the closer birds with the more open barrel and the more distant with the tighter choke 

I’m not sure how you choke one barrel to enable the shooting of both different birds 

just my thoughts on it 

 

All my game guns were and are bored IMP and IMP. If you can't get it done on ANY driven bird with that choking and good quality cartridges with either 1 ounce of #7 or 1 1/16 ounce of #6 then you either don't know what you doing, can't shoot or are shooting at birds that are so "tall" as to be unsporting. On my duck guns, for evening flight coming in to my own pond, these were all bored HALF and HALF. Walking up? Maybe there's a sense in two different chokes but I never found that I was that as a walking gun that I was ever handicapped with IMP and IMP and 1 1/16 ounce #6. Indeed if I used my HALF and HALF gun you ended up having to give the bird more "law" else risk rendering it fit only for soup.

Edited February 19, 2023 by enfieldspares

[Stonepark]

4 hours ago, Old farrier said:

Biggest problem with semi auto and pumps is they have only one barrel and only one choke 

the more generally used side by side or over and under has two and a choice 

enabling the shooting of the closer birds with the more open barrel and the more distant with the tighter choke 

I’m not sure how you choke one barrel to enable the shooting of both different birds 

just my thoughts on it 

 

Whilst in theory 2 chokes of a double provide different options and a greater range, a well designed IC or 1\4 choke will comfortably cover 15 to 40 yards and 90% of shots with the appropriate ammunition, which is fine for most mixed shooting.

Below 15 yards, unless using a spreader choke, pattern density is pretty much the same for most chokes, and unless you are operating beyond 45 yards having say a double choked gun with a tighter choke offers little advantage over the single barrel SA or pump with a single appropriate choke tube.

[London Best]

10 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

All my game guns were and are bored IMP and IMP. If you can't get it done on ANY driven bird with that choking and good quality cartridges with either 1 ounce of #7 or 1 1/16 ounce of #6 then you either don't know what you doing, can't shoot or are shooting at birds that are so "tall" as to be unsporting. On my duck guns, for evening flight coming in to my own pond, these were all bored HALF and HALF. Walking up? Maybe there's a sense in two different chokes but I never found that I was that as a walking gun that I was ever handicapped with IMP and IMP and 1 1/16 ounce #6. Indeed if I used my HALF and HALF gun you ended up having to give the bird more "law" else risk rendering it fit only for soup.

Far too much common sense is creeping into this thread?

 

9 hours ago, Stonepark said:

Whilst in theory 2 chokes of a double provide different options and a greater range, a well designed IC or 1\4 choke will comfortably cover 15 to 40 yards and 90% of shots with the appropriate ammunition, which is fine for most mixed shooting.

Below 15 yards, unless using a spreader choke, pattern density is pretty much the same for most chokes, and unless you are operating beyond 45 yards having say a double choked gun with a tighter choke offers little advantage over the single barrel SA or pump with a single appropriate choke tube.

And again, too much common sense. 
 

You chaps must realise that 99% of pigeon watch users really need a different choke for every shot.