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I've been a metalsmith since I was a boy.
My grandfather, my dad and I would leave the others inside with thier board games, televised sports, and snack crackers to spend time out in the machine shop building together.
Every day I use my grandfather's lathe, the same tool that at the age of four years and change I cut my first metal chip.

My dad and I would sit up late in the parlor discussing barrel rifling machine design, our tastes in stock shape, the jobs of the old craftsmen at the best gunmakers' shops...
He'd tell me about his trips to the city as a kid and how the old guys at Abercrombie & Fitch would let him into the gun room to handle the very best guns in thier stock (how things have changed)
He told me about H&H, Rigby, Mahillon, pairs of guns with tooling serial numbered to the guns and cases made for them with all the load data and handling instructions printed inside the box lids.

During my life, health issues with both of those old guys kept any of us from pursuing any kind of glorious collection of guns, let alone considerations of getting on safaris or driven game hunts.
That never kept us from discussing the fine guns or the men who made them. My career in metals has taken me through top end auto restoration (concours etc.) fine jewelery, tool and die making and machining and fabrication, custom bicycle frame building, engraving, and support and consultation to the engineering field.
I know good metal work when I see it, I really appreciate fine hand work from the era of development of the metallic cartridge.

When my dad passed away, shortly after he'd spent years caring for his ill and dying parents, I worked with my brother to clear his house and move on with our own lives.
We divided dad's guns up between us, I took his library and reloading room along with all of his shooting notes and diaries.

I couldn't afford a modern nitro (or vintage cordite for that matter) dangerous game double rifle. I thought about it some too and realized that I didn't want to get out to africa to hunt dangerous game at all.
My interest in hunting is local, costal game and to the benefit of my interest and my budget, I found a deal on a presentation grade Mahillon two barrel set sixteen bore double rifle/12bore SxS shotgun.
I have shot that gun, and am still in the process of getting it sorted as a running field gun and hunting rifle.
It's close though. I know it shoots well as a rifle, and I'm very entertained with it's performance as a shotgun.

Since I've gotten that firearm, my study and research of the earlier days of metallic cartridge development has gotten me into conversations with interesting and knowlegeble men all around the world. I have ended up with two other double rifles, one of them was made available to me during a telephone conversation on loading black powder metallic cartridges for the 16b rifle. That gun is my J&W Tolley Black Powder Express gun. The third is another sixteen bore pinfire double rifle. I have less in these three than I'd need to even pick the phone up and start a conversation with Mr Butch Searcy.
As a metalsmith, I've gotten away with loading them for a fraction of what I'd have to pay for modern nitro ammunition too. Furthermore, at this point, I have three double rifles that I can hunt any four legged game in North America with. No trophy fees, no safari expenses, all I need is lead, black powder, and gasoline for the truck.

My wife is fully supportive of my interest in the old guns.
She likes my taste in guns too. I've taken the attitude that all the guns I buy are essentially for our daughter (once I'm dead...) and from what I've seen the old guns have been a good place to put our money.

I'm with the -go get something you can afford now and use it- crowd. Sell what you have now and set yourself up with a good, well made old double rifle.
You don't need the stereo, the jetski, the new car or whatever it is that you can sell and fund your first double rifle purchace. Ditch it all and buy an old milk truck to live in and travel the continent and hunt with your double rifle!

--Tinker

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--Self-Appointed Colonel, DRSS--

"It IS a dangerous game, and so named for a reason, and you can't play from the keyboard. " --Some Old Texan...

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