Spring Turkey with original German ML shotgun

[Rowdy Rick]

Rick, I was enjoying your shotgun and turkey pictures, but when you mentioned V.M. Starr that really got my attention. Mostly because I have 2 Navy Arms 12 ga. doubles that I had jug choked by Mr. Myron Olson who was a student of Mr. Starr. It's interesting how the names of the old masters come to the surface from time to time. And thanks again for the nice pictures.

Regards
IR

IR, How cool is that! Actually the friend that owned this shotgun gave me the booklet written by Starr. It is a good read, and the guy was definitely a Master of the Old ML's! I haven't shot a modern smokeless shotgun in 10 years.
First time I ever shot one was at a 4-H National leader certification for blackpowder. I had shot ML rifles for a long time but was my first adventure with a modern replica blackpowder ML shotgun double (Pedersoli) . One of my friends had an original Belgian barreled double and I traded him a sinew-backed double curved plains replica bow I made for him. The barrel was white from someone trying to remove the browning with Naval Jelly! Anyway I cleaned it up and browned the barrel and just have one lock spring left to make for it. Hadn't shot it yet, and I came upon a good buy on a Pedersoli 12 ga. so bought it and used it for several years. Then bought another Ped 20 and used it on turkeys the past two years. I used this original German double the first time to take a ML turkey 10 yrs ago and fell in love with it. Tough to find out good info on the old guns. One of my other good friends made a lock spring out of an old hay rake tooth for my Belgian but left the annealing to me which was a mistake at the time But showed me how to do it and know how to anneal them now, so will tackle that some day.

This shotgun patterns well with the left barrel at 25 plus yards but the right barrel is a little low and with a little more spread but I have not worked with it much either.

Nothing more satisfying than hunting with the old front stuffers..........except maybe using a BPCR rifle of some type

Rick