A friend of sm's?

[carebear]

sm,

A friend of mine was given a copy of Captain Paul A. Curtis's "Guns and Gunning", published in 1934.

It is a really neat book. It's amazing how little much about shooting has changed and how much has. He covers rifles, shotguns and handguns (the handgun stuff is a treat), hunting and the best gear circa 1934.

He talks about glory days of driven shoots in Scotland with the Duke of Montrose and also about the tenuous situation of bird habitat and numbers in the US. He's promoting the voluntary tax on hunting and fishing stuff to help save habitat. It's nice to see we lived up to his expectations.

As far as him being a fellow traveler for sm... He emphasizes proper fit of the shotgun and gives detailed yet simple definitions, the importance of range estimation and how bad most shooters are at it and the mechanics of proper shooting. Let me give this excerpt from the section on "the upland shotgun".

It is unfortunate that our sportsmen and manufacturers overlooked the twenty-eight bore, which is a much more serviceable weapon with the same charge (as the 3" .410, which he dislikes).

I have done considerable shooting on rabbits and pheasants with a full choke twenty-eight bore, chambered for the two and three-quarter inch shell which throws a full three-quarters of an ounce of shot, and it is thrilling to watch how it will pull them down when it is held correctly. Of course, it must be full choke and, consequently, one must hold very close and allow correct leads. It is an expert's gun, but in the hands of one of that class, and with the long High Velocity shell, it will meet almost every upland requirement.

Oh, he never states it as such, but he would definitely agree with a (properly phrased and grammatical, of course) BA/UU/R.

Anyway, if you're looking for a nice piece of history, a joy to read, that is still applicable today, check this book out.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Thanks for posting that. He sounds like a real sportsman.....

 

[carebear]

Dave,

I realized after I posted it would be right up your alley as well.

There have been so many times at gunshows I've walked by the guys with the booths full of old shooting and hunting books and magazines. I need to spend a little more time looking at what they've got.

It truly was amazing to read shooting tips and gun and ammo recommendations, written in 1934, that are equally valid today. And presented in such a proper "voice". Especially since many of the loadings we take for granted were the exciting new "high velocity" loads back then, that sort of thing.

 

[sm]

Captain Paul A. Curtis's "Guns and Gunning", published in 1934.

carebear, I appreciate you thinking of me. I will investigate this work as I would like to read it.

I have some 1955 Field & Stream Magazines; the year I was born. I do not have the month I was born in issue I need to run that down as well.

Of Interest is - some of the same questions, answers, methods, techniques and
sound advice was published in 1955 is applicable today.

Mentors and Elders shared with me the same advice thet read and learned twenty, thirty years...etc., prior .

There exists Correct Basic Fundamentals.

Plaxco and others have shared throughout history , said different ways with the same meaning :

Shooting is learning correct basic fundamentals.
One just continues to shoot using these correct basic fundamentals , improving upon correct basics, getting smoother, faster , more accurate, consistent, more proficient , and ingraining muscle memory and eye-hand coordination.

 

[rustymaggot]

a book i read that i really liked the authors way with words is 'how to stay alive in the woods' by bradford angier. originally titled 'living off the land'.

he has another book called 'survival with style'.

anyway, i thought some of you might be interested in them.

 

[carebear]

rusty,

I see those at the used book store all the time. I'll have to actually get them. Thanks for the recommendation.

sm,

One of the more interesting things to me was his emphasis on "drop" of the stock as an important part of proper fit and how it influences the pointability of the shotgun. I have never read (because I probably haven't read all the stickies here in the shotgun forum ) such a clear explanation of how that can influence your lead. He also goes into leads for a variety of situations and the importance of training, how by staying at the #8 position on a skeet range and firing a full course you can get almost every shot you'll see in the field (had to return the book, I hope I remember that right). He talks briefly how a course that changes terrain and throw styles would be even better (sporting clays before it had a name).

He is heartily in favor of peep sights on rifles, with a possible exception for a close-range brush gun, although he says removing the aperture disk gives a larger rough peep sight (ghost ring in essence) that is useable in those conditions. He goes into scope selection and binoculars. Stag hunting in Scotland.

All this in a writing style that is just gone, that no one uses anymore. And I think we're poorer for it.

 

[sm]

carebear,
Many writers over the years and *some* posters on Internet have shared how crucial gun fit is to the shooter.
Drop and LOP both being two of the most important. The eye is the "rear sight" of a pointed shotgun.

Drop affects how high or low one shoots. If the drop is too low, and one sees the back of the receiver, human nature to raise the head. Raise up and see a miss - just like golfers raise heads and see a bad shot.

LOP affects range of motion and swing through. Best example is a gun that one "gets by with" during warm months. Same gun with a hunting jacket and not LOP is too long and the shooter's ROM "binds". Sometimes this bind means they cannot follow through (stopping swing - shooting behind the bird), sometimes it means not getting gun mounted to face and one cannot shoot what they cannot see. The gun is not being properly "pointed" - who knows where the thing is pointed!

Fred Misseldine in his works Score Better at Skeet and Score better at Trap addresses this.
In his Skeet work for example he not only shows one for each of the 8 stations stance, foot position, and all and how to hit each station - he also share why one misses and how to correct!
Bob Brister's Work - Shotgunning: The Art & Science addresses these things as well, and compliments Misseldine's and other works as he gets into so many things besides gun fit, adding chokes, patterns, patterns on moving targets and so forth.

For the new folks, Skeet is a semi-circle with 7 stations on this semi-circle and 21 yards from a center stake the regulated targets fly over at a certain height. There is a high house (left) and Low house ( right ) that throws clay birds. Station 8 is between the High and Low house.

Originally Skeet was called "Round the Clock" and in a circle. Designed to replicate field conditions in hunting. The "clock" was cut into and changed in a 'semi-circle'.

In the field one game will present themselves incoming and outgoing at various angles.

Low 8 , where one is facing the low house, is what I and others use for a Tueller Drill. I and others actually move more head onto this low house.

Regular skeet targets are ~ 4" in diameter and fly at ~ 55 mph.

Gun fit.

Most guns off the rack are made to fit a person 5'8" and weighing ~ 150 ( thereabouts).

One "handles" a shotgun and human nature is to "scrunch" around to fit the body to the gun.
Some "think" by putting the butt of the shotgun in the crook of the elbow, and the trigger finger reaching trigger means the correct LOP - not advisable to trust this.

In actual shooting of a shotgun be it game/ field conditions or on a Skeet field where a 4" target is flying at 55 mph - one does NOT have time to scrunch around a gun.

The shotgun itself is just one component of shotgunning. Lots of other factors as I alluded to such as stance, foot position , eye dominance, correct mounting of gun to face and all come into play as well.

This Shotgunning has a l-o-n-g history.
Ironic is some things have never changed, never will - only the new folks being introduced to shotguns are the "change".


100 years ago folks felled game birds the same way they do today. 100 years from now the same principals will still apply.