In the early 1960's I shot dove and quail with an old friend of the family who, often as not, did his shooting with an original English ML 14 gauge. Even when he used cartridge guns, they were all loaded with black powder. Ithica, LC Smith, Parker, Purdey, H&H. He shot like no one I've seen before or since, and I was more than convinced it was the black powder. Not surprisingly, my first ML was a double 12 gauge and I did a whole lot of bird hunting with it including waterfowl.
Got a little more meat on my bones and he got me into shooting his collection of fine old English and assorted European double rifles. Most were cartridge, but some were ML. He died while I was in high school and I got distracted by girls, college, wife, family and job, so it took quite a while to get around to the rifle side of things. Like about 40 years. Can't imagine why it took so long, but there you have it.
Never learned what became of all his guns, but I clearly remember a whole bunch of his "Kentucks" standing muzzle down in a wooden barrel like umbrellas in one corner of his living room. Those were every day guns, and the good ones were squirreled away with his other rifles and shotgun in his "gun room." No doubt he had several hundred guns, and the newest probably predated WWI. I'm betting the stuff is scattered through collections all over the country now.
Can you guess what pops up in my dreams sometimes?
