A Snowy Day pheasant hunt with a special order 16
 

I took the girls out to find some pheasant in last weeks snow. We found a few and I was able to snap a pic of Lexi on point. Was good to get the dogs some exercise and they enjoyed the snow. I was surprised how quickly they had ice freezing to their feet.
I was carrying a special order Flues 16 gauge, 30” barrels with ejectors, single trigger with no safety.
This gun was ordered by a pretty popular American Gun writer and the shield still bears his initials.
It is kinda interesting reading his book describing how he viewed shotguns, their features, their values, and his opinion on caring for a double gun, and then use what was formerly his gun to take some birds.
I really wish I could know the species of birds and any other game he may have harvested with this 16 gauge. It is well worn, fore end very rough from carrying, barrel missing a fair amount of blueing, top rib dinged in a number of areas, and the head of the stock has hardly noticeable filler plugs where a repair was made at some point.
This is probably a very easy guess for some of you guys, but who was it? I would suppose he had a special order Parker or two?

Appears to be CA for Charles Askins. Or not.

You are correct Mike!

Beautiful gun Stan.

Very nice 👍🏻

What a great gun with some history. And those pups aren’t too shabby either. :bowdown:

"Major" Charles Askins, not the Colonel.

The Parker Bros. I have noted Chas. Askins the elder writing about was his 6 3/4 pound 30-inch 28-gauge. In his 1910 book he writes of hand loading 2 1/8-drams of bulk smokeless powder and 3/4-ounce of shot in the 2 7/8-inch cases when the heaviest factory loads offered were 2-drams pushing 5/8-ounce of shot.

In the late 1920s he got a fully loaded No. 5E NID 16-gauge, but it ended up spending much of its life with Elmer in Salmon, Idaho.

Attachment 123164

Very nice little vignette Stan; thanks for sharing.

Those pre-1915 Ithacas had some wonderful engraving.