Bruce Day
04-26-2010, 11:49 AM
Title should be Moment of Inertia
Some readers may know of Don Amos of North Carolina and his measurement of subjectivity. Don has continued the work of Gough Thomas in quantifying swingability, and has created instruments for measuring the quickness of swing of game guns. While it is easy to assume that small bores with short barrels swing fastest, that is not necessarily true. I attended the Flatwater shoot close by in Nebraska this last weekend, Don Amos had driven out and people came from as far away as Hawaii. Its an any gauge, any gun sporting clays event and I've shot Purdy's, H&H's, lots of guns. One person was shooting a 410 Judge revolver at sporting clays.
Anyway, Don did lots of measurements on guns, Brit game guns, etc. and its interesting to note that the two guns, out of dozens measured, that were lowest were two Parker 20ga's. Mine is a 1904 CHE 20/26" Damascus at 1.24 MOI and Larry Harwood with a 1902 GH 20/28" Damascus even lower at 1.22. Interesting, but that means only that they are balanced and swing fast, some people of course want a slower swinging gun. Don did not test the Judge revolver. Some smaller gauge guns swung slower. The lower the MOI, the faster the swing. Some guns that you would think would be quick were numbering in the high 2.00's
Some readers may know of Don Amos of North Carolina and his measurement of subjectivity. Don has continued the work of Gough Thomas in quantifying swingability, and has created instruments for measuring the quickness of swing of game guns. While it is easy to assume that small bores with short barrels swing fastest, that is not necessarily true. I attended the Flatwater shoot close by in Nebraska this last weekend, Don Amos had driven out and people came from as far away as Hawaii. Its an any gauge, any gun sporting clays event and I've shot Purdy's, H&H's, lots of guns. One person was shooting a 410 Judge revolver at sporting clays.
Anyway, Don did lots of measurements on guns, Brit game guns, etc. and its interesting to note that the two guns, out of dozens measured, that were lowest were two Parker 20ga's. Mine is a 1904 CHE 20/26" Damascus at 1.24 MOI and Larry Harwood with a 1902 GH 20/28" Damascus even lower at 1.22. Interesting, but that means only that they are balanced and swing fast, some people of course want a slower swinging gun. Don did not test the Judge revolver. Some smaller gauge guns swung slower. The lower the MOI, the faster the swing. Some guns that you would think would be quick were numbering in the high 2.00's