A great find!

[Alex Brushwein]

On a quick stop through a local antique shop this afternoon I found a copy of the Crown printing of Frank Woolner’s “Grouse and Grouse Hunting”, copyright date 1970. No mention of print date or print edition on either the dust jacket or the inner pages.

Now, I already own and have read through the NLB reprint of this book, but for only $6 I figured it was worth picking up the older printing. Imagine my surprise when I opened to the title page only to find Frank’s signature! Definitely worth the price I paid to bring it home, in my opinion. Happy to add another copy of this great book to my collection.

[CraigThompson]

Frank Wolner was the cause of me mutilating a
Decent Winchester Model 59 :rotf:

[Garry L Gordon]

Ya gotta love a fiberglass barreled grouse gun!:)

That signed book is a great find.

[Dean Romig]

Frank Wolner was the cause of me mutilating a
Decent Winchester Model 59 :rotf:


You can call it “mutilating” but a friend of mine “Woonerized” at least a dozen 59’s by request of many grouse, bobwhite and woodcock hunting friends and acquaintances. I shot my friend’s at Skeet and it was DEADLY.





.

[Bill Murphy]

What, exactly, is the modification of the Model 59?

[Rick Roemer]

Cutting Barrel back 3 inches.
Removing pistol grip stock by cutting it off and making it a straight grip
Whittling forend wood to remove "unnecessary" weight

Basically lightening it and creating a cylinder bore.

I enjoy his books.

[Dean Romig]

And he cut the magazine making it a very nice close-range three shot bird gun.





.

[Dean Romig]

Taken from an article by Tom Keer…

Top is a Woolnerized 59 and an unmolested 59 beneath.

.

[CraigThompson]

What, exactly, is the modification of the Model 59?

Read the book you’ll figure it out .

[CraigThompson]

Taken from an article by Tom Keer…

Top is a Woolnerized 59 and an unmolested 59 beneath.

.

Seems to me he went to the extent of doing away with the actual forend on one of his attempts .

[CraigThompson]

Taken from an article by Tom Keer…

Top is a Woolnerized 59 and an unmolested 59 beneath.

.

You can call it “mutilating” but a friend of mine “Woonerized” at least a dozen 59’s by request of many grouse, bobwhite and woodcock hunting friends and acquaintances. I shot my friend’s at Skeet and it was DEADLY.


.
The one I did pointed well and killed/broke well , but the gun never grew on me . At the time I had a Citori Upland Special 16 I found far more of a soul in vs the 59 :whistle::rotf:

[Dean Romig]

Seems to me he went to the extent of doing away with the actual forend on one of his attempts .


I believe he did - it would have been impossible to modify the original to something that would work.





.

[Alex Brushwein]

That’s an awesome side-by-side comparison picture for reference, thanks Dean. What an interesting set of modifications. So cool the stories you all have with these guns. Definitely has me laughing reading through the replies

[Daniel Carter]

I think a hunting and fishing partner of the Woolner brothers who was a videographer may have been the ''inventor'' of that modification. I can not remember his name, along with a lot of other things, but he hunted and Striper fished with the Woolners and Hal Lyman,the owner of the 16 ga. Invincible. The name was Paul Kukonin and he put on film nights at sportsmen's clubs. During his narration about the gun he described its evolution.
Dean you may have run into him over the years at a club function

I did remember the name, maybe there is hope for me.

[Rick Losey]

I have a copy of one lesser known Woolner tome -

"Spearheading in the West" - A combat history of the 3RD Armored Division in WWII

https://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/woolner.pages/biography.woolner.htm

read trough my father's copy often as a kid. it was many years later that I out he was one of the writers and had been in the same division as my father. one faulty reference assigned FW to the same company as my Dad, but Dad never met him, and the formal history assigns him to a different unit.

[Alex Brushwein]

Very neat story Rick, thanks for sharing!

[CraigThompson]

I think a hunting and fishing partner of the Woolner brothers who was a videographer may have been the ''inventor'' of that modification. I can not remember his name, along with a lot of other things, but he hunted and Striper fished with the Woolners and Hal Lyman,the owner of the 16 ga. Invincible. The name was Paul Kukonin and he put on film nights at sportsmen's clubs. During his narration about the gun he described its evolution.
Dean you may have run into him over the years at a club function

I did remember the name, maybe there is hope for me.

I’ve got an “The American Sportsman Treasury” that has a Woolner striper story with Curt Gowdy of course . There’s a frontal view picture of Woolner’s (I assume) Jeep CJ-3A surf casting buggy . I always wanted a CJ-2A or CJ-3A .

[Daniel Carter]

I had the honor of working for Hal Lyman when he was chairman of the town conservation commission. When he found out i was a fisherman, after the meetings, he would find me and talk striper fishing. He was the founder of Saltwater sportsman magazine and Woolner the editor. He arranged a free subscription for me which lasted until it was sold to the Time group.

He was an amazing man in his breadth of knowledge and highly respected internationally as the head of several marine conservation groups.

I wish i had gotten an invitation to one of those fishing trips. The thing that sticks most about him was him saying '' I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and have spent my life trying not to choke on it''.
I did manage in later years to follow his footsteps and experience the things he and Woolner wrote about in the same way and places.

[Phil Yearout]

Don't you just love finding a nice surprise in an old book? Congratulations!