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.

Very nice Stan!

I need to visit the Hoover Museum one day

"...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 might have mentioned this before but I have found Mushers Wax to work very well in snow conditions on your pups paws. With latex gloves on, you slather it on thick before the hunt and by the end of the day there's almost no wax left on the pads or fur between the toes. So you don't have to worry about them tracking it on the fine carpet back at hunting camp. And the one application of wax seems to work all day.

And thanks for the story about Charles Askins shotgun! I sure wish I knew more history on my Parkers!

Thanks Chris for the tip on Musher's Wax, I'll have to look about picking some up.

I want to save you the disappointment my friend, as you can tell, I only own a few Parker's.

I hear the Ithaca shotguns are a poor man's Parker.:violin:

Yeah says the curator ! I had some Ithaca’s as well for awhile . I’m kinda curious about this new found intrest in Nichols & Lefever was it :whistle: