[Kevin McCormack]

Photos of Edwin Hedderly are extremely rare - in my years of researching him I came across only 3 - the first one thanks to my good friend "Researcher" Dave Noreen who called me up from the Library of Congress one day and said, "What's a picture of Hedderly worth to you?". (As it turned out, a lot!). I believe it was in an article extolling the virtues of the 16 ga. (32" of course!).

The second photo I know of him is shown in an article he wrote for Western Field entitled "Those Crane Lake Cans" (as in Canvasback ducks on Crane Lake CA). The third and probably the best is the one of him standing with a limit of ducks strung around his neck, holding his 32" DHE 28 gauge Parker, which he dubbed his "mosquito gun."

Much to my disgust, a PGCA member who shall remain unnamed casually "scooped" me by copying and posting it on this BBS some time back. I found out that the reason I never had it was that in copying all 29 parts of his epic, "The Smallbore Shotgun" in Western Field magazine, the copy of the cover of that particular issue with that photo was missing from the microfiche tape I spent weeks and many $$$ copying and transcribing!

The search for the complete original series is an epic saga in itself, and consumed many hours of my life spent in libraries from DC to California. Someday I will tell the whole story. In the meantime, I would admonish people to carefully investigate and respect the copyright requirements of ANY publication they find it in. I was too casual about it and very nearly got burned big time. Luckily I paid attention and avoided the fine(s).

To answer the OP's original question, I don't remember any reference of Hedderly owning and shooting any 12 ga. guns, but of course it is entirely possible. He was not a fan of MC stocks, and most of the guns he had built predated the availability of the vent rib except in prototype designs (of which there were very few in 12 ga. and almost unknown in smallbore guns at the time).