The gun community is rather small and all these guys know each other . I'm sure the gun manufacturers would rather that we all buy their latest carbon fiber space age wonder gun and not even try to shoot the vintage guns. Our issue is how to deal with using the old guns in a modern environment and where we have no lead shooting ranges becoming more prevalent. A buddy in Mass called me yesterday and was talking about many of the trap and sporting clay ranges there were going to no lead. 100 rounds of costly bismuth on a weekly basis if you want to shoot an old Parker isn't a very good alternative, at least for me. At $2 per shot, shells alone are $200, so then a round of clays costs $230. If there is a way we can shoot cheaper steel through an old Parker then I think we ought to investigate and figure out how it can be done it instead of dismissing it out of hand, I know I personally will look into it Our local ranges are all OK for lead but I like to travel and some of the places I like to go are no lead. I personally do not own a single modern gun, my newest one is a 1968 Superposed 20.
Maybe Roster should be proud of the steel shotcup. Why not? Early steel shotshells had a barrel bore erosion problem and the latest generation shotcups designed by Roster for Rem and others are supposed to have solved that problem. I have an old chopped Browning auto barrel , known for being soft, and another couple PGCA readers and I were talking about some sort of verification test.....shoot a thousand rounds of steel shot through it and see what happens. The trouble is all I have is a bore gauge, I have no means to measure shinyness before and after, and I don't really want to spend the money on a thousand rounds of steel. I don't know what testing protocol would be acceptable to people. The manufacturers don't want to look into it, they just want to sell you a new gun.
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