20 gauge 32" barrels DHE

[Researcher]

By the time it was pictured in Baer's 1974 book, the wood was refinished, the checkering pointed up, and the receiver, trigger guard, etc. case colored.

[C.O.B.]

I have a BHE 32 inch 20 with 3 inch chambers, straight grip, SPF, with a safety and a Silvers pad. This was ordered by a gentleman from San Francisco and it's all documented in the PGCA letter. What strikes me as a bit strange is it's an O frame. If you were going to use a 3 inch 20 to hunt waterfowl with why the lighter frame?

[Kevin McCormack]

It is problematic whether Hedderly ever had anything at all done to these (his) guns over time so car as stock alterations, rebluing or re case-coloring goes. His writings, which I have researched exhaustively, seldom mention at all having a gun refinished let alone repaired. At best, he mentions on occasion having a set of barrels honed or polished out or the forcing cones relieved to improve patterns, a subject on which he became a fanatic.

The guns I have been able to verify via written record ordered either for himself or his duck club and trapshooting buddies were delivered spot on so far as chokes, chambers, frame sizes, barrel lengths and options (e.g., Monte Carlo stock, cheek piece, rib configurations, etc.

Hedderly was, as they liked to say in Kansas when I lived there, "a long drink of water" - he was a tall (6 foot 6 inch) gaunt-framed man with a long neck and a chiseled face, most worthy of the anatomical term "lantern jawed." He ordered his stocks at 15 1/2 and on at least one occasion 15 3/4 LOP. His utopic duck gun was envisioned, ordered, built, and when delivered, a 32' barreled DHE 28 gauge, straight grip, SKBP with no safety. After he shot his first couple of limits with it, he dubbed it "The Mosquito Gun."

He ran through a number of American makers with his design criteria for a smallbore duck gun that "could", and eventually settled on Parker Bros.
(There is no doubt in my mind that chumming up the good Col. DuBray in custom ordering the first couple of guns for use on the marsh greased the skids, so to speak, along with his (Hedderly's) gushes about how accommodating Parker was in adhering to order specs and quality of the final delivered item having met his wishes).

He became a hard charger proponent of small gauge guns for duck shooting chiefly for 3 reasons: (1) during the heyday of the CA duck clubs (c. 1909-1919), killing ducks with a 12 gauge had been reduced to a routine, mundane, and boring pastime (there were plenty of ducks and plenty of duck clubs; something new was needed; (2) ammunition was unbelievably cheap and, for that matter, the price of ordering out a custom-spec smallbore gun from Parker Bros., LC Smith, Lefever, Fox, Ithaca, whomever was proportionally cheap as well, given the near non-existent market for smallbore guns, and (3) a smallbore long-barreled duck gun that delivered the goods on the marsh quickly became a trendy vanity item amongst the ricefield glitterati.

Despite the hype maintained at a near-fever pitch by Hedderly from about 1912 to 1916, relatively very few smallbore long-barreled Parker guns were ordered and built specifically for duck or trap shooting by Parker Bros; the last time I took a really accurate count combing through his references in Western Field magazine of these types of guns (excluding the well-known Widgeon Club duck guns), the total was less than a dozen individual guns.

At Hedderly's own rendition, the factors that killed the smallbore duck gun revolution during this era were the extreme scarcity of smallbore ammunition on the West coast in any semblance of an array to select cartridges based on use (e.g., duck, upland, or clay target loads), and the near total absence of quality reloading components in any volume selection to enable economical shooting of the little guns.

[Dean Romig]

A well done synopsis Kevin.





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[Bill Murphy]

"Whitworth never numbered their tubes." Wilbur Parker. ??

[Dean Romig]

Well somebody sure did, and sources other than Wilbur Parker have verified that Whitworth stamped and documented their tubes with serial numbers.





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[Chris T.]

There is a certain mystique abut these Duck Club guns, but they are also appealing for the sum of the features we all love. Long barrels, straight stocks, I personally like safety delete guns etc.

Julia's had one at Addieville on display before an auction a few years back. I can say it was as superbly made as any other Parker I've ever handled and the balance was exceptional. The one I inspected was a #1 frame DHE with 32" barrels but it was very light 6.5 lbs. maybe. I have a 30" GHE 20 gauge, straight stock, safety delete gun on an #0 frame that weighs in at well over 7 lbs. It was ordered and shipped to the West Coast, but I couldn't find any info on the buyer to connect it a Duck Club.

As far as frame size goes, I don't think it has as much to do with overall weight as people think. My 0 frame 20 weighs within 10 ounces of my 2 frame 12 ga. in the same configuration.

[Dean Romig]

Two of the most beautiful 20 gauge Parkers that I remember best were Wilbur Parker's AHE with long barrels (Larry can tell us the length) and an AH for sale at probably the first Southern I attended about 2006 or 07. Kevin McCormack will remember it. The fellow selling it would only sell it and a BHE 16 together. He would not break them up. Kevin described the AH 20 with straight grip and long barrels as "the quintessential Parker" for its features. A magnificent gun! But the BHE with it had far better figure in the wood. As I recall, the fellow wanted no less than $70k for the pair. Kathy was holding my money that day and I couldn't find her....





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[C.O.B.]

Dean I seem to remember those guns. I also seem to recall they changed hands three times during the weekend.

[Dean Romig]

I dont know...
i walked away.





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