To kick off the launch of our brand-new Classics Issue, all week lengthy we’ll be publishing tales about timeless adventures, iconic gear, and, in fact, historic weapons. We hope you take pleasure in. Keep stylish, everybody.
Forty years in the past, then-college pupil Mike Jensen walked as much as the counter of the Olathe Gun Shop in Olathe, Kansas, curious to study what his shotgun was price. He’d purchased the L.C. Smith double for $150 from a buddy simply earlier than he’d left residence in Boone, Iowa, for close by Nazarene Faculty. “I handed the gun to the proprietor,” recollects Jensen, “He wouldn’t give it again to me. He stored providing me an increasing number of cash for it.” The Elsie turned out to be a Specialty Grade .410, price $20,000 or so at the moment. But all that cash couldn’t make Jensen promote.
“That gun intrigued me,” he says. “It was constructed by hand. It took hours to file the motion, to put the ribs, end the wooden, and to engrave the steel. That first classic double changed into two, then three, then extra, till ultimately, Jensen owned almost 1,000. Now, at age 63, Jensen has reached the stage in life the place he’s prepared to start out letting go of his assortment. He leases house within the Olathe Gun Store the place, at any given time, you may see tons of his weapons on the market. Should you’re a traditional-minded fowl hunter, you could pay M&M Traditional Doubles a go to.
The racks in Jensen’s a part of the shop maintain weapons with names each well-known and forgotten, organized by nation of origin. You’ll discover something your coronary heart needs, as long as your coronary heart needs a double gun. “Nothing towards them, however O/Us are too trendy,” says Jensen. He believes the shotgun was perfected within the late 19th century, and his assortment covers the Golden Age of doubles, from the invention of the boxlock in 1875 to World Struggle II.
Why Traditional Double-Barrel Shotguns Are Merely Higher
Jensen has some extent when he says shotguns had been perfected 140 years in the past. Nothing a few trendy double gun—besides perhaps choke tubes—can be unfamiliar to William Anson and John Deeley, the Westley Richards workers who invented the hammerless boxlock motion in 1875. Westley Richards additionally invented the highest lever, with which 99 % of break actions open and shut. Smokeless powder and fluid metal barrels got here alongside a few decade later and the Golden Age lasted till the one-two punch of the Nice Despair and World Struggle II introduced it to an finish.
A Golden Age double gun nonetheless makes an ideal searching gun at the moment, and, in contrast to nearly each trendy gun, together with some very high-end items, you already know it was match, completed, and checkered by hand in an period when laser-engraving and checkering and C-n-C machines had been fully unknown.
Jensen discovered to like these basic side-by-sides as area weapons whereas searching Kansas pheasants. “Previous doubles are lethal once you use them with the ammunition they had been designed to shoot,” he says. “The British knew what they had been doing, they usually had all of it found out by 1880. They constructed trim, mild weapons meant for mild hundreds and gradual powders that patterned superbly.”
Jensen used to hunt with a 12-gauge semiauto and stored going to heavier and heavier hundreds as a result of he wasn’t killing birds cleanly, he says. “Then I switched to a 20-gauge Dickson double, taking pictures 2½-inch No. 6 shot hundreds made by RST. I might kill pheasants useless at 45 yards with it, as a result of it patterned so significantly better than my trendy gun. I’d fairly hit a fowl with 10 gradual pellets than with one or two very quick ones.”
Stephen DeVries
Don’t Let Damascus Barrels Scare You Off
Jensen’s assortment spans each the period of Damascus barreled weapons (made by twisting iron and metal ribbons collectively and welding them) and fluid metal weapons. Fluid metal was invented in 1880, and also you’ll discover each forms of barrels in late 19th century and early 20th century shotguns. Regardless of what you’ve heard on the contrary, Jensen will let you know that Damascus weapons in the appropriate situation are completely protected to shoot with the appropriate low-pressure smokeless ammunition, and he has all ten fingers to show it. The issue with Damascus barrels isn’t their energy, it’s that they’re very outdated and had been shot with blackpowder ammunition. Blackpowder attracts moisture, making barrels weak to rust and excessive pitting in the event that they weren’t cared for. Jensen says if the barrels are in good situation, with a wall thickness of .025 or extra, they’re positive to shoot with low-pressure smokeless hundreds. You’ll desire a gunsmith to test the gun out, however twist barrels are nothing to be afraid of.
As a result of so many individuals are leery of Damascus weapons, they are often terrific offers. “I went to an property public sale as soon as,” says Jensen, “they usually had an outdated Parker price $4,000. The auctioneer held it up and stated “This outdated gun has Damascus barrels, it’ll blow up in your face should you attempt to shoot it. All you are able to do with it’s dangle it on the wall.” After he stated that, nobody wished that gun. I purchased it for $265, then stopped to see the widow after the sale and gave her an additional $1000, and I nonetheless felt type of dangerous about it.”
As fluid metal grew to become fashionable, many gunmakers sleeved weapons, reducing off the Damascus barrels forward of the chambers and becoming fluid metal barrels. Even when the work was achieved by the maker, and it comes with manufacturing facility documentation, a sleeved gun loses quite a lot of its worth. Sleeved weapons are a cut price, and there’s nothing fallacious with them as searching weapons.
What Makes These Doubles Particular Is That You Can Afford Them
“Reasonably priced” means various things to totally different of us, however an everyday hunter who’s decided to personal a basic double and is keen to save lots of a couple of years for it might purchase nearly any considered one of Jensen’s weapons. By and enormous, he has steered away from the very high-end weapons as he assembled his assortment. “I couldn’t hunt with a $50,000 Purdey. I’d really feel that if I cracked the inventory, I’d lose a piece of my child’s inheritance. I used to be at all times fascinated by sensible weapons, ones you could possibly take to into the sphere and actually put to make use of,” he says. Nearly all of Jensens doubles promote between $2,000 and $5,000. No, that’s not nothing, however to get a double of equal craftsmanship at the moment would value tens of 1000’s. Jensen’s choices are bargains by any measure.
It could come as a shock that a lot of Jensen’s clients aren’t growing older collectors, however youthful hunters of their 30s and 40s, with the millennial’s style for the artisanal and the handmade. What’s extra, in contrast to earlier generations of collectors who had been fanatics about unique situation, these new gun patrons desire a handsome searching gun, they usually don’t care if it’s been refurbished. You’ll see weapons in unique situation at M&M, however you’ll additionally see weapons that Jensen discovered as diamonds within the tough after which had recheckered and/or reblued by consultants.
Some collectors might take offense, however many received’t, Jensen factors out. “Solely Individuals obsess over unique situation. All over the place else on this planet, folks despatched their weapons again to the maker each few years to get tuned up.” The largest pitfall to keep away from in shopping for an outdated double, he says, is turning into smitten with a gun that doesn’t suit you. “Plenty of these weapons had been made to measure. Many American weapons have extra drop within the inventory than shooters are used to at the moment. Verify the inventory dimensions, and ensure it’s a gun you may shoot,” he advises.
One Hunter’s Retirement Is One other’s New Shotgun
Jensen admits he sells 19 weapons on-line for each one he sells over-the-counter, however he nonetheless retains the house he’s leased on the Olathe Gun Store for the previous dozen years. I get the sensation he does it as a lot for himself as for his clients. There’s a pair of overstuffed leather-based chairs within the again, and a variety from Jensen’s library of 250 gun books. “My weapons at residence are not any enjoyable. They’re all in safes,” he says, as he sits in one of many chairs, surrounded by doubles.
As of late Jensen solely involves the store by appointment, as a result of whereas weapons could also be his ardour, ministry is his calling. He’s an elder in a sequence of home church buildings in Kansas Metropolis, the place he works with victims of human trafficking. He travels recurrently on missions to Bhutan, Nepal, and India. “I really like the weapons,” he says, “however they are going to all be in a landfill some day. I need construct to one thing that lasts. Apart from, I’m 63 and in good well being, however who is aware of? I don’t wish to die and go away my spouse tons of of weapons to do away with. That is my retirement plan.”
Jensen is winding down, however he nonetheless can’t resist the appropriate shotgun. “What excites you in a gun?” I ask him.
“Unknown high quality and strange actions,” he says. “There are such a lot of undervalued weapons that don’t have a well-known identify, and there’s been a lot ingenuity in design. Double weapons are the final combination of artwork and engineering.”
A couple of minutes later, I’m wanting on the gun racks, making an attempt to determine the place M&M’s weapons finish and the Olathe Gun Store’s weapons start. I decide up a double.
“Mike, is that this considered one of yours?” I ask, displaying it to him.
He takes it from me. “No, however it ought to be,” he says, wanting it over.
His practiced eye reads the gun’s life story. It’s a Charles Lancaster, made in London about 1902 or 1903. It has a lump on the underside of the body for an underlever however was transformed to top-lever opening. Nearer inspection exhibits the highest lever got here from one other maker, Westley Richards, and the barrels had been reblued in some unspecified time in the future afterward to cover the Damascus sample when fluid metal grew to become fashionable. It’s the type of oddball gun Jensen loves.
“Only a minute, I’ve to purchase this gun, I’ll be proper again,” he says.
Double gun in hand, Mike Jensen steps across the nook to the counter of the Olathe Gun Store, proper again the place all of it started.
For Extra Info
Go to the Olathe Gun Store in individual, in Olathe, Kansas, or on-line here. Name the store to make an appointment to see Jensen. He additionally sells a lot of his weapons on-line with Gunbroker. The Needham centerfire-pinfire mixture gun present above, for instance, is listed here.
