New Video - Fowling guns

[Jim Kibler]

[2 shots]

 great video Jim. cant wait to get mine. i was wondering if you feel this would have been a more northern [ new england] area import? or the colonies in general?

[Gtrubicon]

I really enjoyed this video. I love that you showed the original guns and explained them as you did. Very informative. Thanks!

[Hunterdude]

I found the video very informative, what i liked most is a bit of the break-down about constuction and what features are "cost cutting" on the old guns....and what things where improved on the higher grades.
    My very first thought was could we see a hooked breach offered on a future kibler fowler? It would be wonderful for cleaning, but it sounded like the barrel profile was very different and much wider breach on those high grades....i guess my question is: would adding a hooked breach to the current barrel profile be totally wrong? Thanks!....I love the kit and no hooked breach is Not a deal-breaker for me!

[smart dog]

Hi,
All of the original 18th century English fowlers that I own have standing breeches and barrel keys and only one is a high end gun. The rest are middling quality at best including a gun by a provincial maker not in London.  The vast majority of 18th century English fowlers I've examined in museums and collections made after about 1750 or so had standing breeches and most of those were of export or middling quality.  The breech on the high end gun I own by Heylin and mounted in silver is about 1 3/16" wide and made in Spain.  It is not especially massive but the key feature in all of them is they taper rapidly from the breech.  Unfortunately, the only barrel that used to be available that was close to being correct was the Griffin profile in "D" weight made by Colerain, who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. It is hard to find a modern made fowler barrel with breeches more than 1 1/8" wide.   

dave

[Jim Kibler]

It really is just about trends with these guns as there is considerable overlap in features and design.  I believe two of the guns shown in the video had standing breeches and they were not high end guns.  The one was probably lower middle grade and the other was very comparable to our kit gun.  I believe they had breeches of 1 3/16 and around
1 1/8" (or a little less) respectively.  The trend is that as quality level goes down, breech size does as well.  Also, you are less likely to find keys on a lower grade gun than a high grade one.  Taken to the extremes, you pretty much always find keys on a top notch gun and never find keys on guns at the quality of the Bumford.

Jim

[smart dog]

Hi Jim,
I agree completely with you.  In fact, in the same book by Jim Mullins you have the trade gun by Bumford with crude hardware and no standing breech, and then 11 pages before you have an export fowler by Bumford of better grade with a standing breech.

dave

[Martin S.]

I tried to google "standing breech", but the results mostly had to do with breech babies.

Can someone explain that term to me?

[rich pierce]

I tried to google "standing breech", but the results mostly had to do with breech babies.

Can someone explain that term to me?

You may know it as a hooked breech setup. That is, there is a tang with a vertical, barrel-sized face with a mortise in it. The barrel breechplug has a lug or hook that fits into the “standing breech”. 

[canadianml1]

Excellent video Jim. I like all the backgound you give and examples you provide . Good stuff!

[Martin S.]

Thanks Rich.

[Bob Gerard]

What is interesting to me about these standing breeches is that they are on long guns. Sometimes very long barreled guns. It seems that removing the barrel from the stock, for cleaning I suppose, was more beneficial than not.

[Daryl]

I believe you are absolutely on track, Bob.
I remove ALL my barrels for cleaning. I only have 2 guns eith hooked breeches  yet all barrels are removed for cleaning. In the long guns  the rods remain in the pipes for support..