Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The February 2024 issue of Rifle Loony News

A rifle is a utilitarian tool to some degree and I surly do love a sleek custom rifle but a shotgun especially a vintage SXS (preferably with hammers) is a thing of beauty. I have a project in the works with a Fox Sterlingworth. She's a 32 inch 12 that will become a sporting clays gun with a face lift.
A sculpted frame, possibly a fish tail top lever ala Parker, straight grip, and full coverage engraving. I have a very nice piece of English walnut for the stock.
Yup I am a shotgun Looney......big time

Sounds very cool! Would love to see a photo once it's done.

Had a semi-custom Sterlingworth 12 made in 1911--the checkering done by me. Used it for several years, and then got a J.P. Sauer that I could shoot just as well--and weighed somewhat less. After a while sold the Sterlingworth, but am always on the lookout for 'em....

Stephen Dodd Hughes (SDH on the Campfire) specialized in redoing Sterlingworths for a while, and they were beautiful guns in every way. But he's now pretty much retired from gunsmithing....

If I ever decide to move east of the Mississippi, West Virginia would be on my short list!

Well it ain’t Montana, but it’s a great place to live, and tags are yours for the buying, and cheap for residents. Folks our age get a lifetime license for $25, which includes the first buck tag, trout stamp, bear tag (up to two in some areas), and we even have a few genuine wild boars, NOT feral hogs. Elk are in progress, but probably won’t be ready in time for us. VA, KY, PA, and IIRC TN have limited seasons.

If the California refugees ever run you out of MT……

Rifle bullets for the hunter, I too have a signed copy by all of the contributors. Looks like I made a good investment!

That brings a grin to my face...

MT rancher friend would talk about their regular "cleansing winters" to help recent transplants make up their minds if they really wanted to stay in MT.

I just read Geezer Meat Hunting and that's for me. I have been fortunate to have hunted several western states and Alaska and Africa both twice. Not as much as some but still no complaints. There isn't much room for any more big game mounts and the small game has spilled over to my "Man Cave" house in the U.P. as the wife calls it. There is a Woodcock mount there nestled between a Sharptail and a Hungarian Partridge from Manitoba.
I can deer hunt here in Michigan with a rifle from November 15 through January 1 and although I hunt most of those days I usually end up taking a doe. My brother (a non hunter) and his wife love the meat and as my wife isn't much on being a meat eater and heaven forbid she sink her teeth into a backstrap I shoot and process the doe for them. In recent years I have gone to Texas for some exotics (the Axis is the beast venison I've had) and go to Georgia each year for a Quail hunt. My friends and I can eat the birds and the venison gets eaten up when I'm in the U.P. I spend the month of October up there grouse hunting.
I would love to go to Montana and hunt a cow elk. I'm closing in on 72 and have survived bone cancer and covid but as I'm somewhat vertically challenged so huffing up a mountain isn't in the cards and there is no place for another shoulder elk mount.
I'm happy to be a Geezer who can still roll his own ammo and get outdoors and hunt a bird or a deer. It's the joy of being in a hunting environment with good friends and good dogs and if meat is put in the freezer so much the better.