Crow Busters Forum

Gadget Bob · Guru

Old School Anti-Crow Tech

CrowMagnumMan · Member

sweet looking guns

nhcrowshooter · Guru

Nice guns GB. By my way of thinking Old School class is always appropriate!

Puppypopper · Senior Member

That's Cool. Now to add to it would be the Drakes Old School camo.

shaddart · Guru

that model 12 is beautiful

hooks2bset · Senior Member

Sweet guns! I have a Remington Sportsman 58 12ga in the shop getting worked over due to a broken spring. I can't wait for it to get done.

M12Shooter · Guru

Nice M12 20 GB. Factory rib and Cutts? Bluing looks 99 percent if it has not been already re-blued.

Ted

Gadget Bob · Guru

Hi Ted,

No and no to your questions. I am told it is a "Moneymaker" rib and non-factory Cutts. I am getting this one refinished by a pro in Fort Worth to "factory specs". This gentleman and craftsman is a former B36/B52 tailgunner with many Chrome Dome and Arc Light missions in his past. A great cold warrior and I am proud to know him!

I am looking for some other Cutts "tubes" in 20 gauge, but without luck so far. The skeet tube I have will work fine on crows, but I would like to aquire a few tighter ones. The 12 gauge versions are out there, but the smaller gauges will take some looking.

Regards,

Gadget Bob

M12Shooter · Guru

Yup just seems too good to be true! Still a nice shotgun. Simmons does factory correct restorations of M12's too... said to do a fine job as well. Good luck GB. Post the finished product some day..and a couple dead bandits!

Ted

Gadget Bob · Guru

Hi again Ted,

Will do... This gunsmith did M42 restorations for myself and another buddy so I know this M12 will turn out nice. He was explaining that this particular M12 Skeet features 22 LPI checkering, as a pre-war (1941) model, in lieu of the 20 LPI of later versions. There is certainly a lot to learn about these classic shotguns and any information you can share would be appreciated.

I already took one crow with this particular M12, and plan to take many more once the refinishing and some minor repairs are completed.

Lone Star Phil is now looking for an M12 in 12 gauge to round out his battery. We are following Pete's and your lead! Stay warm...

Hi PP,

Love your vintage camo... I still have an old 10X camo coat from my boyhood and it does not look very hi tech these days!

Regards,

Gadget Bob

M12Shooter · Guru

The pre war M12's are said to be of the highest quality. It has been said that this was due to the Great Depression. Those that actually were working had a good work ethic and thus put out a fine product.

Gadget Bob, if you don't already own one, pick up Riffles book..."The Greatest Hammerless Repeating Shotgun Ever Built: The Model 12 1912-1964".

It contains a wealth of information and is thought to be the most historically accurate of the M12 books. Cheers!

Ted

M12Shooter · Guru

Great story Bob. I too mainly shoot M12's on crows. Grew up shooting 12's and have never looked back.. My dad was a seasoned bird hunter as well and all he ever shot were a pair of M12's, although in 1962 when I was born he purchased a new Browning A5 which didn't see too much daylight. One M12 was Poly Choked though. Ugly things they are but a pattern through a Poly Choke is beautiful thing to see. Sadly the steel shot mandate abruptly ended the M12's reign. I would have liked to meet a guy like your friend Boyd Robeson. Maybe in another life biggrin

Ted

-- Edited by M12Shooter on Thursday 16th of February 2012 04:16:16 PM

Scout 1 · Member

nhcrowshooter wrote:
Nice guns GB. By my way of thinking Old School class is always appropriate!

+1

Bob · Guru

Hi Gadget Bob,

I used a pair of 20 gauge model 12's exclusivly from 1977 to 1985 on crows. Hey, here is a bit of history for you, my father was hunting ducks with John Olin in Hampton Bays, New York on December 7th 1941. John Olin owned Winchester back in those days.

Bob A.

Mainehunt · Guru

The bluing on that 20 gauge looks great.

Kev

Bob · Guru

GB,

This photo was shot on a flyway shoot years ago. Notice what type of pump gun he is using!

Bob A.

Gadget Bob · Guru

Hi Bob,

I love it... These old pumps are classics and mine in the picture above should be ready for another 50 years of service when Stu Wright finishes tuning it up. http://www.wrightschokes.com/

I know Ted uses his to great effect and I plan some future crow hunts with mine. When the volume is high, my Browning Maxus will be employed for maximum effectiveness. I think the Maxus is hard to beat and a cut above other autoloaders I have employed over the years at sporting clays and hunting.

Regards,

Bob · Guru

Hi Bob,

Here is some more crow hunting history, in 1965 my crow hunting mentor took off the whole crow season. His gun shop burned down in september in Sioux City, Iowa that year, that was the year I first ran into Boyd Robeson. Boyd just used a diamond grade model 12 trap gun in those days on crows. He hunted in Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma that season. He shot (get this) a little over 16,000 crows that season. This was when the e-caller was still pretty new on the scene. Boyd had a love hate relationship with e-callers, but he said "you have to fight fire with fire" and thats why he went to one.

I remember my first hunt with him in 1973 before I moved to Kansas. He had moved from Sioux City to Wichita to be closer to the big crow concentrations. He did a lot of business with the model 12 men of that era, he was a gunsmith by trade. Boyd packed up his family and moved to Wichita in 1972, I moved from New York in 1974, we were two cuts from the same cloth as they say. I sure had a lot of good times with old Boyd, I sure do miss him. All he ever used on crows was the model 12!

Bob A.

Shotgunner · Member

I always wanted a model 12 but by the time I got out of school (1984) they were out of production and the used ones were too expensive or too beat up so I ended up with 2 Ithaca 37's instead. (The old 37's that were all steel and 2 3/4" shells only). The Ithaca's are good guns and I love their light weight but they are more fragile than the Model 12's from what I hear.

Gadget Bob · Guru

Hi Ted,

Here is my old warhorse on a recent mission. Dropped a couple of crows after clobbering this menace.

Hi Shotgunner,

I always admired those old Ithaca's, too. A classic midwestern shotgun many of my fellow Hoosier's swore by year in and year out!

Regards,

M12Shooter · Guru

Ah, what a beauty and nice job GB. I'm not informed on the Cutts. What selections of choke are attainable with one of those. What size of shot and load are you using? smile But for the love of God, get that fine shotgun away from that stinky thing! biggrin

Ted

M12Shooter · Guru

Shotgunner wrote:
I always wanted a model 12 but by the time I got out of school (1984) they were out of production and the used ones were too expensive or too beat up so I ended up with 2 Ithaca 37's instead. (The old 37's that were all steel and 2 3/4" shells only). The Ithaca's are good guns and I love their light weight but they are more fragile than the Model 12's from what I hear.

The grandfather of modern crow shooting, Bert Popowski, was a big fan of the Ithaca M37!

Ted

shaddart · Guru

I had a 37 I ordered with a 26" barrel & cyl bore, great partridge gun, nothing fancy but I still regret trading it.

Bob · Guru

The model 37 was not a bad pump but they were light weight as well which equals a sore shoulder. If you fired more than 6 boxes through one you started to really feel it.

Bob A.

Gadget Bob · Guru

Hi Ted,

Sorry for the late response, been travelling on business - unfortunately not our "crow business"...

All of the standard chokes constrictions were available for the Cutts Compensator in their day - cylinder, skeet, IC, modified, full - and they are just short tubes (the longer tubes for the tighter chokes) that thread into the end of that compensator body. Also unfortunately, the 20 gauge sized Cutts tubes are hard to find today, with the 12 gauge flavors much easier to obtain. I am looking for the other constrictions in 20 gauge, beyond the skeet tube I currently use.

As far as loads, I have a lot of load factory shells - Winchester, Remington and Federal snagged at gun shows at very low prices I employ afield. This skunk and the two crows I bagged were to a 1 ounce Federal #6 shot load.

Note it was very windy that day, and me, my Model 12 and my FoxPro Snow Crow Pro 2 Plus, carefully stayed upwind for this photo!

Regards,