IthacaOwners.com

OH. BE STILL, MY HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't have the money right now, but I would love to have one like that. That is a beautiful Damascus pattern on the barrel.

To answer your first question, I do load my own. We do both BP loads and we have worked up a light smokeless load that we are very pleased with. If I am on the bird, it will break.

To kinda wander back to the original thread, I am as pleased as I can be to be standing on the firing line with my Ithaca, next to folks with their Parkers and Elsies. They made a fine gun then, and I'm sure that folks would love to be in the field with a new one today.

BPskeeter wrote:OH. BE STILL, MY HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't have the money right now, but I would love to have one like that. That is a beautiful Damascus pattern on the barrel.

To answer your first question, I do load my own. We do both BP loads and we have worked up a light smokeless load that we are very pleased with. If I am on the bird, it will break.

To kinda wander back to the original thread, I am as pleased as I can be to be standing on the firing line with my Ithaca, next to folks with their Parkers and Elsies. They made a fine gun then, and I'm sure that folks would love to be in the field with a new one today.

I couldn't resist! I have to say that is one nice looking gun. A little TLC and it would be quite a piece.
If I may ask, what is your recipe? What do you use for components to load BP?

And to back your statement up, I have been getting alot of inquiries regarding the Phoenix.

Sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner, Raven, but I was out of town.

Here is our pet BP load:
CCI209 primer
Winchester target hulls
2 1/4 dram Swiss 3F black powder
1 nitro card overpowder wad - 12 ga
1 1/2 cushion wads - 12 ga
7/8 oz shot - #9 for me and #8 for the wife to shoot trap with

If we are using the black Remington hulls, the load remains the same, but we use 13 ga. wads instead. The wall thickness of the Remington hulls is much greater than the Winchester's, and Mike's Quality 13 ga wads still measure .730, so they give a good seal.

The powder and shot weights are the same as we use in our muzzleloading shotguns for most of the matches that we shoot. The guys over on Shotgunworld.com convinced me to try the 7/8 load in my modern 12 ga. for skeet, and I fell in love with it. We can break birds all day long with it, without breaking our shoulders, and if you think that it's not effective, the wife walked away with 5 medals at Friendship this last fall shooting it on trap.

That is really fascinating, Skeeter. How do you load black powder? I mean what kind of devices do you use?
Please forgive the questions, you have me really curious.

and nothing wrong with a 7/8 load. It is just a 20 gauge load right? I know one of the older fellows I shoot with uses a 7/8 load in a 12 and he hits lights out.

We use the same brass dippers that we use for loading the muzzloaders. I did pick up an older shotshell press that measures wad pressure (we use 50#) Before we opened up the chambers on our guns, we cut off the shells to 2 3/8", and used an over shot card. By then running them through the crimp die, they gave a perfect roll crimp.
We could have used the powder and shot bottles on the press, but I'm a little anal about safety, so I keep my powder safely off to one side. Just my choice.

Very impressive, Skeeter, thanks for sharing. I was wondering about how you dispensed your powder. I know PW specifically says to not dispense BP in their reloaders. A roll crimp, too. That is cool!

BP, that is pretty awesome. It sounds like a lot of fun.

I second the motion about Ithaca building a double. If it handles anything like the model 37 it will be magic in a hunter's hands.

If a gun company really wants to bring out a NEW SXS they should make an Eight Gauge again. Alot of guys just have to have the "BIGGEST" gun and would have to buy it. Loo at all the Desert Eagle 50s out there that have only been shot once. They still sell alot of them. The ammo manufacturers would have a new product and finally there would be a shell with enough shot in it to hunt ducks and geese. Just my three cents (inflation) Don.

Donald wrote:If a gun company really wants to bring out a NEW SXS they should make an Eight Gauge again. Alot of guys just have to have the "BIGGEST" gun and would have to buy it. Loo at all the Desert Eagle 50s out there that have only been shot once. They still sell alot of them. The ammo manufacturers would have a new product and finally there would be a shell with enough shot in it to hunt ducks and geese. Just my three cents (inflation) Don.

The only problem with an eight gauge is that its use is very limited.It cannot be used to hunt waterfowl as the Canada/United States Bird Treaty states that no shotgun larger than 10 gauge can be used for watefowl hunting.

The eight gauge is probably not a gauge that would see a lot of use in the uplands.

28 gauge wrote:

Donald wrote:If a gun company really wants to bring out a NEW SXS they should make an Eight Gauge again. Alot of guys just have to have the "BIGGEST" gun and would have to buy it. Loo at all the Desert Eagle 50s out there that have only been shot once. They still sell alot of them. The ammo manufacturers would have a new product and finally there would be a shell with enough shot in it to hunt ducks and geese. Just my three cents (inflation) Don.

The only problem with an eight gauge is that its use is very limited.It cannot be used to hunt waterfowl as the Canada/United States Bird Treaty states that no shotgun larger than 10 gauge can be used for watefowl hunting.

The eight gauge is probably not a gauge that would see a lot of use in the uplands.

I sure as hell wouldn't shoot it.