The Ongoing Adventures of Holly

So a few months ago I purchased,almost by accident, a Hollis and sons hammer gun with nitro proofed Damascus barrels for the princely sum of $100. I went in thinking I’d be buying something completely different,but was very happy as this was the gun I originally wanted anyway.
After a bit of stuffing around with shot and powder charges I’ve settled on 1⅓oz of size 4 shot and 3 drams ( about 90gn ) of Wano 2f blackpowder. I was using circle fly ½" fibre wads directly over the powder charge till I found one smouldering,now I either just use a stack of leather disks,or put a leather disk between the powder and the fibre wad. I use 2 cardboard disks as the overshot cards,and glue them in with Aquadhere glue.
Right barrel is pretty much an open choke,and left is pretty tight. Patterns are pretty damn even,which is nice,but the right barrel is really only good out to 20m in reality.
Shes a little rough and I’ve considered refurbishing her but I kinda like her the way she is.
I’ve been taking her to work a lot,and shes been performing very well,even out to 40m on one of the crows I’ve shot.
Just goes to show,old doesn’t mean useless.
Would love to know what year she was made,maybe bentaz can help ?

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Oops and somehow I’ve managed to put a skewered rabbit in there :man_facepalming:

Very nice mate, I really like the idea of black powder loads and brass shells with leather wads, as.much as I love shotguns, leaving bits of plastic everywhere is starting to annoy me…

There are biodegradable fibre shot cups available in the UK

That sure is one nice looking old gun. Like you say, old don’t mean useless.

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If you can post some close ups of the barrel flats and any other stamps I’ll see what I can find mate :+1:

Looks to be between 1904 - 1925 from the proof marks.

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Woo ! Even better !

Yes, i have seen those, its partly what made me start to think about how many pieces of plastic I’ve left behind. I do like the idea of BP loads though…