Shoot Like Your Grandpa

This shotgun belonged to my great grandfather Roy Harr. It is a 2-round German Mauser bolt action Geha shotgun in 12ga. Now there's a lot to unpack there, but let me start by tying this back in to one of my previous "Like Your Grandpa" posts. In the first post in the series "Shave Like Your Grandpa" I talked about rituals and how we (mostly men) thrive on them. That was in the context of the shaving ritual, but shooting is not really different. In fact, I would argue that for shooting or handling any dangerous object, a ritual is critically important. Shooting is a rather long and involved ritual, especially with antique weapons like this. When you first lay your hands on a weapon, the first step in the ritual is to check to make sure that it is 'clear' (that is, not loaded). Then you might inspect it to make sure it is clean and in good working order. Once you are in a safe place to fire, you would load the weapon and at this point there are a number of safety "rituals" to follow (keep your finger off the trigger, don't point it at anything you don't want to destroy, etc.). Then there is the ritual of actually aiming, firing and in the case of bolt action firearms, ejecting the spent round and chambering the next. Attention to detail and doing things in the right order are important. So this is the appeal for me. I'm not a hunter. I'm a hobbyist. I shoot paper targets at the shooting range for fun. Part of that fun is getting the ritual right and seeing a good result.

Now about this shotgun... When Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI in 1919, they agreed to not produce military arms. They could produce 'sporting arms' though. Now they had a large surplus of Mauser military rifles, so what to do with them? Melting them down seemed like a waste of a resource, so they decided to convert the rifles into shotguns. The shotguns were sold to farmers and hunters under a few different brands, Geha being one. My great grandpa Harr probably bought this new and used it on his farm in Washington state. When it was eventually handed to me by my uncle it hadn't been fired in many decades. I cleaned it and took it to a gunsmith to have it inspected. He said it was good to fire. There are many arguements in the shotgun community as to whether these are actually safe to fire. There are apocryphal and third hand stories of catastrophic failures, but I've yet to read anything that leads me to believe that they are dangerous in any systemic way. Remember these were built to withstand the high pressures of military rifle ammunition and so are "over-built" for the lower pressure of shotgun shells. The shotgun holds 2 rounds. I like to shoot a shell with bird shot followed by one with 00 buck shot. It's fun to feel the difference in the two rounds one right after the other. Of course the bird shot obliterates the paper target, so you can't really see the spread of the buck shot after that, but it's really just about the experience. No one shoots stationary paper targets at the range to improve their accuracy with a shotgun.

• Camera: Standard Cameras 4x5 1.0
• Film: Kodak Clinic Select Green x-ray film
• Developer: DIY Parodinal 1:100 x 4 minutes
• Fixer: Sodium Thiosufate/Sodium Sulfate basic non-hardening fixer

Smoke Like Your Grandpa

There are five men that I called Grandpa at one time or another. A few of them smoked cigarettes and one smoked a pipe. I find cigarettes unpalatable and generally offensive to the senses. I have never smoked a complete cigarette. But I remember my grandpa's pipe and the smell of the tobacco. Even as a child, it smelled good to me. I was too young to really know anything about anything but I don't think he smoked the flavored (aromatic) tobacco. He was a farmer and I find it more believable that he smoked a regular 'drug store' brand. So I had been conscious of pipes from a young age. I bought my first pipe when I was 21. That was the legal age to buy tobacco at the time. This was pre-internet, so I really had no idea what I was doing. I bought a Peterson system pipe in a subtley flared 'calabash' shape and I bought some fruity tobacco that smelled great in the jar at the tobacconist. The experience of smoking a pipe was frustrating and after a few attempts, I put it away for a couple of decades. When I decided to come back and try again I had the full resource of the internet and all of the helpful pipe smokers on the Pipe Smokers Forums to advise and encourage me. What I quickly learned was that smoking a pipe is a ritual. See my post on shaving like your grandpa for a brief discussion of rituals in our lives. I quickly lost my hang-ups about being 'good' at pipe smoking and saw it as an excersize in relaxation and contemplation. I left behind the fruity flavors of aromatic tobacco and instead prefered the pungent earthy tones of English blends. I also came to appreciate the simplicity and utility of an inexpensive corn cob pipe. Briar pipes are beautiful works of art (or at least they can be) and I have a few that I enjoy very much. But a corn cob transports me to a simpler time and I find that between the ritual of packing, lighting and smoking, and the feel of the corncob pipe and the flavors and aromas of the tobacco, the experience is truly unique and satisfying. I think our grandfathers knew this as well, but they might have taken it more for granted. I could be wrong, but I think that suburban work-a-day life in the 40's and 50's was perhaps less of a burden than it often is in the 21st century. So when I smoke a pipe I try to savor the feeling of simplicity. There may come a day when tobacco in any form is no longer tolerated. I hope that day will delay for a few more decades until I am removed from this mortal coil and can enjoy a pipe with my grandpa in the next.

Standard Cameras 1.0 4x5
Catlabs XFilm 80 @ 25
My-tol 1:1 x 8.5min