Indians For Guns

I was in Brussels recently and it was a pleasant sunny Tuesday and as a kind gesture from my friend Jan Bliki of J.Bliki of Lede a luxury car was waiting for me to visit his gun shop by his assistant Dieter who is a trained gunsmith from Liege school of gunmaking and he was a great company and after 40 minutes of drive we were in a beautiful village called Lede close to Ghent and north of Brussels we reached the beautiful shop.

I had a very warm welcome from Jan and after spending time looking at his beautiful offerings which included Piotti,Famars,Marcel Thys,Holland and Holland ,Stephen Grant,AYA etc. to name a few and then we settled in his office for a chat and we spend almost whole day talking about guns and hunting! and then he offered me to try some of his fine guns since he had a Indoor 25 yard range in his backyard (one of very few ranges in Belgium) I did shoot some of his offerings including a 1911 pistols called SPS a spanish company and manufactured in Philippines they were no Les Bear pistols but for the money they are worth they shot nicely I specially liked their model called Vista open not very beautiful to look at but shot very well.

Then I laid my hands on a very beautiful double rifle from Fratelli Piotti in 8X57 JRS a caliber I had never shot in my life and didn't know much about and the target at full 25 yards I shot the left barrel first and the shot was low and left and then the right one was right and high (I was shooting off hand) and finally I got hold of the rifle and the next shots improved and the 5th and 6th shot was within 2 inches and I was really impressed by the handling and shooting quality of the double it was very well balanced and very soft on the shoulder I am attaching the photo of the target and the rifle.

There was another very nice Piotti O/U sidelock shotgun with Bulino engraving being offered at 90,000 Euros! and one had to hold that gun to believe the balance and the quality I am also attaching the photo of the shotgun but the photo does not do gun the justice and there was another new dandy little hammered 20 bore Piotti SXS overall I loved the Piotti rack (Photos attached)! Hopefully I will be paying Piotti's a visit in Brescia later this year.

In the evening Jan offered me to drive back to Brussels himself and was kind enough to show me some very interesting places around the city including some of Victor Horta houses!

It was a day well spent!Thanks to Jan Bliki.

Great post,Bespoke. Very pleased to know that you had such a great time. Thank you for sharing your experience and the photos with us.


Best-
Vikram

Nice post. . .

What beauties. All of them.
I was looking for the 'drooling' smilies but unfortunately there isn't one.
Explains why you have been missing from IFG for over a couple of months.
Looks like you had a great time there. Did you pick up anything interesting?

Thank you for the kind comments guys.

Prashant,

I was in Brussels for couple of weeks but i have been busy with work so not very active on IFG.I hope all is well with you.Yes,I picked up some stuff but more like art prints,ties ,cufflinks etc.and a very special handmade leather shotgun cartridge belt.

The Belgian gun laws are very strict so could not lay my hands on any ammo.

Bespoke, very nice! But you should expect the shot to be off, when you fire the left barrel of a double rifle first. You will almost never find a double that has been regulated left barrel first. Unless by request of the owner. Cheers.

Hi Tworivers,

My experience with double rifles has been mostly with larger calibers .375 and above so my exposure to medium or smaller caliber doubles is limited.As a habit i always let the left barrel of double rifles go first to avoid doubling just in case although it never happened to me but AFAIK it is not uncommon in larger calibers that if you let the right barrel (front trigger) go first sometimes your finger might slip and pull the left barrel (rear trigger) by accident causing the doubling so it is always safe to let left barrel go first.This was method used by many experienced Professional hunters in dark continent.

Link to Piotti website

http://www.piotti.com/en/

Hi thanks for the post those are beautiful guns hope you had a nice time mate...

a true beauty. What engraving, those are absolute beauties to drool for, Lucky you.

Thanks for sharing the pics and the experience.

Jst saw the link to the engraving, what craftsmanship, simply amazing.

Nice one bespoke thanks for sharing

Best

Bespoke wrote:Hi Tworivers,

My experience with double rifles has been mostly with larger calibers .375 and above so my exposure to medium or smaller caliber doubles is limited.As a habit i always let the left barrel of double rifles go first to avoid doubling just in case although it never happened to me but AFAIK it is not uncommon in larger calibers that if you let the right barrel (front trigger) go first sometimes your finger might slip and pull the left barrel (rear trigger) by accident causing the doubling so it is always safe to let left barrel go first.This was method used by many experienced Professional hunters in dark continent.

Bespoke: If a PH does that, he either had his "bespoke" double regulated in reverse order; or just uses, but does not know anything otherwise about doubles. They are regulated to be fired front trigger, left barrel, first. In reverse order the two barrels will not group together as they should. Now, at the short range a double is normally used, it probably won't be readily apparent, or matter that much. But, if you are targeting the rifle from a rest for grouping and accuracy, at the range it was regulated for, it will become readily apparent. A case of simple physics. A double has to be regulated with one barrel fird first. Either barrel first is not possible. Few PHs are likely to have even a basic knowledge of physics. Both the sequence, and time between the shots, affect the impact of shots from the individual barrels of a double.
This does not apply do a double with barrels only joined at the breech, and able to expand and move indepently when fired. Baikal and Blaser, for instance.
Last, but not least, in case of a PH having to do that, I'd advise him to get a rifle of a caliber he is able to handle.
Cheers.

Hey bespoke,
Great writeup.
Out of curiosity, Which firearms do you own?

Tworivers,

I do get your point but there are some very experienced hands with doubles including PH's and recreational double shooter who follow this technique , anyways its a habit now

Safarigent,

Thanks ...I have owned quiet a few guns in past including a 20 bore paradox Holland and Holland but haD to let them go at present on my license i only own a 12 bore Westley Richards droplock and looking for a good double rifle.