Tolley 8-bore shotgun

For those of you who wanted to know more about the J&W Tolley 8-bore shotgun I mentioned in an earlier post, here's a video of Dick Shelton going fowling with the beast, on the shore near Cellardyke. I've included a sequence of him cleaning the gun afterwards - cleaning seems to take almost as long as going shooting! "The trouble I take to clean the gun is because the bores are on the rough side!" he says.

Dick tells me the gun was made in around 1878 or 9. It bears the serial number 5636 and the address St Mary's Square Birmingham. It weighs 13 1/4 lbs. He used to fire loads with 2 1/2 oz of lead shot; now that lead is banned for this sort of shooting in Scotland he fires ITM (tungsten matrix) shot, with loads just over 2oz.