Colt 1878 Hammer Shotgun Heirloom

Functional restoration of an old family heirloom, an 1878 Colt shotgun. It’s almost like Ramsey Russell's ancestors were speaking to him through an old gun and related drawing.

Old shotguns are generational conduits, connecting us to our waterfowling ancestry. My grandmother gifted me an old rabbit-eared Colt 1878 shotgun when I was a teenager. Found in the old home she was born in. She wasn’t even really sure who it had belonged to. We eventually determined whose it was many years later with a drawing that my great-grandmother had made using her maiden name. And it’s like my ancestors began speaking to me, compelling me to take that old shotgun duck hunting. To take them duck hunting. The next Life’s Short GetDucks episode was filmed in familiar Mississippi haunts and demonstrates that no matter how far and wide you may travel while duck hunting, home is who you really are. This trailer provides a little history on the family shotguns used in Life Short GetDucks Mississippi short film • Much of the surrounding Mississippi Delta landscape has sure changed since the old Colt 1878 hammer gun was last used, but reintroduced it to the swamp. Built pre Migratory Bird Treaty Act, if only it could tell stories in the blind. Connecting with my ancestors through a firearm, to a profound sense of home, who I am as a hunter, as a human. Times may have changed, but some traditions need not ever.