The Little Thug is remarkably comfortable to shoot, with negligible muzzle jump, but puts forth a hard-hitting charge and a choking cloud of smoke that can be very handy in a defense situation.
By Terry Wieland
It’s an unassailable fact that the best-laid schemes of mice and men “gang aft agley,” as Robert Burns would have it, or “often go awry,” as it’s generally translated into English. Either way, for those concerned with self-defense, this means that, no matter how thoroughly you try to prepare for those unforeseeable emergencies, chances are that when the unthinkable happens, you will not have your ideal gun in your hand.
When that happens, you’d best be prepared to go with what you can grab.
Behind the door of what passes for my office-cum-gunroom stands a modest firearm I affectionately refer to as “the little thug.” He’s a hammer gun, made about 140 years ago, by the London firm of E.M. Reilly, and what he is now barely resembles how he started life. As to his history during those 140 years, I would dearly love to know!
The little thug is now a 20-bore shotgun with 24-inch barrels, devoid of choke, with back-action locks and — an extreme rarity — a full-snap Jones underlever. It began life, however, as a .577 Snider double rifle. About the only thing that’s changed is the removal of the sights, installation of an amber bead and, of course, boring it out and rechambering. This was probably done because of corrosion, but who knows? It was a fine professional job, though.
The E.M. Reilly, made in the 1870s for the outposts of Empire.
The E.M. Reilly, now a 20-bore, began life as a .577 Snider double rifle. Oh, to know where it’s been, and what it’s done!
I bought the gun off the “rust & dust” shelf at Puglisi’s in Duluth a few years ago. It was dirty, damaged, needed a new forend tip, a horrible hot-blue job removed from its frame, the metal restored, and some wood refinishing. Puglisi’s bought it from a local bartender, who’d acquired it in a trade with the mate off a Great Lakes freighter, and who knows how he came by it, or where it’s been for 140 years. Guarding pack trains in the Khyber Pass? Repelling boarders in the China Sea? On a river boat up the Congo? These are all genuine possibilities.
One thing I know for certain is that it was originally built for warlike purposes, not for hunting. E.M. Reilly was a maker of fine guns of every type, catering mainly to officers and civil servants off to guard the Empire — the kind of man found on the Northwest Frontier, shooting it out with Pathans.
With its 2 1/2-inch chambers, I was a little limited, but my friend Bob Hayley (Hayley’s Custom Ammunition, 940-888-3352) conjured up some 20-bore brass cases as well as some old 20-gauge paper we could cut to length. For the brass, we had both 20-gauge round balls and 20-gauge spire-point slugs, while the paper hulls were stuffed with shot. All are powered by black powder, although it’s not really necessary. The thug’s barrel walls are thick and heavy for a shotgun. The little guy weighs 7 lbs., 3 oz., most of it in the barrels. For my purposes, though, black powder serves a purpose.
Ballistically, the little thug will outdo a .45 Auto at close range. Those 350-grain pumpkin balls leave the muzzle at around 800 fps, and with one from each barrel, the gun plants them about two inches apart at 15 yards. The shot charge prints a pattern right over top. That will most assuredly stop anyone barging through the office door.
The black powder adds further injury in the form of a choking cloud of smoke and wad fragments. Since I would be expecting this gas attack, and an invader wouldn’t, it gives me a few precious seconds to get to the secondary armament — an AUG, a couple of P.38s, and…well, you get the idea.
Such a scenario opens up the field to all kinds of “what ifs…” and “yes, buts…” Certainly, those are all things that might happen — the aforementioned unexpected and unthinkable — and you cannot prepare for every single eventuality. No one can. You just try to keep things from “gang agley.” For that, the Little Thug is in his element.