Bo Whoop, Where Are You?

Back in 2004, I wrote a story for ESPN Outdoors titled “Naming of the Gun.” The gist of the story was that folks nowadays seldom give names to their favorite hunting arms as they did in the past. Everyone has heard of Davy Crockett’s rifle Old Betsy. Daniel Boone dubbed his flintlock Old Tick-Licker. Buffalo Bill Cody shot a 48-caliber trapdoor Springfield rifle he called Lucretia Borgia.

I mentioned in my story that many other famous outdoorsmen named their firearms as well, including renowned outdoor writer and conservationist Nash Buckingham, whose 12-gauge-magnum double-barrel Bo Whoop may be the best-known gun in waterfowling history.

Buckingham was a respected authority on shooting and hunting. In 1921, Western Cartridge Company president John Olin sent him an Askins-Sweeley magnum 12-gauge to field test the company’s new Super-X shotshells. Buckingham liked the gun so much, in 1926, he contacted Ad Roll at the A.H. Fox Gun Company in Philadelphia and commissioned a 12-gauge Super-Fox waterfowl gun for what Buckingham called “the tall ones.” He specified that the barrels be bored by renowned gun maker Bert Becker.

In his book, A.H. Fox: The Finest Gun in the World, author Michael McIntosh says, “Becker built the gun himself from start to finish. According to Buckingham, in a letter written in the 1950s, it was Fox No. 31108—either a case of faulty memory or an instance when the same number got stamped on two guns (which happened a few times); the only work-order card for No. 31108 describes an A Grade 12-gauge with 30-inch barrels and a half-hand stock, shipped to Supplee Biddle Hardware Company in Philadelphia July 16, 1926—definitely not a Super-Fox.”

Whatever the number, Becker crafted the gun to Buckingham’s specifications. It was constructed on a Fox frame with 32-inch barrels, which were overbored to deliver a 90-percent pattern of copper-coated 4s at 40 yards. The gun was chambered for three-inch shells, had a straight-hand stock, a rubber recoil pad, and, at Buckingham’s order, no safety. It weighed just under 10 pounds.

The gun’s unusual name came from Buckingham’s good friend Colonel Harold P. Sheldon. He called the shotgun Bo Whoop because of its distinctive hollow report.

Buckingham was riding back to town with a man named Clifford Green following a December 1, 1948 duck hunt near Clarendon, Arkansas, when a pair of game wardens stopped the men and checked their licenses and ducks. Bo Whoop was laid on the fender of Green’s car after one of the wardens looked at the gun, and Buckingham didn’t notice it was missing until they had driven several miles away. Despite an exhaustive search by game wardens, police and hunters, and ads placed with local newspapers and radio stations, Buckingham never saw the gun again.

The whereabouts of Bo Whoop has been the stuff of legends ever since. And since my story appeared on ESPN Outdoors, I’ve received more than a dozen e-mails from folks who claim Bo Whoop was found. Unfortunately, I have been unable to verify any of these reports.

One said, “The gun turned up in a pawn shop two years ago and was quickly purchased. No names were given out.”

Another said, “I have Bo Whoop in my possession and would like to find a buyer.”

The rest were similar, but when the people who sent them were pressed for details, they could not or would not provide them. As best I can tell, the Bo Whoop’s whereabouts remains unknown, or if someone does have it, they’re not talking.

If the gun were to turn up, and its existence was verified, there’s little doubt it would create a stir in the gun world. Bo Whoop, perhaps the most famed shotgun ever, might be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I like to think, however, it’s still out there somewhere waiting to be found.

I often hunt and fish in the White River bottoms around Clarendon that Buckingham ennobled in his books. Each time I do, on the drive to and from the area, I wonder if I might be passing near the place where Bo Whoop now rests. I gaze at the windows of the old shotgun shacks and wonder if the gun might hang on one’s wall, the owner quite ignorant of the gun’s value. I watch the road ditches, too, and fancy Bo Whoop might still be laying in one covered in muck and grass, hidden away for more than half a century.

What a treasure it would be if one could find it.