Briars With Small Bowls?

  • Thread starter Corcoran-Rooney
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Corcoran-Rooney

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Briarworks OR01 stubby apple. My pinky is a tight fit in the bowl and only goes down to slightly above the first knuckle. It holds pretty much exactly the amount of tobacco you'd stuff into a king size RYO tube. I've also got an aluminum/briar Comet bowl for one of my Kirsten Ds that holds about that much tobacco, but those aren't easy to come by.

Big Ben has the Tattoo and Vauen has the Quixx, but I don't have any personal experience with either, and they look more like pot pipes than tobacco pipes, so I wouldn't rock either in, like, the South or something unless I wanted cops to give me a hard time.

I used to be into small bowls, but I'm also the sort that likes to break down a pipe and clean it after each smoke, and going through all that for a 10 minute bowl started being more of a pain in the ass than the smoke was worth, so I moved to cigarillos or rollies for short smokes--I prefer the former, but the latter is sometimes more contextually appropriate depending on the social situation.
The one advantage of the pipe for me, is that has gotten me away from inhalilng my tobacco. So defo don't want to go back to rollies. Although I know what you mean about the social situations, I probably would smoke them in the pub. Thaks for the suggestions btw
 
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Corcoran-Rooney

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Tsuge Smooth Metal Silver Blowfish | Buy Tsuge Tobacco Pipes at Smokingpipes - https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/tsuge/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=222893 this pipe has a small chamber and is a great smoker. Well at least the one I have. After getting it I thought I could just buy a few more and just have three or four in a row instead of one larger chambered pipe. If I go slow smoking it I get a 20 minute smoke a thirty for flakes.
Ah nice, but I don't think it is available in the UK
 

ofafeather

Lifer
Apr 26, 2020
2,769
9,044
50
Where NY, CT & MA meet
There are a lot of great suggestions but I would second the Falcon. You can experiment with different bowls on the cheap. They smoke well and are fun too. I know you mentioned briar but there are a lot of small meers out there that are inexpensive, too. I enjoy how meers smoke and watching them patinate. Lastly, certain shapes are small even when they’re big! Princes are very elegant and usually small volume. Also look for pots with wider bowls for shorter smokes with more oomph.
 

Grangerous

Lifer
Dec 8, 2020
3,251
13,104
East Coast USA
I have 26 Billiards. All I have selected with the following criteria:

Inner bowl width .75 - .80

bowl depth no deeper than 1 inch.

overall length less than 6 inches

My personal sweet spot

However, I love MM Cobs and their open draw and narrow chamber diameter and depth always provide a phenomenal smoke.

So now I wonder if I’d made a mistake in my briar criteria.

I’d always thought that narrow briars favored Virginia’s, which I seldom smoke. I owe it to myself to try some smaller chambers in Briar.
 

sasquatch

Lifer
Jul 16, 2012
1,683
2,862
My standard small billiard is cut at 3/4" by 1 1/4" in the chamber, and that's a good size for short bowls or flake, anything much smaller and I find I fight it, it's like, there's a really nice zone between say, 3/4" by 1 1/4" tall, up to about 2" tall by maybe 7/8", anything inside that range and of that basic geometry is going to smoke just fine, just a matter of capacity. When you start talking about pipes that are an inch deep and an inch wide, or 1/2" diameter bowl, these extremes work differently to smoke, I find.
 

OzPiper

Lifer
Nov 30, 2020
5,758
30,564
71
Sydney, Australia
I had 2 of the tiny Petersons and gave them both away as the small bowls weren't doing it for me. I prefer bowl sizes 3-4 generally, sizes 5-6 on occasions.

mso489 is on the money with his recommendation of a French pipe - either Ropp, Genod or Brulor. SmokingPipes have a huge selection of Ropps and there is a seller, Bruno Nuttens on EBay (Pipes Estate) who carries a range of unsmoked French pipes that should suit your specifications (bowl size 3 generally).
 
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lochinvar

Lifer
Oct 22, 2013
1,687
1,632
If you want good briar and smaller size, try older Sasienis. Sasieni and their sub-brands are phenomenal pipes, by and large are smaller than I like (I generally stay in the Ashton XXX, Group 5, etc range) but they smoke so well I'm always on the hunt.
 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
I've realised I like pipes with smaller bowls. But I also prefer briar over MM (which as far as I understand it have the smallest bowls). Any suggestions?
The stack from the Tsuge Tasting series is quite narrow, but also substantial in height, in my opinion the best "flake pipe" on the market.