I enjoy dabbling with and digging up old doubles. I got into this in my early 20s. I read the DGJ cover to cover ( all years) and respect the better handful of knowledgeable posters here. I respect knowledge and experience and appreciate the details. I got a pretty rare gun in today - and have to say I took a chance and lost on this one. No complaints only disappointment. Nothing lost I wasn’t willing to risk- but I am just honestly shocked such a glorious gun could be so abused.

Looking back over the years, so many of these old (doubles) guns make no sense to me. I grew up hunting in PA with deer camps and small game season. Dad, Granddad, Uncles and Great Uncles all hunted and shot. There wasn’t a graded gun or engraved gun anywhere in the bunch, but there wasn’t an abused or neglected gun anywhere in the bunch either. Why did so many mid or high end graded doubles get beat, broke, molested, modified and other wise neglected to ruin?

Humor me here:
Ignore that Damascus was unsafe and made them worthless, there are plenty of “abused” fluid steel guns
Ignore the stolen gun cut to a sawed off shotgun.
That seems black and white enough.
Ignore stored in a rusting environment or case for 50 year
I understand that.

Why are so many graded guns just beat?
Worn as if they were dragged behind a truck
Chitty modifications ?
Chitty repairs?
Massive and multiple dents
Who was brought up not to care for their equipment?
( That still doesn’t cover it- who just flat hammers something to death?)

Why are so many graded guns just beat?
Worn as if they were dragged behind a truck
Chitty modifications ?
Chitty repairs?
Massive and multiple dents
Who was brought up not to care for their equipment?
( That still doesn’t cover it- who just flat hammers something to death?)[/quote]

Maybe most of the low end guns that also got beat were tossed, leaving only the graded guns as survivors. Survivor bias is a real thing.

A buddy of mine in college had his wife's grandmother offer them her small acreage on a creek not far from Fischer's Mill, Oregon, it they came there to live. When I went with them down there to look at the place, Ed and I were out snooping around the outbuildings and leaning in the corner of the chicken coop was the first D.M. Lefever double I ever saw in person - completely red with rust and frozen solid!! Just an old tool to lots of people.

I once heard of a wealthy guy using his checkered butt Purdey to push down the barbed wire to go over the fence.

I've often wondered who the last person was that fired some of these old loose, broken guns we see.

I have a Lindner made Charles Daly 275 that has been carried so much it has the birds on the receiver worn down so you can't see them. The gun was off face, safety loose, a few chips in the forend and hairline crack in the stock from the receiver. I don't call the gun abused, just really used. I figure the guy loved that gun. I had it rejoined, ejectors worked on and safety functioning. I killed some birds with it this past fall. I think it's an interesting gun with lots of history in the fields.

Those beat up guns are my favourites. I don’t leave them beat up. But it intrigues me, as it seems to the OP, what these guns have been through. What happened to them? What were their owners thinking?

My favorite are three guns I bought from a couple in Idaho. They were crossing 80 and had decided to end their hunting career and concentrate on golf and the grandkids. They were originally from back east…..upstate NY in what I like to call gun country. And while they had used them for 45 years in Idaho, the guns had been in the family for decades before that. Two of the three guns needed immediate work….the third was just well used but well taken care of. There’s more but I won’t bore anyone. It’s the history (good and bad) that makes them interesting.

I think it’s more interesting to research and speculate about a gun that wears it’s history than one that has been kept pristine in the cabinet for 90 to 120 years. Those guns bore me.

Some people who bought a graded double back in the day were simply clods, coarse people who never considered the gun’s worth over and above it being a firearm. The ornamentation of nice engraving, wood, checkering and craftsmanship went straight over their heads and was nothing more than a passing fancy they could show off when new. They used them similarly to an axe or a shovel until they used them up. Of course there’s the “more money than sense “ factor too. Jmo…
JR

The rise of the repeaters often saw the doubles handed off to kids to use. My dad was given a double of some sort around 1943, after the former owner stepped up to an autoloader, more than likely an Remington model 11. He refinished the stock for the double in his wood shop class. He couldn’t wait to get rid of it. Pretty sure it ended up as trade bait for a .410 single shot. He usually hitch hiked out to what is now Fridley and Coon Rapids from the frog town area of St. Paul to hunt small game, and actually preferred a .22 rifle to a shotgun (it was easier to come up with .22 ammunition during the war).
His first repeater was an Ithaca 37. He never really looked back.

Best,
Ted

Yesterday afternoon I was visiting friends on a ranch in Kenya when the kids came home for the weekend from school in town. The eight-year-old demanded that his dad and grandfather take him out shooting before sunset, and appeared a few minutes later carrying a slightly beat up double with a shortened stock. I asked to have a look and found myself holding a Churchill XXV which had belonged to the boy's great grandfather, bought from another farmer here in colonial times. Everything works, and with some attention to the wood the gun would clean up nicely.

The Brits in general seem to have done a better job of maintaining their guns. They practiced preventive maintenance. Once the season was over, it was back to the maker for anything the gun needed: reblacking, recutting checkering, pretty much anything and everything. As long as it didn't take the gun out of proof.

A lot of Americans, on the other hand, viewed guns more as tools and didn't worry much about them until they broke. I've never owned an American classic of high enough grade to know whether that also applied to really expensive guns . . . although I now own an Ithaca Flues 4E 20ga that looks to have been pretty well cared for, but with an issue or two that will need attention before the gun ever sees the field.

I found a Remington 1894 EE 16 gauge 2 barrel set. As expensive when new and rare as nearly any American made gun. That gun has been treated like a fence post. Still worked but zero maintenance in its 100 plus years of existence.

"Easy come easy go" It's more than just an expression. When people inherit things rather than purchase them they were unappreciated. Then throw in that pumpguns became the thing as u/o are now (look at Britan) even less appreciated.

I'm one you can blame, I was brought up in a household that a shotgun was to.put food on the table. The only person I knew that shot a sxs was an uncle and he had no problems potting pheasants out the car window. I loved sxs's and treated them like I saw on Gunsmoke and Hop Along Casity, throw a couple of magnums in and flip the barrels up slamming it shut. I had no mentor, there was no Internet and we couldn't afford hunting magazines. It wasn't till I got in highschool, had a part time job and could afford to shoot trap that I learned about shotguns. In a lot of the rural parts of this country shot guns were tools, road between the fender and seat of the tractor(there were no cabs on tractors). If they broke stuff was fixed enough to go bang, no one cared how it looked.

I think it goes beyond thinking a shotgun is just tool. I shoot with a group of well educated people on the skeet range once a week. Guns well over the $5000 mark. I am only one who regularly cleans their gun. Most might get cleaned at the end of the season or once a year. I also shoot waterfowl with friends who use $2000 plus autos. They never clean their gun until the gas ports or other mechanism clogs up. I don't purport to provide an excuse for them as I don't understand why they don't clean them. I would expect for most it is education why one should clean and laziness.

I also shoot Cowboy Fast Draw and there is a line up at the cleaning table after each round. But it is well understood that after 10 rounds of shooting plastic bullets the fps can drop off by over 100fps.

If you actually think about it, the old excuse for abuse, heavy rust, etc. because guns were used as tools is kind of dumb.

There are all kinds of tools. Some are designed to be roughly used and abused, such as cold chisels and shovels. They are relatively cheap and expendable to a degree. You sharpen them and use them until they are worn out. Even that type of expendable tool can be abused and prematurely ruined if not used and cared for properly. Only a complete idiot would treat a good micrometer or vernier caliper as roughly and indifferently as a cold chisel or a shovel, but some guys do.... because they are idiots.

Even cheap guns are built with a degree of precision, and they require proper care and maintenance. A friend recently showed me a set of expensive self-feed wood boring bits. Every one was severely beat up and they were totally ruined. I asked him what the hell happened to them. He said he had loaned them to another friend, and they were returned in that condition after he tried drilling through a concrete block wall, destroying one after another while running electrical conduit in his business. Then he told me about other tools that this guy has ruined. He had no brains, and no shame either, to return them in that condition.

I have a cheap Savage model 94 20 gauge that I keep in my garage. I paid around $25.00 for it and had to make a new firing pin. It sits in my unheated garage, ready for use, with a piece of tape over the muzzle to keep mud dauber wasps from building a nest in the barrel. It is a tool, nothing more. But I still wipe it down from time to time with an oily cloth, and check the bore. It is in the same condition as it was when I first fixed it 25 years ago. Some people abuse guns for the same reasons they abuse tools, cars, trucks, and everything else. They just don't give a crap.

One of the main reasons so many fine guns are found after being abused is because the ones that haven't been abused are kept and cherished, so are not seen. By the same token the abused ones may have been passed around to several people until someone finally squares it away.
Mike

Mike, I like that answer ( with a little a-ha makes sense moment.) I also know there is no one answer and that value/ money has different meanings and different thresholds for all people.
I realize there are many example and situations, but I am pondering 🤔 or ranting about the clear damage- not heavy use, not an accidental broken wrist but just plain busted and beat items. “Mid grade” was mentioned but I don’t treat a field grade or a Sears gun the way some of these have been. I realize- cars get wrecked, clothes get torn etc etc.
But I guess that’s just it - once it starts - once someone else has - who cares? “It wasn’t ‘mine’ “

It's beyond understanding. One of my interests is Remington 30-S rifles, considering the small number of them built, the number of disasters out there is amazing. Or maybe just too many disasters drifted into my orbit. Some were terribly butchered, others, I think the only original part left was the receiver. It's like they were bought for parts, cannibalized except for the receiver and sold off, and then those parts were replaced with old surplus, a cheap stock installed, and then that was sold off. I think unless you were around when some monkey got his paws on something, and watched him work his magic, it will remain a mystery.

I get mine out once or twice a week- wipe them off and clean them up even when I haven't shot them for months or even years. I worry more about over oiling them than anything else. Im always handling mine and shouldering them. Especially my 21s. They sure make me feel good. Brings back good memories, too.

My farming family members were never nostalgic about guns, fancy guns or new equipment. So things got used for what they were built to be used. I had a grandfather who took his mid grade Parker duck hunting for 40 plus years. It got used, but not abused. He had a Montgomery Wards double, out in the barn for varmints and unwanted guest. That gun ended up as a rusty mess, even if it had very few shells shot in it. I rescued it, when I figured out it was a private labeled Baker with barrels thicker than pump pipe. It cleaned up well and has been used a lot on Sporting Clay's. That gun was choked .045 and .050 with barrels that even after striking to remove fifty years of rust were greater than .040 in the thinnest area. That gun was built to be used, abused and neglected.

My first gun was a Winchester Model 12, in 28 gauge, Solid rib, Skeet gun. A rare(ish) gun and trust me it got used as a kid. Not abused but used. I shot 1,000 loads year hunting with it. I know because I bought two cases of shells every year and back then small bore cases were 500 not the modern flats op 250 and every shell got shot by years end. Had that gun been a safe queen it would be worth two times what is today, as it is being a desirable, collectable gun. I got a hundred grand of enjoyment out of that gun and still have it. I did put new feather crotch stock on it but refuse to refinish the metal. It earned those scars and deserves to show them off.

I shoot mostly Winchester Model 42's these days. My two most often used guns are a High Grade and a real Pigeon Grade. A lot of Pigeon Grades I see are not real, only upgrades of guns, upgraded later. My guns get thousands of shells a year shot through them every year and the normal wear and finish wear is starting to show up despite my best efforts. But I love shooting them and enjoy how nice they look. Perhaps in a better life they both could have been a safe queen and be as pristine in 50 years as the day they were made. But in this life, they are guns built to be shot and enjoyed. I freely let anyone try them with shells I will give them. Nice guns were built to be enjoyed and I intend to enjoy them as long as I can. My kids can lament the loss value if they want but I gave all five of them a college education so they can work and buy their own toys. Mine are going to get used.

Like the example above, my father shot pheasants out the window of our 1937 Dodge. Dad did manual labor in a factory, so didn't need the exercise. And had started hunting during the Depression, when pheasants, rabbits, and squirrels were meat on the table. We had 2 guns in my family when I grew up. Dad's was an Eastern Arms .410 single shot. Forend taped to the barrel. My older brother had the same gun except from Stevens and in much better shape. I inherited that one. We did take care of our guns as far as cleaning them after use went. And when I had my first job (pumping gas and fixing tires), I saved my money and bought a 20ga Savage 420 OU. Made a Marlin 90 handle like a Purdey in comparison. Eventually bought one of the then new Ithaca SKB sxs . . . and since then my life has gone to hell. Expensive or not, I do take care of them.

My dad was a foster child for 17 years. Everybody in the family treated him as family, but, he wasn’t adopted because he represented a check during the height of the depression.

He had a farmer uncle, and worked in the dairy barn in the summer. As was the case in most barns, there was a gun for “just in case”. That gun was a first year model 12 20 gauge, that rested between two studs just off the milking parlor, although in this barn, it wouldn’t have been called a parlor.

Know what I’m saying?

That gun lives here, now. But, it was a disgraceful mess when it showed up, my hands got rusty touching it. We were offered the gun when my dad was still alive, and he told them to keep it. That bad.

I had it blued, and found new wood for it. Full choke opened to modified, too. It will never be a collectible, but, it functions well, and some days I get to use a first year model 12 to shoot.

I would have thought the uncle would appreciate it and care for it, but, his farm had at least one piece of machinery left right where it quit running, decades prior. I don’t understand the thought process, but, so what?

He was different than us.

Best,
Ted

Ted, my father had a cousin who was famous within the family for leaving equipment sit right where it died. Work around it, plow around it, plant around it. I remember a old Farmall, F12 I think, which died right next to the woods and sat there for years. Trees grew up around it. Another family member wanted it to help with a restoration he was doing and pulled it home for a parts tractor. Just for the fun of it he tried to turn it over and after years of sitting it still turned over. He decided to restore that one as well. In the end it was easier restoration than his grandfather F12. We joked the only problem was it was old and ran out of gas but most likely it had an ignition problem.

What has been said is all true. Another option occurred to me a few years ago, a hunting buddy wanted to see the gun I shot my big game with. I showed him my gun and he demanded to see the "real" gun I hunt with,
I told him he was holding it. He was shocked; "It looks like new, this can't be it", he replied in dismay. "I've shot shot 17 head of game with that one, been my gun for 20 years, why? What does your gun look like?", I asked.
Later he showed me his big game rifle, it looked like it got run over by a tank tread. It occurred to me that some guys are just hard on guns.