doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What was your first sxs

In 1959, at age 8, I was given the use of a J.C. Higgins .410 S x S with the most gorgeous feathered cellulosic plastic walnut (Tenite) I had ever seen. That was my gun for the next 4 years, and I made good use of it. With it I took my first squirrels, doves, quail, rabbits, and did some deft work on the avian pests like owls and yellowhammers (flicker). I do not recall having ever fired a 2 1/2" shell in it, the entire four years. My Dad owned a large general merchandise country store, and sold ammunition. Remington "three inchers" was what he sold, and what I used.

The squirrels are yet rebuilding their numbers around here from my onslaught of market hunting them in the late 50s and early 60s.

SRH

1974, a brand new BSS 12 ga. with 26" ic/mod. barrels. Bought it in downtown Meridian, MS from Joe Felder at Leisure World.
JR

$325 for a svelt little 12 bore BC Myluck BLE with 30" F&M and double triggers. It still lives here, but sees daylight seldom.

DDA

A 20ga Nitro Special that I restocked, should have kept it to remind me of what not to do.

Bernardelli umberto 1. Still have my New England single shot I got as a child

A prewar 16 gauge Prussian guild gun made in Suhl. Gil

Mine was a Manton muzzleloader 13 bore I picked up at the NMLRA summer nationals in Friendship Indiana in 1985.

My first SxS was a 12 gauge Stevens 311, with chopped 24� bbls., restocked in the heaviest, most dense bastogne I have ever seen then or since. It was gifted to me by my friend and mentor Michael Nally of Wichita, Kansas. Mike has a serious love affair with Winchester 21�s, I guess he figured I had to start somewhere, so it might as well be at the very bottom! At the time, I was a very young E-4 in the AF with a line for E-5, a wife and newborn baby, extra money was hard to come by to say the least. I proudly used that gun for a few years as my go to skeet gun and to take all sorts of feathered game with. I eventually gifted it to a young family member who was getting interested in shotgunning.
With all that said, my first �fine� gun was a early 50�s vintage 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37. To me....that beautiful Ithaca was the equivalent of a Purdey. :-)

In 1973 I was a young Army Second Lieutenant stationed st Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg,PA. into a Gunshop nearby looking for 1903 Springfield�s. Letterkenny had been the distribution point for DCM and the surrounding area was full of DCM guns. On the rack was a 12GA Ithaca Flues in nice condition for $75. Even then that was a very low price. The kid on duty thought that was a low price too but he sold it to me. When I got it home I noticed that the dollar sign on the price tag had three vertical lines. The price was really $175! I used it that season for wild pheasant and loved it. I hunted so much with it so much that the solder separated at the muzzles. I had it fixed three times before I found a competent gunsmith to permanently fix it. I traded it off for a Browning Superposed because it had ejectors. It would be another 12 years before I went back to SXSs. For the most part now that is all I use except for an occasional dalliance with automatics.

A 12g Miroku 500 was the first I bought. I sold it, and shouldn't have. My Grandfather's Beretta 410E was the first I used. I still have it.