doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How did you get into SxS's...

If a Lorry ran over my gun I'd whup her arse by God...

Joe- if you are a married man, is by chance, your wife's name "Lori"?

I am now 60. Took a 20 year break from shooting and hunting, mostly because of having young children. I started hunting when i was a teenager. Mostly grouse and woodcock,and pheasants. Started with pumps,moved to autos. First 2 barrel was a Browning Superlight citori. Sometime in my youth I got magazines like Gray's Sporting Journal,with their stories on New England grouse hunting and read books,particularly by George Bird Evans. I realized to be an upland hunter you had to hunt with the proper gun and that's a sxs. First one I bought was propably ,hmm,I really can't remember. Was there something like an American Arms Derby? Half the time it misfired.Nextand last at the time was was a Bernadelli. WhenI look at old pictures it was a rather plain gun, but I sure could hit pheasants with it. I didn't know anything about lop, and drops at the time. It was just an off the shelf gun. Besides having young children there were other reasons I stopped hunting. Sold the gun and concentrated my free time on fishing. I had always had labs,my father had labs ,my grandfather had labs. My last one that was a pheasant machine passed about the same time. My youngest daughter begged me to get another one but I was done at that time. There were moments that I missed the field and particularly the dog work ,the best part of hunting imo. My daughter said that as soon as she graduated from school the first thing she was doing was getting a puppy. Well she did. All it took was to take the pup for a few runs and it raised a lot of long gone emotions and memories. I had never thought I would hunt again but now I'm back. The only gun I'd get would be a sxs. nothing else was of interest. I started searching the internet and holy shit,was there a lot out there. The wonders of technology. It's been an eye opener and educational since I really didn't know a lot about old sxs's. Now I've got 2 16ga. Parkers,a 16ga. Pape and a 12ga. Francotte. And am searching for a light English 12ga for my next one. After 20 years I can't hit a damn thing but it doesn't matter. The joys of being out in the field with my daughter lab is more than enough.

If it is not about the guns, then it is about the dogs. Great story ksauers1

My dad hunted with a little Ibar 20 gauge. Big grouse hunter, he also hunted with an old Hopkins and Allen I used both guns growing up hunting grouse and everyone we hunted with all carried sxs. Latter the collection grew to AYA, Rizzini Browning�s I still hunt with all my sxs, but shot all shot guns. Just wish we had grouse like we did in the 80s

I was given a JC Higgins .410 S X S to care for at age 8. I terrorized the squirrels, rabbits, doves and an occasional quail with it. From it I moved into auto loaders, following the "dictates" of the older men with whom I hung out. About 35 years ago my nostalgia for the little .410 grew strong and I decided I wanted a Fox Sterly. I finally found a really nice one, shot doves the whole next season with it, and from then until now it has been a runaway train. Ninety percent of my hunting is with S X Ss, with the rest split between a Beretta 687 20 ga. SPII Sporting and a "new" little WesternField/Browning 20 ga. pump.

My interests in S X Ss are at the two ends of the spectrum. I am addicted to big, 32" barreled S X S 12 ga. magnum duck guns, and also to long barreled S X S .410s. Can't really explain that. It is what it is.

SRH

Good story Ksauers1!! I agree with all the points you made, especially the last one. Since I don't recall having seen your name before it seems a welcome to the board is in order. Stick around and contribute when you can. Ignore all the idiocy that goes on with some and enjoy the knowledge passed on by the rest. Welcome!!

You are fortunate Stan. My addiction to guns in general and doubles in particular knows no limits!! Oh woe is me. But, if that is all I have to worry about, I can handle it!!

I grew up on a farm in a farming community, surrounded by farms, orchards & vineyards. Those were different times. No firearms licence needed, no firearms registration, no age limits for shooters & no climate of fear of guns & phoning the police at hearing their report.

As a consequence of many pests who ate whatever the grower had I had a rifle almost grafted onto my arm at a young age. A model 1B Lithgow single shot .22 long rifle. I became deadly with that thing & was welcome on all the properties around because I got the difficult pests as well as the easy ones.

As a youngster I always scorned the use of scatter guns & Dad had a Beretta single shot 12g that I tried shooting but I tried shooting it like a rifle. This just proved to me that the gun was as useless as I had thought. So I stuck to my ever growing arsenal of rifles that could shoot further & ever further into the next zip code.

Later in life I was working maintenance on a big citrus & pecan orchard which had a pest problem with birds. Right up my alley.
After getting the control permits & satisfying all the now legalities I ripped it up them with the rifle but soon found that they would not sit still & cop it sweet. They flew around overhead & I soon worked out that a shotgun may have a use after all. I went & bought an old very cheap H&R single called the duck. Knowing how useless a shotgun was I didn't want to invest too much coin in this folly. It was only a look see if the things had become something more useful than I ever found them to be.

Well this old 36" barreled H&R showed me & taught me to shoot like a shotgun needs to be shot. Then I needed more fire power & I got another gun with 2 barrels seeing as how 2 is better than one. it just happened to be a SxS & cheap because shotguns were still on trial with me. This one proved its worth to me in a short time.

Now I am an addict.

O.M

The first "Double" I ever had was as a young child I had a break action double "Popgun". It didn't even shoot corks, just made a noise. I truly don't think that had any influence on my liking of SxS's though. First shotgun I shot was an H&R small frame 28 gauge single, Next was a Stevens 94 20 gauge single & then an old H&A 16 gauge single. I did not own any of these. My Dad was not a hunter but had bought me a single shot .22 bolt action at a fairly young age. I killed some squirrels with it but was not a good shot. Would not learn to shoot a rifle until I joined the National Guards my Senior year of high school at age 17. There I was introduced to the Peep Sight.

When I was 16 I began wanting my own shotgun & sort of wanted a pump. My Dad though a double would be safer for me & insisted we look for one. Ended up buying an old J Stevens Arms & Tool Co (Pre WWI) 12 gauge. Shortly after I graduated high school at age 18 I did buy a pump, an 870 Rem 20 gauge with 28" mod barrel. For me it turned out to be the worst gun buy of my life, I couldn't hit the side of a barn with it even from inside. Tried a Poly-Choke on it. I know that many deplore those things but will have to say the "ONLY" thing I ever liked about that 870 was the Poly. Ended up taking a beating on trade ion to a Parker Trojan 12 ga with 28" barrels.

In Hindsight I totally disagree with my Dad that a double is inherently safer for a beginner but am never-the-less grateful he started me in that direction. Have shot a variety of different makes over the years but finally settled on the Lefever as my double of choice, & am basically of the opinion if it can't be successfully be shot with a SxS it just doesn't have any need to be shot at all. This, of course, is considering shotgun game, have never owned a double rifle. Always wanted one though.

Saw a pretty nice & very reasonably priced 9.3x72R double rifle once & have always wished I had bought it.