And after about 1926, the Gifford Simmons designed ventilated rib. IMO, everything about a so-optioned LC Smith double trap or live bird 12 bore from that "Golden Era' was well designed for both form and function, except that bulky Schnabel (German word for beak) beavertail forearm. I don't, at present anyway, have any Smiths with a middle bead sight, and if I did, I would remove them-- for my vision and target- whether clay or wearing feathers, I only want to see the muzzle and front bead as a blur as I am tracking the target- but then, I don't shoot a pre-mounted gun as perhaps the trapshooters do- I use the "stock tucked under the armpit- muzzles up- as I learned from the Ken Davies Holland & Holland videos--but to each his own I guess- that's why so many options were available for the finest sidelock double gun ever made in America!!!
