doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What did your grandfathers and father use?

My father used three shotguns. Most of the ducks were shot with his Model 12. Upland game mostly fell to his Fox 20 or his Fox 12. Maternal grandfather used hardware store doulbes most of his life. Late in his life he came across a pre-war Sauer that he shot till his death. My other grandfather had a lever action Winchester 12 and a model 97 in 12. A couple of odd 10 bores were used by both grandfathers. One was, I am sure, a Belgain klunker but the other was what I suspect was a LC Smith. Broken stock forced its being traded off long ago.

I do not have a single relative who owned or shot a gun. Sometimes things can work backwards. My son bought a shotgun (at the time he lived on the left coast whereas I live on the right coast) and he suggested I do the same. Three months of waiting for my Firearm ID in NJ and I bought one. I knew absolutely nothing about guns and my son checked it out on the internet and said "Dad, go buy a Mossburg 500." So I did, found a place to shoot skeet, three months later got talked into buying a new 687 Sproting Clays II,a few months later a used Citori with all the tubes and two years later discover the world of SxS and sporting clays. Boy, did I get hooked!

The Mossburg is now a slug gun.

One of my Great-grandfathers shot an L.C. Smith 12 ga. Trap grade with 2 barrels. Still have it. Also still have a 20 ga. field. My fathers grandfather raised him and passed both guns to him plus some rifles now scattered among family. My father shot trap with a Model 12. He could hit a dime thrown up with a 22 pump also Winchester, I think my brother has it. My father also owned a 20 ga Citiori that he loved to duck hunt with, that my brother-in-law uses. Now that would be nice, killing ducks with something that didn't kick like a mule.

Winchester Model 12 in 16ga that started out as my great grandfather's gun. My father still has the gun and I look forward to passing it to my son despite it being rather unglamorous.

Can't say what my grandfather used as he died in the 1930'3 well into his 80's, Wish I did. But he, and my dad, were from the east Tennessee hills, Dad being born in 1904 when his father was 54 (not a typo) and I can imagine that they had quite a variety of interesting firearms. The only gun that Dad had when I was growing up was a Savage 220A, single shot, 12 gauge that he bought for $10.00 sometime in the early '60's. I went on to have many firsts with that hard kicking S.O.B. First squirl, first pheasant, first partrige, first white tail, etc. I am happy to say I still have that critter, I wonder how it will be on the trap range!

My Grandfather must have had a vision about his family's future in bird dogs, bird guns, pigeons, you name it. He was born in 1856 in Mauch Chunk, PA., four years after my Great Grandfather and his family came over. Well, actually, I don't know when they came over, let's say Granddad was born four years after members of our family earned their citizenship. Granddad had a "cafe" on Hazleton Heights with a pigeon ring in the rear. I'm sure you know what kind of "cafe" it was. He distributed wholesale beer until 1927, eight years into the "experiment". Granddad had some guns, according to my Dad, but lost them in a burglary, leaving him with his 1887 E Grade Lefever Pigeon Gun, serial #10,130 and a DWM 1916 Luger that was walked out of the New York Customs House and given to him by a friend. According to Dad, the Lefever was the only gun Granddad shot as long as he remembered. When I was about ten or eleven, my childless Uncle Norbert shipped me the Lefever with instructions to watch myself bumping into trees and fences because of the "soft" barrels, but no warning about ammunition. Granddad had shot it until his death in 1929, probably with any load available at the time. It had not been fired since. Uncle Norbert lived in Brooklyn, worked for REA, and never hunted after leaving Hazleton. He had sold his Fox years earlier. Granddad ran the pigeon ring until 1927 when he retired from the "cafe", bought his last hunting license in 1928, at least it's the last one I have. Dad's story is another story entirely, to be told at another time. Bill Murphy

My father used a .38 revolver, and later a Colt 1911 .45. After 8 years in the cavalry (Phillipines, Mexico) and 4 in the field artillery (WWI, France), he'd had enough firearms use for a lifetime.

One of my Grandfathers hunted and the other did not, nor did he own a gun other than his WWI service revolver. My bird hunting Grandfather used a humpback Browning 16 for as long as I remember.

I have both and treasure them as I treasure their owner's memories...Geo

Dad had a Rem 11 back as early as I can recall, then switched to a Rem 1100 later. We never lived near my Grampa (Ft Madison, IA) so I never got to hunt with him nor saw any of his guns. He worked for Sante Fe all his life and retired in the late 50's or early 60's, and likely hunted with a very utilitarian gun. Likely not a fancy double. Probably either a single shot or a utility grade double.

My father and his father used the same 12 ga. Rem. M-10. It came to me, and I gave it to my brother a few years ago. But I kept a prize that came with it ... also posted this a while back in a thread about items members have found under buttplates.

While my father was still living I found a Minnesota small game license under the buttplate, rolled up in the throughbolt hole. It's written in my grandfather's hand, dated October 3rd, 1918 -- 4 days before my father's birth. It's now in my hunting photo journal, next to my father's last hunting license of November 5, 1985 -- 2 weeks before he died.