doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com How And When Did You Become A Doublegun Fan?

Where and when I was growing up - the USSR, 1980s - a double gun was the order of the day. The first time I saw a pump gun whas in a French action movie with Belmondau, and I thought it was some kind of a rifle. There was only one new model of semiauto avyailable, not counting some old ones brough in around WW2 and earlier, it shot beautiful patterns, but was heavy, not overly reliable, and picky about the ammo. It was also four times more expensive than the cheapest double gun on the market, and in shortage - but then, in the 80s everything was in shortage, including good ammo, which was another reason to own a double gun. Speaking of ammo, about the only factory shell avaliable was made to the latest technology of Queen Victoria's reign: fiber wads, paper hull, roll crimp. Among the hunters I knew, only one shot a semi - and he was real crazy about hunting. Actually, a hunter who used a semi was spoken and though of as slightly mentally deranged. So shooting a double gun is a sort of an imprint for me, I can't picture hunting with anything else. I did try shooting a borrowed semi once later, when the Evil Empire bit the dust, but didn't like it a bit.

My great uncle, who lived upstate from us in Warwick NY, gave me an H&R Side x Side when I was in my early teens. It had Damascus barrels and I was told it was unsafe to shoot but we (my brothers and me) went ahead and shot all types of ammunition duck hunting on Long Island, back when there were more farms than housing developments. I bought an LC, a featherweight 16 soon after I graduated High School for what was then a costly 100.00, and used it until I was drafted into the army hunting quail and pheasant. Always wanted a 20 gauge LC and decades later picked a neat 26 inch featherweight for three times what that 16 cost way back when. Fell in love with LCs and now have several pre-13s, along with a Parker GH, a B grade Baker, an F grade Lefever 10, and a Lancaster mutton chop. No hunting anymore here on LI but I use all for sporting clays, five stand, and trap. I tend to keep my love affair with SxSs quiet so as to maintain domestic tranquility. Do we ever stop lusting more?

I started out when I was either 13 or 14 with my Dad's 1889 Remington 10ga. on sharptails and pheasants. I lugged that heavy ten pound beast upland hunting for years until I couldn't buy 2 7/8 shells at the local hardware anymore. At the end of my first day of hunting with it my arms felt like they were going to fall out of the sockets but my heart felt like I took that first step into manhood. After Dad passed away I got the Remington. She sits proudly in my cabinet.

Started with a Win. 370 12 when I was 12. The gun to aspire to was a Mod 12. But there was a 20 ga Western Long Range 20 in the gun cupboard. Then I started reading Larry Brown's articles. Found a 12ga Zebala at the local pawn shop. Met Mr. Brown and started shooting skeet with him. The rest they say is history. That first gun needed some adjustment to shoot well and I was too frugal to pay to have everything done so I did it myself. liked doing it and some folks liked how my stuff came out so I started taking Dennis Potters class. Met Steve Bertram, Mark Beasland, Doug Mann, Glenn Fewless, and I think Joe Wood showed up a time or two. Now I'm hooked! Mark Robson

I bought my first double in the early 70'sn L C Smith,my father had hunted with one and when I saw this one for $75. I grabbed it,old beat up but shootable.I started to look fora better condition one but most were out of my price range back then Late 70's I found a Marlin 60's gun like new and in my price range.The I found a 1928 field gun,like new.I wrote to Marlin for a letter(which was free back then),and over the next few years developed a friendship with William Brophy which lasted until he died.He could tell me about anything I needed to know about them.It just snowballed since then.I have owned a many of old Smiths but income level has kept me in the lower grades.I do have a rare 16 Trap grade,and some real nice fields,but stupidly passed a few diamonds and regrett them both,an 8 gauge for $150. back in the 70's,and a 20 ga. Crown grade like new for $1200.At the time I could just not round up $1200.Dam what a shame

I didn't come from a hunting family, but when I started doing wildlife research in Africa I had to teach myself how to dart animals. Part of the learning process was searching for downed animals in deep bush, where I would regularly encounter lions, leopards, and buffaloes, with just a dart gun in my hands. After the Mau Mau terror in the 1950's it became very difficult to get a gun permit in Kenya, and a permit for a shotgun was easier than for a rifle. A game warden friend gave me some slugs he had confiscated (they are illegal here) and I bought a Brno ZP49 double which I eventually brought home to the US. I was introduced to duck hunting, and in trying to figure out why I could never hit them, I discovered this board. I still can�t hit ducks, but I need to buy a new safe, as my old one no longer holds all the doubles you guys have made me buy over the years. Except for a CZ Hammer Classic for steel, recent acquisitions have all been Damascus hammerguns.

One of life�s many regrets: I bought that first shotgun in 1978, right after hunting was shut down in Kenya. Double rifles were out of vogue anyway, as ammo was no longer available in most Nitro Express calibers and many PH�s had switched to .458 bolt guns. With the end of hunting, and had I known what I do now, I could have bought fine British double rifles by the crate. I now carry a Searcy .470 for fieldwork, more suitable than the Brno.

my first one was a 16 gauge stevens 311. my dad bought it used for me for my birthday, in...ah, 19 an 54...

My freshman year of college was short on funds and grub.

I worked at a grain elevator after classes and the boss saw me buying a sack of rolled oats from the bookkeeper.

He just shook his head when I told him they were for oatmeal when he asked what I was going to use them for. The next day he stopped me as I was going home and handed me a Winchester model 24 and a box of shells. Told me I would find plenty of squirrels, rabbits, ducks and pheasants on the river bottom. I still grin a bit when I remember him telling me that no one would ever hold it against a hungry man if he arkansawed anyone of them.

I stayed around when school let out to work for him most of that summer and paid him 25 bucks for it. I used that gun for years.

The next man I went to work for taught me my trade, but old Dewey with his generosity, taught me to love SxSs.

My Mother's Cousin, a Gun Crank tinker of the first order traded me a 1882 Remington 10 SxS and a .357 Ruger Blackhawk revolver for a Browning Citori. That started me on the road to perdition. My next SxS was a Winchester Model 24.

Since that time I have trended to French & German SxSs.

This is one of those threads that emerge every once in awhile here - every post a beautiful snapshot of a time, a place, a family, a yearning (or two). Pure magic.

I apologize for having to break the effect. My father wasn't a sportsman, but my best friend's father was. Hunting deep woods squirrels with him and his "Italian" .410. Summers the two of us shooting anything that moved or didn't with pellet guns. Riding our bikes to the dump with our .22's over the handlebars. You could do that in a small western Mass town in the mid 60's. Long absence from guns, they came back in my late 20's in the form of pistols and revolvers. I was a rabid handgunner until my mid-30's. I wanted to hunt againk but this time for real, and with a real shotgun - a double. You all know the rest. Here I am at the age of 59 1/2, a deep jones for double rifles with 5 of them in the safe. Four of them are blackpowder cartridge and one is a double percussion Lang from 1835.

I skipped my falling in love with blackpowder, hunting with double percussion shotguns; Purdey 16, Alex Henry 12, W.Chance 14,Westley Richards 12 (from Tony Treadwell) and a beautiful Patrick Mullin 10 bore I've finally shot but not hunted with yet.

I made a recent vow to my lovely and understanding wife (as well as to my lesser self)to not buy anymore guns........