doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker DHE 12ga 26" barrels?

Larry,
The trend I see now is hardly any guns are coming in from Spain. The manufacturer that put the most on the ground, here, so to speak, has recently thrown in the towel.

I'm told others will be following, soon.

It is nice that the Muslim guns are offered in that configuration. But, I'd be willing to bet bunches of them sell with short tubes, and single triggers.

I suspect the "average" doublegun owner isn't really one of us, Larry. I see few in the field outside of my posse, and most of those I see have a Browning, a Beretta, or a Ruger with stacked barrels.

I haven't met a stranger with a double SXS while hunting in years. At my local RGS fun shoot last fall, two guys had doubles-me, and a guy with a Parker Vulcan NE.

With 26" tubes and a single trigger.

Best,
Ted

Ted, go to Cabela's and check out their Dickinson offerings. I didn't run through the entire list, but of the first ten:

1. All were smallbores. Not a 12ga among them
2. All had DT.
3. 7 had 28" barrels; the other 3, 30".

If the hot ticket item were a sxs with single trigger and 26" barrel, seems to me Cabela's would recognize that and would have ordered them that way--or at least SOME that way. Not like the Turks can't make short barrels and ST's.

We ARE the average side by side owners. This is where they come for advice and information. OU . . . although we discuss them on occasion, that's an entirely different market. Side by side folks are far more about classic design, but also show interest in "oddities" like the 16ga (not to mention guns with weird sliding breeches!) Where I do most of my skeet shooting, it's not all that unusual to field a squad with everyone shooting a sxs. And if they're not shooting a sxs, they have one (or more) at home that they didn't happen to bring.

Same situation when I lived in Wisconsin and shot at the Wausau club. Plenty of sxs in evidence, and not unusual to have an entire squad shooting sxs. In fact, the club even hosts a small sxs shoot. Of course they also host one leg of the Wisconsin Ironman--250 or so sporting clays shooters--and you'll hardly see a sxs at that event. Different groups with different interests.

Hunting with sxs . . . The Loyal Order of Dedicated Grouse Hunters (LODGH) requests annual reports from members. Birds moved, shots taken, birds killed, days and hours hunted. Also the make, type, gauge, and choke of guns. Around 300 reports/year turned in. What you'll find is that--compared to the gun Joe Average takes afield--sxs are significantly over-represented. As are the 16 and the 28ga. 12's, autos and especially pumps are way under-represented. That's pretty much where we fit.

The source of many of our sxs may be changing, Ted. But the trend is not. Gone are the days when Ithaca or Browning would import and sell thousands of sxs--all with ST, and many with 26" barrels. And all in either 12 or 20ga. Way more smallbores these days. Much higher % of DT's. And even new 16's--which neither Ithaca nor Browning nor Winchester brought in (except a few Parker Reproductions). We're a "back to basics/back to classics" bunch . . . although it does seem choke tubes in sxs are gaining in popularity.

My club is completely overrun with high school kids getting in their team league skeet, trap and sporting clays shooting. It is the best thing that has happened to shooting, in my part of the world, in my lifetime, and I see a lot of squads full of pretty high school girls, something that was unthinkable when I was that age.
I see a few autoloaders. But, I see way more low end pumps, the majority with black plastic furnature. I quit counting when I got to 100 one day last fall. I would guess the coaches suggest they start with something simple, cheap, and durable, and move up later, if they want to stick with the sport. I'm almost always the lone SXS guy there. Of course, the only sliding breech guns I ever seen there are mine, or, my friend Bills, when he makes it out.
Never seen a SXS shoot at Metro Gun Club. I'll suggest it, when I renew my membership next week. I've also never seen a kid on a school league, at my club, with a SXS double of any type. That kid might be out there, I just haven't met him/her.
I don't usually shop at Cabelas, Larry. I have three locally, but, I suspect that 10 units of Dickinson guns represents a big part of the inventory for SXS guns, for all the stores, for a year. Yes, the row of Franchi, or, whoevers, O/Us I saw at Gander (I didn't handle any of them) was mostly 20s, but, I think there were a dozen plus. Doing the math, it seems that sales are concentrated outside the SXS design at the retail level.
A sample of 300 grouse hunters across the US would seem like a really small sample, Larry. Hell, I'm not a member, I'd guess Lloyd and his FIL and his lovely wife aren't either. Comparing 300 reports to just 50% of the number of small game licenses sold, in just the state of MN, would render that number completely, statistically, irrelevant. I'll save you the trouble of looking, Larry-there were 302,974 small game licenses sold in MN in 2011, the last year that is completely compiled.
As to your comment about Ithaca, or whoever, selling thousands of guns they brought in, I think a simple truth is fewer shotguns, by far, are sold now than in the era of the Pepsi Generation, and they have to be offered in configurations that will allow for the most unit sales. Each sale today represents a lot more effort on the manufacturers and distributers part, and the advancement of manufacturing techniques in lower cost countries, like Turkey, has a lot to do with the variety that we do see. I suppose the people bringing in those guns have better sales targeting and demographic information to go on, something an importer bringing in Spanish guns circa 1972 could only have dreamed about. I doubt the sellers wanted to be stuck with a bunch of 16 gauge imports back then.
That said, I still wonder about all those O/Us in the rack I saw at Gander. Somebody is buying them. Not me, but, somebody.

Best,
Ted

Ted, you're essentially comparing apples and oranges when you're comparing the sxs market to the OU market. The sxs remains, to a very great extent, a hunting gun. When you consider the numbers of vintage sxs on the market, mostly--because of steel shot--an UPLAND hunting gun. Like I said, come to a sxs shoot and you'll see a lot of sxs. Guys who own multiple sxs. Sporting clays shoot . . . yeah, I used to see a few when I pulled or scored the Wisconsin Iron Man. But heavily dominated by OU's. Some autos, almost no pumps. Those kids that are just learning will move to something else. And that will likely be an OU or an auto--because those guns are more versatile than the vast majority of sxs, without question. And how many special purpose guns are you going to own when you're just starting a real job, just starting a family, etc? The good part about all those kids: Get them hooked on shooting, makes it much easier to get them hooked on bird hunting. If you live in an area (like you do, and like I do) where there are wild birds to hunt.

If you eliminate the OU's that are trap or skeet or sporting clays guns and not terribly well suited to upland hunting (usually due to weight), you still have a larger # of OU's on the market than sxs. Mainly because more people go to an OU first. Well, one of those was my first gun . . . but I made the change. But the gap begins to close. And however small the LODGH numbers may be, these guys are among the more dedicated grouse hunters . . . and their choices show an increasing trend in the direction of sxs, in 16ga numbers, and most particularly in 28ga numbers. And while you had no trouble finding plenty of new sxs from the mid-60's to the mid-80's, you would have had one heck of a time finding a new 16ga sxs. Eventually, the Spanish figured out there was a nice niche market. And the Turks have followed suit. And now even enough interest in the 16--which was basically kept alive by sxs shooters--that Browning has brought back the Sweet 16.

As for your read on Cabela's sxs inventory: I'd be the first to admit you won't find sxs numbers in any single Cabela's--or maybe 3 or 4 Gun Libraries combined--that I used to see just at Owatonna. However, that's partly due to the fact there are now a whole lot more Cabela's stores than there used to be. And while Dickinsons are certainly a popular item in Cabela's Gun Libraries, they're far from the only sxs you'll see. A quick check of the Gun Library inventory showed 24 Dickinsons, 17 CZ sxs, 89 Parkers, 39 Foxes (including several Model B's), 18 LC Smiths, and 17 AyA's. Just to list the more widely represented makes of both new and used guns.

You may have missed the trend, Ted, but a revival of interest in classic sxs--or new ones with classic features--got started when Michael McIntosh's career as an outdoor writer took off. His book "The Best Shotguns Ever Made in America", which heaped praise on 6 classic side by sides (Parker, Elsie, Fox, Ithaca, Lefever, Winchester 21) and one lone OU (Remington 32), appeared in 1981. Shortly thereafter, the Parker Reproduction appeared--selling in the neighborhood of 13,000 units (of a gun that cost maybe 3x the price of your typical new sxs or OU) in just a few years. Over 10,000 of those were 20's and 28's; only 2,000 12's. Already an indication of a sharp change in direction, because in the original classic sxs, 12's greatly outnumbered the smaller bores. And at the same time, prices of used sxs, especially the American classics and especially sxs, started heading up.

And first it was the Spanish that supported the lower end of the sxs market. Now the Turks have taken over for them. But the trends are the same: smaller bores, longer barrels, double triggers. Sure, I'll still recommend Ithaca SKB's and Browning BSS if someone is looking for a used sxs--because they're good guns with a proven track record, even if they do have ST's and, in many cases, 26" (or shorter) barrels. And those reliable ST guns are a good place to start, until you master DT's (which usually doesn't take long). And if you hand one of those kid target shooters a ST sxs, you might have lighted a fire. You never know.

Try spelling the guns from nearby Cornell Univ, in upstate NY properly-- it is Ithaca, NOT Ithica.. RWTF