My first break action gun was a 16 gauge Bay State single, old as the hills with no bead on the barrel. Bought at an old country store from a wooden barrel which held their gun inventory for $6. It was 1962 and I was 13 (No ATF then). The store doesn't exist now (literally no piece of it) as it was destroyed by an explosion of a dynamite storage shed out back about three months later. (As in, remember, no ATF then). I converted me to break action guns.
Later, around 1966, after reading all the sporting rags I bought a Savage Fox Model B from my local dealer, a gentleman known as Boog Muck whose real name was Charles McMillan. Boog was blind and kept his inventory displayed on a bed in his front bedroom. (Remember the ATF thing?) He was as fair and honest as could be within the definition of a blind gun dealer and all of his regular customers made sure his other customers were too. The gun was a 20 gauge intended for quail but somehow the club like handling never seemed to live up to my expectations.
Forward to 1972. I am newly graduated from college, have a new job paying more than my whole family has ever made, and am engaging in a lot of firearms transactions. I have an Ithaca 51 Premier Trap which unfortunately had just had a few inches of it's barrel surgically removed by the wife of my FFL holding cousin using a corn stalk as a scalpel. I had relieved him of the corpse, shortened the barrel and installed a new bead. Total investment of $75. My Dad and I were driving through a really run down decertified small town in danger of disappearing which was the site of a lot of bootlegging activity. My Dad saw an older guy he knew ( the local armorer of the homegrown mafiosi) standing in front of an abandoned storefront hawking his wares. We of course had to stop. In his collection of pump guns and singles stood the gun that changed my life. It was a late 40's Ithaca NID which I later found was a field model but had come from the factory with an incredible high grade butt stock (happened a lot in that period of using up parts). It was also fitted with a set of the lightest range 28" barrels. It looked hardly used. The trap gun soon left my employ and I became the keeper of the best dove gun in existence. I soon discovered the reason for it's great condition. The point of aim was 18" high at 30 yds, likely due to the light barrels and a heavy handling style. I used a burlap bag as a pad and a small sapling fork as a vise and bumped it back into alignment, At 6 pounds even it was death on any dove I could see. People talked about the gun locally when they saw it work. I liked it so much after a few years that I refinished the wood, had the barrels reblued and the receiver charcoal case hardened.
After 53 years it still lives in my gun case with about 75 of its closest friends.
Last edited by AGS; 11/15/25 10:42 AM.
