doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Diggory digs American guns??? I don't know

The Stevens 311 was the first disposable shotgun. It was in fact the Bic of its day. You bought one never cleaned it or did any maintenance whatsoever and shot it till it quit then went out and bought another one. That's why finding a 311 in very good condition today is such a rarity.
Jim

Jim, I understand your humour about the disposable shotgun. Where I was raised , in Iowa on the farm, we did not have expensive anything. Everything we bought was "used" a lot. It is hard to find a higher grade gun there, but in New York, or California, or Michigan or Pennsylvania there were higher grade guns. I put a Stevens 375 on the For Sale section of this website, but people do not apparently know what a fine gun Stevens made. In 1885 there were British guns sold over here that were , maybe a tenth, the cost of an American one. Of course they were not the best the Brits had to offer.

Wallis.........you just proved my point.......WHEN SHE SHOT ANYTHING OTHER THAN HER 'EVERYDAY' GUNS, SHE HAD AN OFF DAY.....especially NEW and Different/strange guns, but when she shot her show guns, which were plain Janes....she seldom missed.........in your own book quote here, she is discussing the engraving, inlays and such as being a nuisance........just like most of us, let the birds fly with a strange gun and it takes one a while to get used to it.....so there will be misses at first....as famous as she was, they publicized everything....just like today..............

Thanks for confirming this fact....

Regards,

Well can we disagree without being too disageable - for my money a good French or German SxS is hard to beat, and durable too.

I only own one fair to middlin quality American SxS - a Remington 1882 - it ain't put together half bad.

I am not aware of which plain shotguns exactly Annie Oakley used in the shows or competition. Once again, she owned and used- many guns.I would be very interested to know what sources you are relying on so that I may become better educated on Annie Oakley as she is a hero of mine (and my daughters).

I do, however, have another quote from her in a article she wrote in 1893 (page 134-- same book as before):

"For field shooting I use a light hammerless 20 gauge double gun of the best make. Nobody should trust their lives behind a cheap gun--one costing less than one hundred dollars. I use the nitro powders, and have never considered them dangerous. They are all right if the shells are correctly loaded."

I assume she is referring to one of the pair of Lancaster 20 gauges she had made in England.

I personally have no real preference between British or American guns, plain or fancy (although I have always had a soft spot for Parkers). I just love a well made gun regardless of which side of the pond it came from.


The information I have on Annie Oakley is mainly from the R.L. Wilson book and her 1927 biography by Courtney Riley Cooper. I also have been a member of the Cody Firearms Museum for many years and receive their publications which sometimes have articles on Annie Oakley. Can you point me in another direction that would have more correct information?

Daryl:
This was part of growing up poor or frugal whichever you prefer in the Mid West. My friends were all farm boys and we hunted with whatever was available and had a ball doing it.
I scraped together $140,saving for months, as I remember it to buy a Sterlingworth in 1966 and felt like I had the finest shotgun available. No one looked down their noses at Stevens 311s at that time and they were considered a very desireable gun. The thought of owning an imported British gun of any grade was totally alien to all of us. How times have changed.
Jim

And Teddy's favourite was his "big stick"..a Holland double

that's "billionaire boys club" toy. if you're willin' to settle for poor neighbors one can buy a small house and few acres of land for what a new one costs.

Italian makes a good point.

For many of us during our teenage years a Stevens 311, Savage Fox, or dad's Ithica box lock were great guns! As we grew older and could afford more some of us began to appreciate better quality American guns (nothing against an Ithica). For me, my taste in SxS's broadens a little every year. While I presently do not own a British game gun I have come to appreciate them. When the right one comes along it will be mine. The Brit will then reside in my safe bteween my Parkers and LC Smiths.

A Stevens 311 was my dream gun as an Iowa kid. (By then, it was just about the only American double still being made!) But I did want to upgrade from the Stevens .410 single I'd inherited from my older brother, so I saved the money I made pumping gas. I was all set to buy a new 311 when my dad found me a better deal: Savage 420 OU 20ga. Cost me $65 with a pretty nice soft case. That was my first double. Bought a twin to that one not long ago out of pure nostalgia. I discovered that pure nostalgia only goes so far, and the darned thing still handles like a fencepost.

There might've been nicer sxs around on the used racks when I was a kid, but I'm like Daryl--I sure don't remember them, and there were at least 3 pretty well-stocked gunshops where I grew up. The guns I remember as high dollar doubles from those days were the Browning Superposeds.