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

Hi all, just one of these cold winter day threads to ease the boredom. So...how and when did you evolve into a DG fan?

Mine started about 35 years ago, prior to that my dad bought me a 12ga Springfield 67 pumpgun. I shot it for a couple years then I got a 1100 auto that I used for all my hunting, but always had a sneeking desire for a double. I remember reading an article by Claire Reese about 20ga SxS's. That article got the ball rolling for me. I had a Remington 878 12ga that I sold so I could fund the purchase of a SxS, the guy I sold it to asked why I was selling. I told him that I wanted a SxS, he told me that I'd be back shooting an auto within a year. Never did happen. My first SxS was a Springfield 511 in 20ga (what a piece that one was!!), then I moved on to a 311 and a BS-E, all 20's. That in turn lead to better and more quality guns as the years passed until I'm at where I am now.

To be honest the learning curve was hard in the early days, no Internet, etc and few articles about SxS's in the Gun publications. After getting a PC I found this board and boy did the info flood in. I'm still learning a lot from his board and others. For that I thank each and everyone of you.

I've also been able to pass on my love of SxS's to my two sons and one of my daughters, I hope they will pass on the tourch to their kids someday.

It's been a fun road and I hope to continue on it for a few more years.

So...how about you?

Best!

Greg

When my grandfather gave me my Cogswell and Harrison 12 bore Climax model, made by Scott, of course.
Rite of passage for a 14 year old boy of the landowner classes.
Mikey

In my childhood home hung a framed hunting scene, probably taken from a European calendar, depicting two fellows with doubles, knee-deep in a marsh and their mongrel dog. My father wasn't a hunter, but when I became one, the notion of a double as the quintessential gun stuck with me.

I recently unpacked that scene from a box, only to find the glass shattered and the paper torn. I was sad to see it go, but that cheap calendar print had accomplished much.

My uncle sent me my Grandfather's E Grade Lefever Pigeon gun when I was 11 or 12. When I was 12, I had a 20 gauge Model 24 Winchester. By the time I was 14, I was buying Parker's. I still have the Lefever and the first Parker, a VH 28. When I was 15, I had bought a 1912 W&C Scott and talked my Dad into buying his first side by side, a 12 gauge AYA. Nothing much has changed since.

I'm a lefty so I've never had a lot of use for pumps and autos. My 1st double(around 1960)gun was a 16ga Hunter Arms that I believe I paid $25 for.
A few years later I bought a 12ga Fox Sterlingworth** which I still have and never looked back.
I think most of you know there hasn't been much real change is SxS in the last hundred years. It's hard to improve on a design that was damn near perfect to begin with.
Jim
**I have other doubles but still enjoy shooting this one after 40+ years!

I kind of fell into a deal about 20 years ago where I bought a C grade Fox and a graded Parker 10 ga lifter for a little of nothing......all down hill from there

I knew I wanted a double in 1993 or 94. I didn�t get my first one until 1999. It was a Zabala Hermanos 12ga. My dear wife bought me that one.
My first quality double was an LC Smith Ideal 16ga, and I have been hooked on old American doubles ever since. They remind me of slower, simpler times, when good numbers of game birds abounded, before barbed wire fences abounded, when one could ask permission of his neighbor to hunt his fields and he said yes.
I sometimes feel I was born 100yrs too late.

At age 8 a neighboring plantation owner asked Dad if I could ride with him down to his house. We drove into his yard in his Chrysler Imperial and he told me to wait while he went inside. He came out with the most beautifully marbled Tenite stocked J C Higgins. 410 you can imagine. There was a pigeon sitting on the ridgecap of his barn and he loaded it and told me to shoot him to "see how it fits". I missed the pigeon, but allowed as how it "fit just right". He said "It's yours as long as you take care of it".

I was able to thank his oldest son a few years ago for his father's kindness to a snotty nosed kid. Both he and his son have gone the way of all flesh, now, but the kindness will never be forgotten. That was 54 years ago. The fascination with doubles has never waned.

Growing up in Upstate New York, most of us had either an Ithaca Model 37 (mine was and still is a 16 gauge), or a Remington 870. If you had a Browning Auto-5 you were considered "rich."

After I went in the Navy, I got stationed in Maine and brought my Ithaca up and kept it at my Chief's house. He introduced me to Parker Guns and Setters. Eventually, he sold me a really nice 16 gauge Trojan to get me started right, while he used the funds to help upgrade his own collection. I still have it, and along the way added a GH.

I like doubles, especially the Parker and L.C. Smith. But also own a couple of Browning O/U small gauge guns. Truth be told, I like all vintage guns, pumps, auto's, etc. His passion for setters rubbed off on me more as an overall love of gundogs. I currently own and hunt over an American Water Spaniel and young Irish Red Setter.

I was at the gun club shooting five-stand with a really nice Beretta over and under. I sat down next to an old codger shooting a SxS with Damascus barrels. I made the mistake of asking him if those type of barrels ever uncoil when the shot is fired. After forty five minutes of non-stop talking at me and after he had walked to his truck and got out a piece of paper that showed the process of making damascus barrels I wobbled off in a daze. After that blitz I started looking at Gunsamerica at the side by sides. Then he helped me select and buy a Parker Reproduction 28 gauge on the internet. It was all downhill from there. Now I take him bobwhite hunting on my lease with my dogs. We go down in my truck and burn my gas. We drink my bottled water. He does bring lunch, a bologna sandwich (single slice).

He should come with a warning label on his forehead, like cigarettes.