doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Should Have Known Better:

As with many gunowners/hunters/collectors etc. that enjoy their "toys" I have had a number of guns go through my hands. Now in my "later" years thinking back I realize that of all the guns I owned (some of my own creation) and sold, ONE stands out as the gun I should never have parted with. This particular rifle was a custom on a Husquavarna ( spelling ? ) Mauser action in .300 Weatherby Cal. in the shop of Elwood Epps, of Clinton Ont. Great gun that should have stayed in my cabinet - I didn't need to part with it, but did. Elwood was a great believer in the .300 Wea. as the ultimate moose rifle and the .303 British for everything else. Reading his catalogue reminded me of Herters. I would like to hear and I'm certain other members would too, of the "ONE that got away" from the members willing to share "reminisce" a story. --- John Can.

Ah, only one...? sigh. Many years ago there was a glorious like-new Holland & Holland bolt rifle built on an 1892 Steyr action and chambered in .375 2-1/2". By no means the most expensive or modern of rifles (but glorious nonetheless) and the one that always comes to mind when I think of the ones that got away.

John,
a couple years ago, a friend offered a near perfect SIACE Superlight 28g to me for peanuts. I took it home and even shot a round a skeet with it. 'Couldn't hit well with it due to the comb being a bit high. I passed on it and a member/dealer here bought it and sold it. I should have bought it and bent the stock.

It's too nice a day here in NY to go into this. Maybe Tuesday when the weather is upposed to turn.

In the shop of FRED WELLS, was a .375 H&H built by Holland and Holland on a Brevex action. Moon reflecting folding front sight,
Three leaf folding and regulated leaf rear sight. The receiver ring had the most fantastic full mane lion engraved. The floor plate a Daga bull cape buffalo, standing broad side. All done in fine rust blue.

This was more than thirty years ago and I still feel the rifle in my hands.

I got a Winchester 1885 Hi-wall for $65 dollars from a garage sale on the Lac du Flambeau reservation in Wisconsin in 1974. It was complete and in very good mechanical condition except for a trashed bore and the usual sliver of wood off the side of the forearm, and faded case coloring on the reciever. It was a .32-20 WCF (NOT a .32-40) with a 30" #3 barrel. At that time, I didn't know about relining the bore of a single shot rifle and so I let it go in a trade for an S&W Kit Gun that I also wanted. I've often thought how much fun that old cannon would have been with a new relined bore. Talk about a recoiless rifle.... Anyone seen a decent Hi-wall for under a thou recently?

Steve, I'm also a fan of the 2 1/2" "Flanged" ctg. I have an SMLE that I had converted by a rebore to that caliber and sporterized with a Fajen stock and a 5 shot magazine. Great woods rifle.

Oh yeah, and there was that 30" 20g VHE straight stocked Parker that Jim at Ivory Beads offered to me at 2600 a few years ago...what was I thinkin?

Oh yeah...I remember those...the thought of selling them is seared into my brain as if by a cattle branding iron...

The one and only Newton Leverbolt...From Bill Brophy...to Bruce Jennings...it went by for $1100, I didn't make $1...in fact I lost money in long distance telephone charges...when Bruce died, I heard it was for sale for $100,000...I don't know if that's what Mrs. J ultimately got for it, but I think this level of brain damage will be hard beat by any future posters...Elwood was green with envy, as he was a BIG Newton (Flues) collector like the rest of us...sorry they are all gone, and I miss them all...not a shark in the lot
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a caplock Lefever over under...I sold it at the Alexander gunshow to one of Jerry Swinneys friends for $550 or $600
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only the highest grade (known) Sedgley turnbolt. It was a Mauser actioned 7x57, lavishly engraved by Kornbrath, with exibition wood...sold it to another NYS Arms Collector member for $1500
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A fully engraved, boquet & scroll, circassian stocked, Darne, marked "L. Fraunstaufer, Mannheim" for $550...Tony Galazan stopped me at the Cleveland OGCA gunshow and asked if he could see the gun...he didn't know that I knew who he was...I would have sold it to him on the spot if it wasn't for what he said to me...as I handed him the gun, he said/asked "is it a foriegn gun?"...I think the only reason I didn't address his shark behavior, is because I was foolishly interested in seeing if his character would sink any lower...I refused to talk "turkey" and moved on with my gun...

John, you don't happen to live west of Toronto do you? If so, I've got something to tell you...there are some great guns sleeping around that area...it's too difficult for me to buy them and bring them across the Peace Bridge unless they are pre- 1898...

Yes Robert I do live west of Toronto in the Historic Town of Petrolia (near Sarnia). I had the pleasure of talking with Elwood on several occasions - interesting man. I run across a few guns I would like to own if the lack $ weren't in the way. I have a contact that buys and sells a lot of great guns. He specializes in Winchester Hi-Walls and has about "40" as we speak. If anyone has a particular "firearm" they are be looking for feel free to Email me at john.snopko@sympatico.ca and I will keep an Eye out for you. --- John Can.

I let go a 7 X 57 set-trigger pre-war Oberndorf Mauser sporter that a Canadian regimental sergeant-major "liberated" from a German baron's assets on the Dutch-German border and traded to the regimental chaplain who brought it home to Nova Scotia. It broke my heart when a really good gunsmith drilling for a scope mount had a really bad day. A perfect rifle of craftsmanship, utility, precision of the highest order was no longer a perfect rifle for me. I let it go and wouldn't want it back. There's a hole in it that shouldn't be there.

The one I let get away is rather mundane, compared to those posted earlier. Mine was a garden variety Remington 513-T .22LR bolt action target rifle that I learned to shoot 4-position small bore on and shot through high school and college, bringing home my fair share of hardware. I short-sightedly traded it on a Ruger single action .22 with two cylinders, which subsequently got traded on something else, long forgotten. Wish I'd kept that rifle, now. -- Ed

This is far too depressing to think about, let alone read about!

An early "transition" 28 gauge Winchester Pigeon Grade Model 101 Skeet gun. It was a Pigeon Grade in finish, engraving, grade of wood and checkering pattern, but it had standard shape to the stock and forearm, and it had a standard vent rib. I have never seen another Pigeon Grade set up this way.
What was I thinking when I let it get away?!

Whew...I thinking a little closer to Hamilton or St Cathrines...Elwood's shop is a long way off for you...isn't it called Grampa's Cartridges now? I like to stop, there when ever I go fishing in Gravenhurst...It's a good place to sniff out Newton rifles...every time I stop there are at least three..I've only seen one .33 Newton Rifle and it was there (.33 Newton is the very same as 338 Win except without a belt)...you can spin the belts off 338 brass and away you go...
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The only take-down Newton rifle known to exist sleeps in Hamilton...it's a two barrel set...probably made by Flues after the demise of Newton Arms
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an ultra rare L C Smith 12ga Marks Grade sidelock (about like a Specialty grade) sleeps in Ft. Erie.
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over two dozen folding Burgess shotguns, that were ordered by NY Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt wound up going to St. Cathrines in one lot.
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a couple of different piles of Tobin parts remain near Woodstock..

My story will be a bit different I guess. I can not think, for the life of me, of one gun I have ever sold or traded off I would really want back. I have acquired a good many doubles, some semi-autos, rifles and pistols over the decades that I really thought I would enjoy owning and shooting. And I have. So, I still have them all. Every time I get the ache for some new particular gun I take stock of what is in the safe to see what I might sell or trade off to help acquire it and I never am able to part with one. I just don't get rid of guns that I waited for and finally acquired. Sorry, but I can't think of one that I would want back!

Getting rid of my Guyot was zen like experience, getting rid of my Westley double 360 was a study in being short changed.
Never the less, glad to see the Westley go packing.
Wish I could go back in time and change the course of history and get back my first of three Frederick Beesley guns - it was perfect in all ways.

Isn't wonderful when out of some 6000?? members only a small minority have ever regretted in parting with a firearm. No wonder that gunowners are some of the happiest people you can be associated with, with so few suffering from the "pangs and agonies of out-rageous fortune". Actually, I only wanted to get to the front of the line again and maybe a few others, once the tears leave their tired old eyes, will respond. --- John Can.

How about stuff that you traded for a gun?

My grandfather and I had spent a couple of summers repairing old barns and boathouses on an older area lake when I was a early teenager. I collected baits from the ealry 1900's at this time. Together we found a lot of baits while doing this and I had a wall in my bedroom covered in glass eyed baits, many with the original tin boxes that they came in. Even had a Mason (jar company) glass jar minnow trap that is extremely rare.

Anyway, when I turned 15, I wanted to get some other gun to hunt with than the hand me down Model 12 20 ga. that I had (teenagers are dumb). I really wanted a Remington 870 Wingmaster Magnum to duck hunt with. I found one that was used from a local and I was about 100 bucks short. So, off to think about how to come up with the money.

There was a fishing lurer dealer I knew and I showed him my bait collection. I asked him to make me an offer and he refused to tell me a number. Just kept asking what I wanted. Finally, I said $2 each for the approximately 90 lures and other items. He said he would do $120 for everything. Stupidly, I took it as I wanted that 870 badly. Went to the person's house and bought the gun within an hour.

Still have the 870. Took it to college with me. Took deer, ducks, geese, rabbits, phesants, quail, woodcock and other assorted animals with that gun. Still, I wish I had the lure collection back. It was worth several hundred then and well over a thousand today.