My first SxS was a 12 gauge Stevens 311, with chopped 24 bbls., restocked in the heaviest, most dense bastogne I have ever seen then or since. It was gifted to me by my friend and mentor Michael Nally of Wichita, Kansas. Mike has a serious love affair with Winchester 21s, I guess he figured I had to start somewhere, so it might as well be at the very bottom! At the time, I was a very young E-4 in the AF with a line for E-5, a wife and newborn baby, extra money was hard to come by to say the least. I proudly used that gun for a few years as my go to skeet gun and to take all sorts of feathered game with. I eventually gifted it to a young family member who was getting interested in shotgunning.
With all that said, my first fine gun was a early 50s vintage 12 gauge Ithaca Model 37. To me....that beautiful Ithaca was the equivalent of a Purdey. :-)
