doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Field grades - shouldn't they be 12 gauges?

LG,
My family's 20 gauge single shot is in awful condition. It's a converted trapdoor springfield...typically sold by Bannermans and others. It stayed in Missouri. I can't imagine those hardscrabbled lead mining and farming folks spending more than the minimum required. The game was rabbits, and reason for hunting was primarily the pot. If they could've got a 12 gauge for $1.50 (or whatever they sold for) they would of - no disagreement on the 12 gauge thesis. Before the depression they were getting by, and during the depression the financial screws got cranked down some more. The romantic LG American farmer's gun was probably a judge's or doctor's gun. The small gauges were for the sporting class - folks that hunted for sake of hunting not out of hunger or parsimony. But keep up the romance, that's half the fun!
I have a 1936 Superposed trap gun and I've wondered about the man who had scratch in '36 to order a an $85 gun with an optional $15 vent rib.

If there ever was a common "field gun" standing by the farmhouse kitchen door in the midwest, it was most likely a lowly .22. Cheap to buy, cheap to shoot, and it could put nice meaty rabbits on the table any day of the week, any month of the year.

I agree with that, Jack.
While I was growing up, My Dad mostly shot grouse with a .22 and deer with a ,300 sav.
He didn't even own a shotgun until I was a teenager and the only reason he had that was because it was given as collateral on a $75 loan (that luckily for me, was never paid). It was a Rem model 58 semi-auto and with it, I could gleefully miss a rising cock pheasant not once, but three times!

I get the impression that shotguns were not as pervasive out here in the west in the 1850-1925 era due to there being more abundance of large game. Birdhunting itself, out west would seem more of a sporting activity than a necessity, generalizing of course. And sxs guns would seem to have been much less prevalent in the west that in the east.

Sounds like the SxS's were made for the 'Sports' and market bOys used the repeaters and the turnip farmers used a hoe or what ever was at hand.

Mr. Lowel where do these visions come from....might better get that medication checked. lol

Chuck: I think you're right about shotguns in the "old west." I don't know if they were hard to find, but I don't think they were valued nearly as much as a rifle. Roosevelt's turn-of-the-century memoirs and hunting commentary from his years spent in the high plains and northern Rockies make the same point. Teddy knew his guns and was clearly a rifleman first and foremost, but I doubt he displayed any bias when he describes the west as pure rifle country. It would appear that he shot as many prairie chickens and sharptailed grouse with a rifle as he did with a scattergun. TR was, of course, by no means a typical rancher, but I think he tried very hard to live by their rules, and I suspect his writing was an accurate reflection of local preferences and prejudices. TT

Could it be that turnips won't grow at those elevations ?

Romantics like to rhapsodize about the good old days - days that for most folks never happened. Wingshooting is a luxury, ground-swatting a necessity, and while the sporting crowd argues endlessly about which gauge is "king" and which bore is "queen," rural folk who can't afford to miss know that a .22 puts more meat in the pot!

The lesson here, and to bring this up-to-date, is that some folks would like to think their minty field grades are right out of the workingclass elites' guncabinet - when in truth, from the mudroom where rubber boots and barncoats rule.
...but when in doubt, move up a grade or two.
OR!
Have a bit of both, and be snug and at one with it's awkward rustic nature.

Lowell, do you spend every waking minute trying to justify your own existence?
So glad that you have "both". Good for you!