Agree with rabbit. Just look at those old photos of big gatherings for shoots - all the guys on the club porch in knee-high leather lace-ups and riding breeches, with side-bys tucked under their arms. If you could holler "Hey, Doc!" someone would surely turn his head. Those gents with the 'field grade' guns are doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, judges, bankers, proprietors of small manufactories. If there are a couple of overall-clad types on the edges of the crowd, they're probably toting pump guns.
Bespoke guns, the confections with elaborate engraving, special wood, etc., were seldom seen in small country towns and rural shooting clubs - they were made for rich city folks who could afford to blow an average workingman's annual wages on 'sport.'
I'll be 70 this year, and as a young man I hunted with old timers who were docs and bankers and proprietors and retired colonels - the kind of small town elite guys who posed in those faded yellow photos. And they all hunted with very ordinary guns.
