doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Where did we come from? Where are we now?

You guys knew that the direction of this thread would flush out a photo of my "new" Nitro courtesy of the late Richard Brewster and his love of the NS. I suspect that Richard could have owned and shot just about any double that he wanted (and he may have) but he appreciated the solidness and character of the Nitro Special enough to have a custom stock made for his 16ga. Just before his death I was privileged to acquire that stock and then along with a new matching forend I had them fitted to my low mileage Nitro. Happy hunter here.

And as to how I got here, it begins in the 50's with a kid staring up at two antique SxS's hanging over the jalouise windows on opposite ends of our breezeway (I suppose that would be called a family room these days.) One gun was the percussion double that family tradition said had come west with our forefather after the civil war (I've already told its story here under the title "11ga W. Morse & Co. SxS") and the other was a 10ga Baker hammer gun. When William Henry Baker sold out to Lyman Cornelius Smith in Syracuse in 1880 and moved south to start what would eventually become Ithaca, L.C. continued building the Baker doubles (until 1883). This is one of those last year Baker/Smith's. I couldn't know then that it, along with my Dad's love of his 16ga Ithaca 37, would kindle a life long interest in the guns of Fall Creek and particularly the Ithaca doubles. I can say, though, that it's been, and still is, fascinating.

This statement from the Preacher has things pretty much Bass Ackwards in my opinion. Interest in the different genres of firearms is a relative and somewhat variable thing that can certainly be affected by outside influences. For instance, interest and demand for high capacity pistols and semi-auto rifles always spikes whenever the anti-gun Democrats are in power and begin their never ending assault on our 2nd Amendment.

And it is silly to say there was little interest in SxS guns 50 years ago. As many here have noted, quite a few shooters were brought up using these guns, and they were never totally out of style. Others like myself were brought up using other types of guns, and were influenced rightly or wrongly by what our relatives and peers said about doubles. My Dad and uncles weren't keen on doubles because they felt repeaters were superior, and that they were generally lighter due to only having one barrel versus two. On the surface, that thought may make sense to those who don't actually have hands on experience. I had a curiosity and an interest in double shotguns that grew over time, but never bought one until a few years after I graduated from college and was making better money. Part of the reason for my delayed entry into SxS guns was the majority of the doubles I admired in local gun shops were simply not as affordable as the repeaters.

Now, if there was little to no demand for these doubles back then, market forces would dictate that they would have been less expensive. However, the demand was always there relative to the supply. And the supply was limited because production of better quality American doubles was all but gone by the end of WWII, mostly due to higher labor costs. However, there was still interest enough for Winchester to keep cranking out the Model 21, and Marlin certainly tried to bring back L.C. Smiths. Others have dipped their toes into this small but persistent demand, but most have failed due to low profit margins. If Remington or Ithaca could have built a good looking and quality double that sold for near the same price as a Model 870 or Model 37 pump, they would have sold very well, no question. So for the majority of working middle class shooters, new guns were limited to lower quality Spanish imports, Savage 311's or the butt ugly Fox Model B. There has not been a time in my entire life when Parkers were cheap because nobody wanted them and nobody used them. Same for other better quality vintage doubles. It was that same lingering demand and interest that convinced manufacturers to take advantage of lower labor costs and begin importing doubles from Japan, like the Winchester Model 23, Browning BSS, or Ithaca SKB's. Most of the lesser quality guns like Crescents, Worthingtons, and cheap Belgian imports did not stand the test of time. They were unappreciated for good reasons. I did note when I first started collecting Syracuse Lefever guns, they seemed somewhat undervalued given their build quality, attractiveness, and low production numbers. But that situation has certainly changed.

The various double shotgun books listed and the collector organizations did not whet my interest, or that of most other double gun enthusiasts. On the contrary, the interest was there first, and that is what motivated guys to buy these books or to seek out more information on doubles. And really, many of these books have very low publication numbers, so their overall influence on shooter interest was small. The first Lefever book was only 2000 copies and the second was 2500 copies. Charles Semmer's Remington Doubles book was 3600 copies. I don't know the total publication number of Walter Snyder's "Ithaca Gun Company: From the Beginning", but it must be low because copies are both scarce and expensive. It is not purely about Ithaca doubles either. I have many other books about doubles in my collection, and every one was purchased after I had been bitten by the SxS bug. None of them was a New York Times Best Seller that sold a million copies.

Same thing goes for the various internet sites and forums. Nobody comes here saying, "I was wandering aimlessly on the internet and stumbled upon this forum." Virtually all come here because they have inherited Grandpa's old Parker, L.C. Smith, etc., or because they developed a prior interest in double guns, and either finally bought one, or wish to buy one. So now they want to know all about it. Many of them want more doubles. I expect that will continue. Say Hi to the new guy Edm1, who made his first post here yesterday. His story is pretty familiar to us.

Where are we now? That's kind of a silly question too. People keep saying we are "Aging out", or are a "Dying breed". The same could be said of the guys who used flintlocks, percussion guns, lever action rifles, etc. But interest in them remains, and new guys keep getting involved with these outdated and semi-obsolete guns. Gun ownership in the U.S. is at an all-time high. Ammunition is costly, but people buy it as fast as they make it. The same is likely to be the case with our doubles. We will all get old and die, and someone will inherit or buy them. They are not going to a landfill like a collection of worthless 8-track tapes. The biggest threat to double guns and their value is the same things that have caused so many shooters in Great Britain to sell them. Lead shot bans help to make the vintage guns obsolete and unaffordable for many to shoot. Anti-gun and anti-hunting sentiment threatens ownership of all firearms. Right now, the Democrats are pushing to eliminate archery programs from our schools. To them all shooting sports are bad. And right here, we still have guys who keep voting for the anti-gun Democrats who want to eventually eliminate all guns, including doubles. Unfortunately, even our retired CIA Intelligence Analyst hasn't figured that out yet.

That's where we are now.

That's very clearly not standard Nitro Special wood. But does not look out of place.

In my grandfather's house there was a hand-made, black-cherry gun cabinet. Over the course of his respectably-long lifetime, he filled it with fine guns (mostly doubles). That gun cabinet sits in my humble gunroom now and I've pretty-much done the same thing. My earliest doubles were fairly rudimentary (Field Grade Smiths & Lefever Nitro Specials) but they confirmed for me that those were the guns that I wanted to use going forward, mind-you... that took a little time. I had a dalliance (or two) in my youth with other technologies (pumps & autos of course) but I'm fully-settled now. My current doubles are a little better than where I started from, but not obscenely-so. Good guns (or even fine guns) have never been inexpensive and I've always been forced to balance the other portions of my life with my hobbies (probably learned this from my paternal grandfather as well). Some are finer than the others but... they all fit me and they all get used afield, and with gusto!

Unless we completely go off the rails in this country (& as much as things drive me crazy when I actually look) I don't think that will happen. It may not be pretty, but I'm still confident that this will all get sorted-out eventually. I'm also not too-concerned about where my guns will end up after I'm done with them as they are for my pleasure alone. Much like Gough Thomas, when I need a break in the woods I usually find myself contemplating the weapon in my hands and then feeling immensely grateful for its presence there. I count them among life's many blessings in this country of ours. "A thing of joy and beauty forever" really isn't far off of the mark.

Even better if you have a dog with you.

I bought my first shotgun in Nairobi in 1979. I had just started field research on spotted hyenas and the primitive dart guns in those days hit animals very hard, sending them galloping for the nearest heavy cover, where they would eventually pass out. When I went in to find and collar them, I kept encountering all sorts of other interesting things - elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo, cobras. There is draconian gun control in Kenya, and the Firearms Licensing Officer wasn't about to let an American longhair buy a rifle, but he did grant me a shotgun license and I bought a Brno ZP49, which I still have. A game warden friend gave me some Remington slugs, illegal in Kenya, which he had confiscated from poachers. After years of schmoozing the Licensing Officer, and a haircut, I finally got a rifle permit, and a .470 replaced the Brno for field work. By that time I was working on lions, much of it on foot, and the rifle is a lot more reassuring than a shotgun.

Questions about the Brno led me to this forum in the 1990's and I got hooked, leading to a modest accumulation of British guns, mostly Damascus hammer fowlers in 12 10, and 8.

It appears that the doomsayers and pessimists
have dug the grave, and planned the funeral....

Unfortunately, the patient refuses to die.

https://projectupland.com/shotguns-and-shooting/shotguns/side-by-side-shotgun-revival/