doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Did something unusual today

I went and bought a Ithaca NID, 16 bore with 26" barrels today. A friend down the street was selling her Father's bird gun and I had a weak moment. It is ok as far as the wood but the barrels are in bad shape on the outside. It has some pitting and some rust probably from storage for forty years.
It has the stars on the receiver so not sure what years it was made. It is open choked as cylinder and improved cylinder. I don't even have any 16 gauge shells.
I was planning on having a minor restoration done, re-black the barrels and hardware and freshen up the wood. I would need to replace the original Joston pad as it is starting to split.
But I would have more in it than it would ever be worth.
That's what happens when you get that funny feeling a nd your brain goes to sleep on you.

The first quality double I ever owned was a 16ga NID 28" IC/F. It was built in late 47/early 48 when they were cleaning out the parts bins. One of the last few hundred made. Field gun, except they apparently only had high grade wood sets left, because the stock is spectacular. The gun was little used. I had just gone to work so I kept it a few years and had it re-cased and the barrels polished and blued. I refinished the stock. Over the years I have found it to be my idea of the best dove gun in existence. I ws naive as to old guns at the time(everyone was). I found out a long time later that the bores were original ID but the barrel walls were 0.025 at the front and the chambers were 2-9/16. I had been feeding it any ammo I could find, but the strong characteristics of the model handled it fine.

I traded an old farmer even for a Ithaca 51 Trap gun with 3" of the barrel cut off due to a corn stalk and a dove hunt. I had bought the Ithaca Trap from my cousin who's wife had the faux pas for $150. The farmer wouldn't sell the gun; he only wanted to trade for a good automatic to give to his son as a gift. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to take the money and find a gun for him.

The thing is, I paid a total of $ 300 in the mid 70's for the cold blue and bone charcoal finish. That put me at $450 in the gun, way upside down. I didn't care, because I have probably hunted doves in 40 or more dove seasons with that gun, and probably has lead to buying and selling a hundred or more doubles in that period. I have owned that gun for 50 years and have owned it longer than any other gun. It also looks like a great investment in retrospect, both from a dollars and use point. It is the one gun that I can gaurantee will be available to put in the pine box with me. Don't hesitate to do what you want to enjoy the gun. It's all not about dollars.

No need to worry. Like everyone else in KY, I have a concealed carry permit in case it is a closed casket service..

Also, I have a firearms trust leaving all the meat of my collection to my only Grandson. I really believe in letting someone use one. I gifted several guns to friends of kids last Christmas and over the last 2 years. I build a lot of musical instruments and never sell them. They either stay with me or I gift them to people I know who are real pickers or kids I don't really know but who I have seen and they show talent or a real effort but can't afford a decent instrument. A lot of the guns I gift are classics I rescue and rebuild into useful condition.

I wouldn't leave the rustiest Walmart $3.99 reel to an Obama-Biden loving grandson. Let them use a handline.

Go ahead Fox,
Tell us all how you feel about the Jews while you are at it.
I’ll bet there’s a cabal in their someplace.

No grandsons, then? Mae and I have a "brace" of both grandsons and granddaughters, our three daughters are married and except for the "libocrat" youngest gal, are normal (by my standards anyway)-- howinhell she turned out to be a niggerlover is beyond me-- I just bite my tongue and hope some day she will see the error of her political views as Biden and his blackVeep piss our Country down the drain. RWTF