doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Memories of Connecticut

I was in the navy from 1968 to 1989. The day after I came back from Vietnam, I went to Arden Sports and shelled out $288 for a used Browning Superposed Lightning trap gun, serial number 69172. No salt cured wood. i took it with me to Connecticut. I kept my guns at a range called Foxtown. it was about 25 miles from the sub base. The gentleman who operated it smoked smelly cigars. The guys who were stationed on the subs and the base shot the Winchester Model 101 and the Dalys made by Miroku. i was the only one whoi shot a Browning. Understandable when you consider how the Brownings had climbed up in price. i did a lot of shooting. i wasn't that good, but i enjoyed myself. I have a few memories i would like to pass on. I finagled a tour of the custom shop at the Winchester factory. The person i talked to told me they generally didn't do tours. I told him i wasn't going to steal any secrets. i was an admirer of fine guns. About an hour, later, i was in New Haven. The head of the custom shop greeted me and introduced me to these master craftsmen who worked with metal and wood. They showed me what they were working on and answered my questions. i was there for about an hour and came away with an appreciation of what they did. A friend of mine and i were at the range one Sunday and there was an older gentlemand, his wife, and grandson. He had a Parker single barrel trap gun, thast he had restocked by someone, halfway between Hartford and New Haven. i had never seen a Parker singlke barrel trap gun. I believe the barrel was, either, 32 or 34 inches. He was shooting handicap and pulverizing the clay pigeons. he let me and another sailor shoot it. i was amazed at how well it balanced. Beretta had come out with a singgle barrel trap gun. It was built upon a single barrel shot htey had. The opening lever was under ther bottom of the action. One of the guys had one that had cracked in the small of thed pistol grip. He proceeded to destroy the gun by smashing it against a telephone post. It was the second one he had bought. YUHou would have thought he would have boughta Browning BT 99 or Winchester 101 single barrel trap gun.

Halfway between New Haven and Hartford is Meriden, CT, where Parkers were made. I grew up in Connecticut.

Bruce

That’s a nice reminiscence, thank you for sharing.

Colin, thanks, I love stories like that. When I moved to Alaska in 1971 we did work on Adak Island in the Aleutians. It was a Naval Base and we were given Commissary privileges by the Captain of the Island. The Commissary sold Browning over unders. The Superlight over under cost $325 there. Several guys had many boxes of them stacked under their bunks in the Construction Camp. On the Mainland, they were much more expensive.

Colin, you brought back some memories for me. I worked at EB from 1982-85. I hit all the gunshops in the area and they had some vintage stuff on the racks back then. Problem was I couldn't afford most. I joined a gun club not too far from the base and the name of it I can't remember. The day I became a member I had not got my credentials yet and stayed on the rifle range after everyone left locking me in the place. Luckily, I had a Datsun pickup truck. By moving some rocks out of the way, I was able to squeeze my way out of there between the trees and get to the road! I would make the long trip down 95 to the Remington gun club in Lordship and shot some trap there. What a beautiful facility that was. I was amazed at the size of the elk mount on the wall of the club house shot in Montana near Yellowstone. They had to close because they shot over water and were sued because of lead. I sometimes wonder how that area has changed after all these years.

Hi Colin

Your reminiscences brought back a couple of connected memories to me. After my father (Capt. James M. Kirk) retired from the USAAF to England in 1963 he called in at the Rod & Gun Club halfway between Lakenheath and Mildenhall AFB in Suffolk, England and bought for me a brand new Habicht 12 bore/ gauge side by side non-ejector shotgun for the huge sum of $155, tax free. It came in a cheap dismal carboard box, where it lived for many years as a penniless student under my bed. Its chokes were 3/4 and full, which I had opened out to 1/4 and 1/2 many years back. With 2 3/4 " chambers it is now useful for steel loadings.

I now know that it was made in Spain in 1964 for the Austrian retailer Habicht. It has 27 1/2" barrels, pistol grip, sling swivels and a cheek piece, so nothing like a classic English game gun. However what it did do was to keep alive my interest in shooting, so I started pistol shooting in 1980, then rifles in 1996 and game shooting proper in 2014, mostly with my Webley 600.

Thanks Dad - a great Christmas present for a 17 year old!

HB

I still live in CT and learned to shoot skeet at the Remington Gun club in Lordship. There was no other club like it. The property is still there un-used. It never fell into the hands of the greedy developers which was the real reason for the law suit. The skeet and trap houses are all torn down. Many of the smaller clubs are closed such as the Winchester club and the club where the Parker workers would shoot.

Thanks for the info. I forgot to mention the shops i frequented. One was Campbell's Hardware on Long Hill Road in Groton. He had quite a collection of guns for sale, including Brownings. I bought my MEC 600 Jr. and components from a shop about four miles south of Norwich on the west bank of the Thames. It was operated by a guy name Joe Donovan. He had a Ponsness Sizeomatic reloading press set up. It was something to watch. It would crank out a loaded shell as fast as he could put the empties in. He had a Colt Trooper for sale for $94.00. i almost bought it. There was a gunsmith in Norwich I took my rifle to have the bolt handle bent low and to have the action drilled and tapped for scope mounts. The Navy had shootsoff for the district for trapshooting. Each district would send their best shooters to Lakeheart, New Jersey for atlantic fleet competition. The first one was in Peekskill, New York. They were giving olut new boxes of Double AAs. We were shootign modified International Trap (six man squad and two shots). The next one was held at a facility that was opperated by Yale in East Lyme. It rained the day we shot. I had problems with the Browning, as there were times it would not fire the second round when I pulled the trigger. i never got to Lordship.

I remember Campbells Hardware in Groton. A large rack of used vintage guns in the isle and the good stuff on the rack behind the counter. That other shop south of Norwich was Fort Shantock trading post. I bought a couple guns in there. That was the first place I saw a Dillon loader and ended up buying one later. I bought some guns at a shop that was in an old mill In Jewett city. Wonder if those shops still exist? I know Campell's is gone. My travels in Norwich made me wonder where the various gun manufacturers where housed when they were operating. There were quite a few derelict factory buildings there at the time.