doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com When did it happen for you?

I started to hunt grouse about 15 years ago. Shortly there after
I came across an add by Bill Hanus, for his Ugartechea Bird Guns.
He sent me one of his news letters describing the advantages of doubleguns. I tried one and was hooked.Since then I've bought and sold close to 100 doubleguns, I'm looking forward to the next 100.
Dave

Dave Hamilton and Lawrence K., I may have a couple of brown Parkers, but I am still searching for my first decent Darne or Charlin.

I've been messing with doubles since 1959, when I got my first shotgun at age eight, a J. C. Higgins Tenite stocked .410 side by side. Killed my first doves over a field of brown top millet with it that fall. Bought a Nitro Special for $5.00 (five dollars)about 1966, a Powell m/l double in '84, a BSS in '93, a W. Richards hammergun in '98, an I. Hollis 2 1/2" in '99, Rem. hammergun in 2000, Sterlingworth in '01, 16 ga. Felag in '01, Elsie short ten about '03, Fox A-grade in '03, Super Fox HE in '05, and a Manton 16 ga. m/l in '06.

Since I shot autos and o/u's in between all those years I can't claim to have been true to my first love, but S x S's ARE my first love, and I shoot them as well or better than any of my dedicated o/u target guns. And, as the ladies say about new shoes, "they look so good on!".

Stan

In the rural Pennsylvania Dutch culture, kids are seen as small adults and are expected to contribute the communal effort to the extent of their abilities. When I was about 10 years old (1956), I was “issued” an old junk 10 gauge hammergun that was about as tall as I was and assigned to guard the garden.

I still have that old 10 gauge (the middle gun in the pic - the upper gun was my deer rifle as a kid and the bottom one is a 16 bore model 12 my grandfather gave me for getting all A's in school when I was 12 years old).



Except for three years spent overseas as a prisoner of the US Army in the late 1960's, I've been a hunter and shooter ever since. I've moved on to "fine" guns and my dogs and I travel all over the country hunting birds, but groundswatting stuff in the garden is where it all started.

It certainly was not when I traded my first "real Gun", a Rem. mod. 31 20 ga deluxe for a "Fox" 12 ga model B at age 16 in 1964. Even at that tender age I realized I'd traded a treasure for a 2X4. Might have been when I traded the Fox and a single shot .410 and a broke .22 for an L.C.Smith field grade 20 that same year, but probably the real change was when at 17 I traded the LC Smith and a Colt 44.40 Nickel plated Peacemaker for a Westley Richards 16. My dad shot the W.R. till his death and my brother has it now. Been devoted to sxs's ever since...Geo

I used to be the "dog" for my father when I was young. He wasn't serious enough to get a dog and train it which kinda bothered me. Twenty-five years later a colleague invited me to go hunting on the weekend, which I readily accepted. The following Monday I bought a Ithaca 37 and started to hunt on my own. Within a year I bought a Wirehair and trained it well, and moved moved to a Ruger Red Label. At that time I noticed some Merkel and Bernadelli's and wanted one in the worst way. Eventually bought a Fox Sterlingworth 16ga and have since attempted make a collection of American SxS 16gauge unaltered originals. What fun it's been. Steady pointing dogs, wild open country birds, and SxS's are the flavor of life.

I got hooked on doubles in 1957 when a high school friend and his dad showed me a nice collection .

I was raised around sxs. Dad shot a Meriden on upland and a Mercury 3" for waterfowl. My first gun Christmas of 1960 was a Stevens .410 sxs(still have it and am amazed at the prices listed for 'em now). Switched to pumps and autos for forty years and wandered back to sxs, am currently shooting an old Webley & Scott and a Sterlingworth. I can't imagine why I didn't stay with break actions the whole time and REALLY wish I'd been buying older American sxs when they were selling for $100! My worst gun deal of many was the DHE Parker I bought for $450 and sold the same day for $600---thought the week's wages I'd made in 1969 was a good deal, durned thing is probably worth $5k or more now.

Steve