doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shot skeet for the first time yesterday

It would be very interesting to know the scoop as to how Ithaca was able to introduce their "Skeet Special" in July 1926, just 2 months after "Skeet" was named in the May "National Sportsman". Were they tipped off by William Harnden Foster, and why not Parker Bros.?



The cover of the August 1926 "National Sportsman" by Foster was “the first painting ever published of a scene in the new sport of Skeet” and possibly depicted his son using Foster Sr.’s 20 gauge Parker DHE with 27-inch barrels



The L.C. Smith “Skeet Upland Special” appeared in "Hunting and Fishing" in June 1928, almost 2 years later



In the 1929 Hunter Arms Co. catalog, the word “upland” was gone and the Skeet Special grade was shown with a straight grip stock, checkered wood butt, “Skeet Choke No. 1 right and No. 2 left,” and “Streamline Beaver Tail Forend.” Basically, it was an Ideal grade with London Steel barrels, upgraded wood, and with the skeet logo engraved on the lockplate





The Winchester Model 21 went into production in 1929, but was not listed on the Winchester price list until 1931. In 1933, the Model 21 Skeet Gun was introduced in Standard, Tournament, and Trap grades.
In 1932, a Parker advertising brochure showed a Special Skeet Gun with “skeet-in/skeet-out” chokes, 26 inch barrels, automatic ejectors, single trigger, straight stock, and beavertail forend. However, Parker factory production records have identified guns as early as 1929 as having “skeet-in/skeet-out” chokes.
The A.H. Fox Skeeter was introduced in 1931 and the Sterlingworth Skeet and Upland in 1935, with automatic ejectors, Fox-Kautzky selective single trigger, beavertail forend, recoil pad, and ivory beads.
The Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works Skeet-er appeared in 1933, and the Ithaca Lefever Grade A Skeet Model with automatic ejectors, straight stock, beavertail forend, and skeet chokes followed in 1934.