Anybody else...

[sm]

...either not left the classics or going back to them?

I have always appreciated the Model 12, 97, and Winchesters. Ithaca 37, you can't describe to someone, the 870's...the....the well the list goes on. Yep this list includes my favorite autoloader - Win SX1.

I'm having a ball shooting Single Shot Shotguns. Especially the little critters. Yeah I know we have indoor plumbing and flush toliets....

I have given many of these to folks to use as a First HD Firearm, usually the elderly who with arthritis, or somesuch , just can't work a repeater, or handgun. Been some given to some ladies flat broke and needed to start somewhere.

Kids...I have a soft spot for kids and a 28 ga single shot. I still think a kid learning with the .28 is a bunch better off than learning with a .410. Confidence level is up because the .28 ga is "better than it is supposed to be".

I know all that stuff about the .410 and its payload and restrictions - I competed in all 4 gauges in Skeet...

I don't care Took a H&R single shot .410 Dove hunting, nailed a double on my first shot of the Opener...I almost came home. [ quit while ahead ]

Piddled with various old reloads and slugs afterwards....I dunno it was fun making that coffee can dance at 20 - 30 yds.

I really really have to have another Single Shot 28 ga . The one I had went to a little girl ....big grin on the letter....and dove feathers in the envelope from the little girl "teaching grandpa how to shoot".

Maybe I'm going backwards - I made a big deal out of seeing a "real" bike the other day. Bendix Coaster brake, regular seat, handlebars, fenders, kickstand, no gears , no calipers, it was heavy....

Go shoot a single shot and then tell me you did not have fun - or recall old memories...

Can't fool me - how many bought one for your "kid" , the kid being 2 months old...you had an excuse tho'.

I wonder if the Drug Store has any new comic books in...If you buy a Malt, the Soda Jerk won't yell at you for reading the new ones...

 

[Hand_Rifle_Guy]

Older's always better, methinks.

I started with an ol' 97. Takedown, 12 guage, 19078-vintage 30" full-choked hammer-pump. The one. The only. Accept no substitutes.

It runs incredibly smoothly, in spite of the jitter-bug gyrations the bolt's gotta go through just to function normally. But then, it's not only a bolt, it's a cartridge lifter, too! John Browning sure got this one right.

Next is a field-grade Parker Hammer sxs 10 guage. Built in something like 1875, it's heavy, solid, robust, and displays some of the finest craftsmanship of any gun I own. 30" full-choked "skelp" steel barrels, the coarsest damascus grade, means I won't shoot it until I proof it on blackpowder loads I need to build, unless I want to pay $2/shot. A VERY nice gun, yet it's just plain, a field-grade gun. Some honest use on it, yet it's solid as a rock when it's shut.

Last but not least, a Monkey-Wards single-shot copy of the Stevens Favorite. 12 guage, 30" full, (All I got is friggin' goose guns.) built I'm not sure when but pre WW-I, I think. Nice patina to it. Honest wear, with some finish left. Ejector ejects briskly. Cost all of $69 + tax and fees. Stock's a little dinked up, and the finish is worn right where you carry it in your right hand. If this gun could just talk...

Not glamorous. Not combat guns. Not groundbreaking or spectacular or even particularly historical. Just vintage, wearing their age with pride, and waiting to be reliable again out in the field, hammering ducks or geese or clays, or even deer, maybe.

Makes me wonder who's gonna get some use out of 'em, because I can't hit anything with a scattergun. Not these full-choked long-toms, anyhow. To much rifle aiming to unlearn. I need to get a cylinder-bore hammer coach gun so I can figure out this "art" that is thwacking moving ariel targets. (Last time I tried to shoot skeet, I saw my '97 throw a shot cloud only three times as wide as the clay I missed. That was the only feedback I got that day, although I pitched a half a case of skeet down the hill. I hit THREE. )

 

[trapperready]

Steve - Since THR is down, I thought I might find you here.

You probably know my anwer. I started with a Model 12, and then went with Benellis and a Browning O/U. However, for the past couple years, I've been moving towards older stuff. For me now, my 1957 870 is the "new-fangled" one. This year, I'll be hunting primarily with guns made in the '20s and '30s.

I still like the newer stuff when I'm shooting clays... and all I'm really focused on is my score. However, when I'm hunting I enjoy the nostalgia you can find with an older gun. Besides, especially with pump-guns, 70-80 years of use just about gets 'em slicked up right.

I took a couple doves on Sunday with a Model 12 made in 1926. I took a couple more on Monday morning with a 20ga Benelli sporting plastic furniture. They both killed doves just the same... but when I'm just sitting there looking for more birds to come in, I can look at the Model 12 and enjoy it. I can look at the grain in the wood, the way the bluing is worn in places, the way it all comes together just right. I can appeciate it like a piece of art. The Benelli is just a gun.

 

[K80Geoff]

The Model 12 was made when craftsmanship was important. The Benelli is stampings and castings.

My holy grail is the elusive Remington model 31, a contemporary of the Model 12. Made the same way, by hand.

It is amazing how Parker Trojans, the mossberg of it's day, command such outrageous prices today. And Model 12's have become cult guns, with prices to match.

Handmade stuff does have a certain appeal.

 

[ACP230]

I like Model 12s. I have a 16 gauge that was old when my dad gave it to me for a high school graduation present.
His 12 gauge Model 12 is even older. I use it as my turkey gun now.

My 12 year-old son is having fun with a J.C. Higgins Model 20/High Standard M200. I found it cheap at Gander Moutain. The stock fits him perfectly since it was cut to 11 inches long ago.

Oldies are often goodies.

 

[BigG]

I have an old cornshucker (Win 1897) for nostalgia's sake. My dad carried one as a patrolman for many years. My preference in shotguns to actually use is the two bbl, either SXS or stacked. YMMV

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

I started hunting doves at age 11 with my dad's old J.C. Higgins 12 ga. Nice slick action, but the extractor was worn, so you had to carry a small screwdriver with you all the time.

I've used over the years, an Ithaca 37, Remington Mohawk 48, Remington 1100. Finally settled on a Browning Citori, which is my main shotgun today.

I always liked my dad's Remington Model 10 (?) trap grade pump. And the one that I let get away, an LC Smith field grade 12 ga. When the steel shot law started I retired it and then let it get away in a trade (never sell a gun).

A couple years ago I bought a small collection from an estate. Listed was a J.C. Higgins shotgun. Great, I thought, not worth anything. When I got it though, the shotgun looks unfired, and I remembered that smooth High Standard action. This one is a keeper, either for me or to teach some of these grandkids how to shoot.

Never have used a single-shot though.

 

[trapperready]

BTW, although I generally prefer to hunt with classic (or "vintage") firearms, that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate their modern variants. What I neglected to mention about dove-hunting above was that it rained quite hard off and on while I was hunting on Monday morning.

The nice thing about the Benelli was that (A) I didn't feel bad about leaving it wet and cased in the trunk of the car until later in the evening and (B) it took me all of about 5 minutes to clean it completely. Older guns are usually easy to get mostly clean, but to really do a good job often takes some tools, some time and an uncluttered well-lit area (to help you spot all the bits and pieces which can fly away).

If you want to talk nostalgia... when I was a kid, my dad had two shotguns. One is a beautiful 1922-vintage Model 12 12ga, still in incredible shape. Although it is collectible, I often use it for pheasant hunting and the occasional round of trap or SC. The other shotgun he had was a pitted old Sears 12ga bolt-action. It was horrible, and when I was short for rent-money in college, I sold it. God help me, but if I ever run across one, I'll buy it on the spot.

 

[Dave McC]

Naturally, I prefer 870s to the newer pumps, and regard the 12 and 31 as just as good as the classic WM. I am prepared to dodge brickbats after that last.

Other classics I like include the old H&R singles, Browning's great A-5, many SxSs from the better US makers, and I'd love to find Pop's old Savage O/U, which was stolen at a field trial around 1970. There's a pin punched Number 14 on the receiver. Dunno what I'd do with it, but there's a ton of memories in that old overbuilt and heavy shotgun.

I have owned and operated other shotguns, but I just keep coming back to 870s. They last forever, I like the balance, and I hit with them at least as well as I do with other shotguns and oft better.

 

[sm]

Speaking of Old Winchesters...

My favorite semi auto is Winchester SX1.
I posted this over on THR, I just have to share.
---
Hot damn!

Instructor said some of us could come in later do labs later this morning if wanted to so we would not be in each other's way....so...

I took the '74 SX1 out , using the .735 Nu- Line external knurled choke, mixed colors of hulls of 20 yr old skeet loads of #8 hard shot.

don't bunch up - grenade kill us all...

15 birds , 11 shells , including a friggin' TRIPLE !!

One triple, 2 doubles and the rest singles...

This is my personal best in 12 gauge ...kinda happy about it.

All right dadnabbit ...no quail here....I need to bust quail now.... , gotta see if I still have the knack on quail...

Old Fart, Old gun, Old shooting style....he he he....

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