Parkers still rule

[George M. Purtill]

Just got home from shooting at a VERY exclusive club in CT. 40 members and 1000 acres. I was a guest and everybody else was shooting the latest clay munching guns. You know the names. We were shooting flurry and five stand all afternoon.
BUT what did everybody want to fondle?????
My 28 gauge VH(E), my 12 Gauge CHE and my 20 gauge VH.

[Dean Romig]

We would have expected nothing less. ;)

[Mark Ouellette]

George,

You should have charged each of those fondlers a fee, like a PGCA membership! :)

Nice work,
Mark

[Ed Blake]

Those guys had never seen guns with such "soul".

[calvin humburg]

Suppose anybody cought the bug fondling them?

[George M. Purtill]

Suppose anybody cought the bug fondling them?

They most definitely did.

[Daryl Corona]

George;
Happens every time I shoot. I shoot sxs's exclusively and as my gun of the day is in the rack, invariably, 1 or 2 guys are standing there hunched over admiring the gun either asking "What is that" or "Is that a Parker". It really blows their minds when I'm shooting a damascus hammer.

[Bill Murphy]

Some shooters, like Kevin McCormack and Bill Murphy, have shot since we were in high school with Parkers and Model 21s at out local clubs. It was a slow educational process, but we finally got a few, or more than a few, to spend a couple of hundred dollars here and there on a double gun to shoot at our clubs. Even though the dollars have been spent on double guns that Kevin and I and others showed them, these shooters are not in regular attendance at our shoots, even though there are probably six or seven clubs involved. Today, I went to our pigeon club for a nice 25 bird shoot, had a great time, stopped at a skeet and trap club that is ten minutes from my house, will attend the first shoot of our first fall sporting clays shoot tomorrow. At all of these clubs, side by sides will be shot, but not in volume. If people like Kevin and I had not shown these people that targets could be hit with these guns, and money could be made on these guns, they wouldn't be shooting them. When I was a teenager, there was no one shooting these guns at clay targets in my area except me, and Kevin. Things have changed, but not enough. Get out there and show them your guns.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

I can't say me hauling around my Parkers to various shoots has got anybody to buy one but they certainly generate some good conversation. I got to a couple pigeon shoots a year and there's always one guy there with a Model 21 but that's it for doubles unless Capt. Money aka Don Kaas is in attendance.


DLH

[Bill Murphy]

Oddly enough, at a pigeon shoot today, I saw a gun that was once owned by Don Kaas or our late buddy, Russ Bickel. Our legacy of double shotguns will outlive us by many years.

[Dean Romig]

One of the great benefits of always showing up with and shooting different Parkers at my skeet club has been that whenever a member or a friend of a member discovers a long-forgotten family Parker they inevitably bring it for me to see and often offer to sell it to me. And now a few more members are really enjoying shooting various old side-by-side shotguns both at the club as well as upland birds and waterfowl.

[Richard Flanders]

Charles Pfleger, owner of Hill Rod and Gun, got the bug for a nice S/S when I hunted pheasants with him on his father in laws land in Montana. He had a family mod 12, I had my VHE20. He was hooked and is now a dealer of nice English and other dbl guns. He even owns and shoots a Holland hammer gun that is I believe S/N 6 or something like that. The surrounding S/N's are all in the Holland museum.... I've shot it. What a beautiful gun it is.

[Paul Harm]

The first gun my dad gave me was a SXS and that's all I've ever shot except one or two single barrel trap guns. When I got back into shooting clays 10 or 12 years ago it was with a H&K SxS. Got a friend interested when he tried my first Parker hammergun with lots of DAH. Said he couldn't lift his head because it was already up [ so he could look down the rib ]. Sold that H&K shortly there after and only shot the old SxS's with around 3" DAH. I then took over the shotgun venue at our club and being tired of doing registered sporting clays shoots he and I decided to put on SxS Shoots. There's probably 30% of the shotgunners now shooting SxSs at my club. Yes when we go to other clubs our guns get attention, especially the ones with damascus barrels.

[Daryl Corona]

My Dad gave me a 28" Trojan M/F when I was 17 and I used it to kill countless Quail, most of them in the woods. I did'nt know you were supposed to use open chokes. I still have that gun and it has 2 7/8" DAH. Would'nt sell it for the world.