You're going to have to give me a couple of days to figure out my "go to" guns. For the last couple of years, I have been trying to take a different gun every time I go shooting. It has been an adventure. However, one of the "go to" guns has to be my first Parker, the VH 28 gauge #126,764 I have been shooting since 1960. It is a William Wagner gun that has never lived more than 45 miles from Wagner's store on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington, DC. When I first owned the gun, I didn't live more than 25 miles from the Wagner establishment.

Donald, my go-to grouse gun is also a 1904 DH 16 with 26” barrels…and I hunt over Gordons. I’d wear a coat and tie if Frost would paint our portraits. :)

My go to early grouse season is also a 16 ga "O" frame from 1903.
But to the original question? The last two would likely be my paternal grandfathers .45 cal mod 1911 and my maternal great grandfather's deer rifle, a Remington .35 cal. Have to keep those in the family.

My two are easy. I have always been a rifle guy first. I seem to always have too many guns, but when I started travelling to hunt I put together a first model ruger 77 in.338. Graphite stock, Magnaport (old style) and 1.5x6 Leupold. First group with Federal Premium 210 Partitions went into 3/8". I killed every head of game I shot from coyote to elk with that gun, every one a one shot kill.

The other is a Ruger No. 1 that started life as a 25-06 Varmint that I loaned to my Dad for what turned out to be his last deer hunt and last shot from a gun. Still have the case. I did a total redo of it in the style of a early 1900's Fahrquarson in 300 H&H.The stock was from a piece of French Walnut sourced from a grove outside Paris torn down by Panzers early in WWII. CC action and furniture, express sites, 1/2 octagon half round barrel. It was in memory of his service during the war.

My list is always shifting. My Trojan 20 that Julia gave me when we got married is officially the favorite, but I don't shoot it as much.

Current favorites are a VH 16 0 frame I bought from a fellow member and a pre 64 Model 70 .308 that finally missed a deer this weekend.

Yet another 16 is on the way, so stay tuned for that . . . :cool:

Don:

That DH does sound like an exceptional gun, to admire and regularly use, for both regional hunting or skeet -- right to the end. My first choice, last-to-go gun, is its country cousin, a couple of years junior to yours.

It is a 16-gauge 0-frame VH, with 26-inch Vulcan steel barrels, factory choked cylinder and modified, and shipped to Iver Johnson Sporting Goods Co. Boston (the city in which I was born) Massachusetts (the state in which I have always resided) in January of 1907.

Plus, I once shot a daily limit of Ruffed Grouse (4) with the gun, a lucky day for someone of my inveterately amateurish skill level in knocking down either clay or live birds.