Which are yours?
 

If you're like me the vault/vaults has multiple guns I've collected, wanted, needed, gorgeous, invested in and shoot. However 2 are my favorites and magical when in the field or at the range. Some would call them you're "go to" guns. Mine are:
1. 1913 Featherweight Fox Sterlingworth 16 gauge with 28 inch barrels. It's been carried many miles in multiple states and the only gun I've collected doubles on Bobwhite, Mearns, Pheasant, Sharptail, Huns, Gambel, Chukar, Scalies. For whatever reason it's magical!
2. 1963 Grade 1 Browning Broadway Superposed with 32 inch barrels. It has I believe one of the most beautiful butt stocks I've ever seen on a Browning. I shot Wobble, Bunker, Helice ,Double Trap and occasionally Sporting Clays with this Browning. I own fancier and more expensive guns but when I review shooting scores or remember my best shoots this Browning is the one!
If I had to sell all my guns these two would be the last to go!!
What are you 1 or 2 "Favorite Shotguns"?

my first favorite gun is the short barreled 8 ga lifter the next is my 410 stevens double that my dad gave me when i was 8 years old.........charlie

Charlie, My favorite gun is also a 410 Stevens given to me by my father at 9 years old. It was my grandmother’s gun.

Ruger 10/22, Ithaca lever action single shot 20g, Ithaca 37 20g. All given to me by my dad. 12th, 16th birthdays and a Christmas.

At present I’d say my fav shotgun is the VHE 32” vent rib Monte Carlo trap gun I bought from someone here . That thing is poison at sporting as well as trap but the deal sealer is what I can sometimes do with it in the ring !!!! I’ve got a W&C Scott Crystal indicator 10 gauge that was my grandfathers that one goes in the box with me . As to a rifle I have a nice little Mannlicher Schoenauer MC carbine in 6.5x54 MS that’ll most likely remain with me till the end as well . I forgot earlier I have a Winchester 1890 pump thats chambered for 22 short only , my grandfather and his older brother bought it new in the 20's . Later my grandfathers brother was shot and killed by one of their cousins (supposedly an accident). Anyway my grandfather gave me that little rifle when I graduated high school . that ones near and dear but I think I'll pass it on to my only male cousin on that side of the family . Pics of the VHE vent gun and the 6.5x54 MS sorry to say no pics of the other two on my phone at present .Found a pic of the W&C Scott 10 with the first Canada I ever shot at !

I understand the connection with our family gifts. My dad died when I was very young and mother gave away his only gun: .22 single shot Westernfield. He used it on the farm in central Illinois to kill predators and hogs for butchering. Years later (I was adult) decided I was going to locate his .22. When I found the gun, barrel and action were being used as a stir rod in a paint shop and the stock was in a stack of scrap lumber. The shop owner gave me the gun and now it's in the vault after total restoration wearing a Lyman Alaskan 2 1/2 scope. My grandson wants only this .22 and my Springfield Trapdoor 45/70.

Both are 12-gauge, 28-inch barrel, straight grip, Ansley H. Fox doubles. "Meat-in-the Pot" my 1914-vitage A-Grade that has been my go-to upland gun since 1966.

Attachment 120462

Opening weekend 1966 I mostly shot ducks with the Super-Fox I got in 1963, but I did have time for a couple of walks to collect my first rooster with "Meat in the Pot."

Attachment 120463

The other is my 1937 vintage Fox Sterlingworth Ejector Skeet & Upland Game Gun I got in May 1991, but didn't really start shooting much until I retired in October 2002.

Attachment 120467

Since then it has digested tens of thousand of my 7/8-ounce STS loads.

The gun that means the most to me and if I point it at a duck it dies is my HE-C grade Fox with DE stock and checkering. It came from Dana Tauber before he passed. Dana was a good friend and fellow gun collector. Dana had a premier collection of Fox guns that his family sold at Julia's Auction. I hunted the Fox almost exclusively for ducks for 4 or 5 years and have decided to retire it since I made so many memories with the gun.

The gun that would be the last to be sold out of my gun case is the Parker that has been my go-to grouse and woodcock gun for the last dozen or so years. It is a 1904 vintage 16 ga 0 frame DH. It has 26 inch Damascus barrels choked a light IC and Mod, with a pistol grip, splinter forend, double triggers and a skeleton butt. Every time I take in the the woods I feel like I should be wearing calf high lace up leather boots, a coat and tie and a fedora, and hunting behind a brace of Gorden setters. Whoever ordered this gun back in 1904 new what a New England upland gun should be.

Don, you had me up to the coat and tie!! :rotf::rotf:

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.