Rainy day/ beater
 

alright, what do you carry when the weather gets ugly and nasty--you know, those rainy, sleety days when you think twice about carrying one of your nice guns, and debate whether you should be out yourself.
Mine used to be a Fox A grade 16 that had zero bluing, no cc, and the wood was as gray as an old fence post. It also had an old ill-fitting whiteline recoil pad. I loved that old gun and finally had the barrels reblued, the wood refinished, a new leather covered recoil pad, but did not recase it as it has a nice silver patina. Now its a lovely gun and is no longer my rain/beater. That title now belongs to an old Zoli Gray Eagle 20 ga OU w/ double triggers. Someone bent the top lever-don't know how or why. It has an old slip on rubber recoil pad, and I did do a quick refinish of the wood this winter. It wouldn't bother me to hunt that gun thru hell and back.
What do you carry?

This weekend it was the 12 gauge PH for turkey hunting in the rain. Gun has seen hard use (before I owned it) but still functions perfectly.

Can I talk about a pump gun here? I'm getting to be too old to go out in the rain and snow, but back in my younger days, I used a Sears-Roebuck 12 ga pump I paid $99.00 for. The barrel is a 3" chamber, 28" modified

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ass/Sears2.jpg

I painted it with some stuff called "Bowdull", and put a sling on it using a hose clamp around the magazine tube, and toted it for miles around the Pamunkey and Mattiponi rivers. Rain, snow, swamp, dust it didn't matter. It got cleaned once in a while, rather it needed it or not. It rode in the back of pickups, or strapped to the roll bar of my Jeep. It's still in my safe.

Benelli super 90 w/ synthetic stock (don't know if that is considered an acceptable answer) but I did just acquired a Marlin model 90 O/U that will probably become my new one!

Bad weather days I take my Mossberg 500. It has a28" bbl with screw chokes, a 24'' fully rifled bbl, a 26'' muzzle loader bbl and an 18'' sawed off home defense bbl. It's rugged and dependable and I never worry if its getting scratched or dinged. I nicknamed it Killer because of the wide variety of animals it has taken.

A coat of fine wax on Parkers and I'm ready for nasty weather.

I don't let the weather decide what gun I'm takeing. The first time I ever took my H&H 20 out Grouse hunting it started raining shortly after we started hunting. As I drove 90 min to get there I wasn't going to stop because I had a nice gun and it was raining.
At the end of the day a little time with a hair dryer and an oily rag and your good.

We've seen some Parkers that were treated that way. To some they were just a tool to get the job done... and some people just didn't take care of their tools. You can do that to a pump or utility grade Browning O/U without being tarred and feathered by the "doublegun community" but not to a Parker :rolleyes:

1954 circa Ithaca mod 37 12 ga. real easy to clean up afterwards

Parker VH12, 30", 8lbs, no original finishes, whiteline pad, cyl and mod, sling. Pretty sure the pad and sling are factory originals. Also my field trial gun. But it gets heavier every month.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...tHunsVH122.jpg