Which are yours?

[Bill Murphy]

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.

[mobirdhunter]

Originally Posted by Donald McQuade

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.

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.

[Chris Pope]

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.

[ArtS]

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.

[Mills]

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 . . .

[stumpstalker]

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.