Rise & Fall of American SxS's

[Dean Romig]

I guess it's all what you believe in for a gun. If you believe a Perazzi will break clays better and more consistently than an old SXS then for heaven's sake, shoot your Perazzi...

At my skeet club our champion registered skeet shooter Zeno Marcos and I were shooting a round of informal skeet, he with his custom Perazzi with 20 ga. tubes in it and I was shooting a 16 ga. Grade 1 hammer gun and he was teasing me about me not being able to afford a Perazzi. I let it roll off... I had only dropped two birds and he was upset at himself for dropping one. I was shooting low gun - he of course, wasn't. We got to station 8 and he asked if I wanted to try his gun. I had never shot a Perazzi before and I said "Sure." He said in his thick Greek accent "But you can no shoot a Perazzi from down there you gotta mount da gun first."
He passed me the gun and a shell and I smashed the high house bird starting from low gun position. He was surprised. I turned around and faced the low house. Zeno said "You GOTTA mount da gun first! You will never hit this one from down low!" I asked him for two shells and told the trapper to give me two from the low house. Again I swung the gun up from a very low position - at about my waist - and diesel-smoked both of them. Zeno took his gun and just walked away shaking his head.

Trust me, it wasn't the gun....





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[C.O.B.]

IMHO there are no experts left in places like the Gun Library. The "collector guns" are a finite resource just as the people who are knowledgeable in these guns are. The employees look at a computer screen and see what was paid for a similar Parker, Fox, Winchester etc and base there values on that. I'm currently trying to deal with the Reno store on a rifle but they won't answer my questions. Remember this as well Cabellas has a minimum mark up of 30% on the rifle I'm considering there trying to make 50%+.

Perhaps we as SXS aficionados are a dying breed and maybe we won't recover the value we put into a gun at least monetarily speaking. The enjoyment I get from carrying a light well balance small bore following a pointing dog in the grouse coverts or pheasant fields transcends any amount of money.

[Mills]

I have tried to get some of our top shooters at our gun club to give side by sides a try and they just don't want to do it. I haven't given up though.

[Kirk Potter]

I never personally knew anyone who shot one, but so much of upland hunting for me has to do with the history of it.. I never saw any beautiful old painting with setters and autoloaders.

[Southpaw]

Dean like your story with the Perazzi guy. Too funny. I learned a long, long, long time ago to never underestimate or overestimate someones shooting prowess based on what kind of gun they were toting. I know too many country boys that would show up to a dove shoot in blue jeans and a white T-shirt shooting a beat up pump shotgun and walk out with bag of mixed shells and not miss a dang bird. They just know how to shoot. Also got the misfortune of quail hunting the same area as this guy using that same old gun. He had a decent dog, but that guy was a covey killer. He was hunting for the pot so there is no convincing him about fine qualities of a double barrel.

The French say hunger makes the best sauce. I say hunger makes the best shots.

[Michael D Hankinson]

The Cabelas in Grandville Michigan really changed recently after they were bought out and the competing Gander Mountain firearms Supercenter closed about a year ago. Many of the guns in their Library have been reduced by 10%, without any pattern that I can see. Doubles , Autos, does not seem to matter and many are still way overpriced. They have two Parkers currently, a V grade for three grand plus and a D grade for about six grand now. At the two recent local gun shows I attended in Grand Rapids area I saw a reduction in prices overall for everything from $100 .22 rifles to old Savage 99's etc. Never seem to see higher quality doubles at these shows. Two major changes in the Gun Library are when they first opened they would buy for about 70% of a guns value, now more like 50% and they are under direction to never buy anything that has a crack in the wood, or even a slight possibility of a crack. None of the original Gun Library personnel are still there and the age of the group appears to have dropped from 65 to 35. Guess that tells us a little.

[Kirk Potter]

Don’t get me started on Gander Mountain.. They priced themselves out of existence.

[Victor Wasylyna]

Originally Posted by Kirk Potter

Don’t get me started on Gander Mountain.. They priced themselves out of existence.

The Gander Mountain by me recently closed down. Now I know why.

I was there once and never returned. The fishing department had more saltwater fishing gear than walleye gear or steelhead gear. It’s hundreds of miles to saltwater, but only a few to some of the best walleye and steelhead fishing in the country. Never made sense to me.

-Victor

[Mills]

Gander Mountain was a joke. Some of the online retailers are as well. Some guns have been on Gunbroker and Gunsinternational since I began going on there.

[C.O.B.]

I finally heard back from the Gun Library people in Nev. I had to tell them how to figure out the twist rate in a rifle. I have never been in the Grandville MI Cabelas but they have a Ruger M77 in 6.5X55 that's way overpriced and it's been there for at least 6 mos. They paid more than the retail value of this one.

If you want a used Porsche you go to an individual or a Porsche dealer not the local Ford,Chevy dealership that might have one on the lot. If you want a collectible firearm go to a dealer that specializes in them or an individual not a big box retail store.