Suponski's Trap Gun Day One Grand American 1926

[Autumn Daze]

Thank You Bill...But I think you did all the finding. Just wonderful news.

Guy's..The gun is a VHE 32" Vent Rib Single Trigger Trap Gun. Built on a 1 1/2 frame. This gun has radar...One of the most sweetest swinging guns I have ever owned. Station 5 hard left to right trap targets are destroyed by this gun. In fact I used it on the 5 stand at the spring Southern. I used home grown spreaders to open the gun to Mod/Mod and shot my best scores ever. She just seems to do anything I ask of her.

[Double Lab]

Could'nt see the forearm very well but is it a splinter and not a beavertail? Nice gun and history to go along with it.

[CSL]

Are those older DelGrego case colors I see on the 32" vent/rib Saxbe, Murphy, Suponski, Trap Gun???...

Best, CSL
_______________________________

[Autumn Daze]

Yes,Chris. Bill had the gun restored by DelGrego awhile back I have the original wood for the gun here.

[10ga Hammer]

Ok Dave, enough teasin! Get out a YELLOW towel and give us some nice closeups, we wana see more! Sweet gun!

[Bill Murphy]

The gun had been a competition gun for much of its life and had had the metal restored by William B. Saxbe at Del Grego's probably. The wood was past its prime, poorly finished with a cracked forearm as I recall. A few years ago, Kevin McCormack and I were visiting our friends Babe and Lawrence Del Grego and I spotted a finished stock and splinter forearm on the bench. I asked about it and was told that they had built the stock for a customer's VHE and the customer wanted to exchange it for a fancier piece of wood. Kevin, Babe and I were headed out to lunch when I asked Lawrence whether there was a chance that the stock might fit on the tired old trap gun. He gave me the standard answer that "such things just don't happen". When the three musketeers returned from lunch, you can guess what we found. The new stock and forend were fully installed and fitted on the Attorney General's trap gun. I shot the gun a little, but my favorite trap and pigeon gun is my old PHE crossover two barrel set, and I didn't need two. I picked Dave as the PGCA friend that most needed a big gun. The VHE doubled a bit and I told Dave about it. To complete the story, the gun has never doubled in Dave's hands. To end this story, Dave, tell us when the gun was made so we can put it in the elder Mr. Saxbe's hands at the time of the big scores in 1926 and 1927. For those who asked, the original gun was a full house VHE trap with beavertail. They are rare birds in V Grade. I was in error when I said I bought the gun from WBS's estate. Mr. Saxbe was alive when I purchased the big Parker. He passed away in 2010.

[charlie cleveland]

now thats a gun with a storey we can all relate too.. i guess if all these old parkers could talk wed be reading for a long while..at least this gun got to tell its storey.... charlie

[Autumn Daze]

Bill, I don't think we have anything on 221256. The Serialization Book dates the gun to 1927. I have always called this gun "The Murderers Row" gun after the 1927 Yankees. But if this date is correct 1927 would be a bit late. I have no doubt that this is a Saxby gun as you bought it from the estate.The gun may have been finished in 1926 and waited on the rack to be sold.

[Bill Murphy]

The 1926 scores at the Grand American could have been shot with another gun. Sparrow Young won the Grand American Handicap that year. The Springfield, Ohio shoot where Saxbe beat Sparrow Young was reported in the July 16, 1927 Sportsman's Review, so he could have been shooting the Parker at that shoot. If you look at the Stock Book records, book 76, which began in April of 1926, ended with serial #219,857. The Saxbe gun could have been in existence in the last part of 1926, possibly by the date of the Grand American, August 23 to 28. Saxbe was a high volume, high average shooter in those times and later reports probably carry his name. Bart's 199 in the preliminary A Class shoot won him third place. I don't know how he placed in the Grand American Handicap, but Bill Moore's report says Bart broke 98X100 in the second hundred of the second day of preliminaries.

[AmarilloMike]

Dave or Bill would you please post the stock dimensions for that gun? What does the Parker letter give as the stock dimensions were when it left the factory?

Thanks!

Miie