Do You Remember Your First Time?

[spyder]

Ithaca 49 for me also. I got it Christmas 1968, and I still have it but the barrel is shot.

[Researcher]

My family also has one of the real "guns that wone the west" as Jeff. The Civil War Springfield musket converted to a shotgun.

That is the gun the average sod buster had, not a $17 Winchester or Colt!! Ours had belonged to a family member when he was young out in the Dakotas. It came to my father during WW-II and he put it back in service. I shot some doves with it in my college years. Teaches one to keep your swing going!! In my youth we often got a lot of close shots at ducks, jumping them out of Irrigation ditches incidental pheasant hunting, but they never appeared when I was carrying the old Springfield.

[Jeff S]

Wow! Dave, thanks for posting that advertisement. I guess someone must have converted a lot of those guns.

[Researcher]

At one of the Remington Society Seminars that I attended one of the presenters had some of the shipping records for Schuyler, Hartley & Graham. Those records showed they shipped hundreds of the converted Springfields to St Louis and Kansas City dealers and other points west for every Remington, Colt or Winchester they shipped. I've seen ads where they were as cheap as $2.53.

[Stan Hillis]

yes great story Stan, i know you have lots of dove but are there still any quail in your area,take care friend,fred

Precious few, Fred. I can hear them calling regularly behind my house on early mornings during the summer, and we flush them about the farm occasionally, but the number of coveys is very low.

[Researcher]

The ad I showed above is from an 1884 E.C. Mechum Arms Co. catalog. This ad is from an August 1893, Chas. J. Godfrey paper --

[Mills]

I went out on the front lawn with Dad and fired his 20 gauge LC Smith once. It kicked hard and it was another year before I tried again. That was when my great Uncle Hugh gave me a 20 gauge 870 and I began shooting it in earnest at doves.