I really enjoyed the various posts regarding double guns. At least for me, they go hand and hand with Barnegat boats and hand carved decoys. I have been lucky to have owned a lot of double guns over the years. My guess is somewhere near 35 or 40. While I liked them all, I seemed to switch around, selling some, buying others to replace the guns sold. But I still have the first double that I owned. (I started out with a Parker VH 410 that was loaned to me by a friend on my fathers.) That first gun was a Fox Model B 20 bore. I got it Christmas morning 1953. Shot my first duck with it that afternoon, a black duck from Virginia's Smith River. I still use it for snipe with steel 7s. While it isn't nearly as good as the AH Fox guns, it still isn't bad.
I can say that without question, guns from Charles Boswell are my favorites. I have owned 9 of them, and still have two. A few years back, when I decided to thin out some guns, I had a Purdey pigeon gun, and a Charles Boswell Best boxlock pigeon gun. I decided one needed to go. I didn't think twice about selling the Purdey.
While I have posted this before, I will again for those that missed it. My all time favorite doubles for waterfowling are old 10 bores, sleeved and chambered into 3 inch 12s. I currently have 4 of these, a LC Smith O Grade, a W&C Scott backaction grade C, a W&C Scott Premier Grade, and a Charles Boswell. By and large one can pick up old 10s at ok prices. Briley charges $2000.00 to do the sleeving and chambering. I also have an Ithaca Super 10 (the one with the 2 7/8 chambers) that I had Briley just chamber, as the barrels were steel. And I have one of the Field Grade Ithaca 3 1/2 10s, that I once used in the lead shot days, now only use it for turkeys. Those old 10s make classic, heavy waterfowl guns!
And perhaps most important, just having one in the field makes my day just that much better. Worth Mathewson
