Who Killed the Side-by-Side Shotgun?

This column, “The Side-by-Side,” appeared in the November 1972 issue of Outdoor Life.

No other type of firearm conjures up such images in the mind of the beholder as does the side-by-side shotgun. The true believer has only to open the action of a classic side-by-side and he is transported to a land where autumn leaves flutter across frosty earth, where great hunting dogs hold motionless points, where a flannel shirt and old wool tie feel just right under a worn-in shooting coat, and the whole world smells of damp tweed, Rangoon oil, leather hunting bags, and the smoke from old-fashioned paper shotshells.

Reams of manuscript paper have extolled the virtues of the side-by-side, but to my knowledge no one has actually succeeded in divulging its mystique. Whether the 1970’s will go down in history as the golden decade of the side-by-side double remains to be seen. Frankly I doubt it. However, there is no doubt that the side-by-side is making a rather startling comeback from its low point of the 1950’s. At that time, rumor was that the side-by-side would soon be as extinct as the dodo.

Typewriter soothsayers explained that the manufacture of doubles was dependent on a select group of supercraftsmen who were charter members of the endangered-species list, and when these souls moved on to that big gunshop in the sky the production of doubles would cease forever.

This prediction seemed to have a ring of truth, but it was at odds with the age-old law of supply and demand. In other words, the dearth of skilled gunsmiths was brought about by a slackened demand for doubles.

Right now there is probably a serious shortage of skilled buttonhook-makers (I haven’t checked). I’m willing to bet that if buttonhooks should suddenly come back into vogue, top-notch buttonhook-makers would start cropping up all over the place. It happened with shotgun fitters. With the current renewal of interest in side-bys, more skilled craftsmen were flushed out of hiding than anyone imagined existed. Spain and Italy in particular seemed to have whole regiments of them.

Ah, you say, but these aren’t true craftsmen in the sense of those redoubtable souls who crafted the Parkers, Smiths, and Foxes of a generation ago. Don’t kid yourself. Just take the lock out of a DeLuxe Grade L. C. Smith that sold for $1,290 in 1940 and compare it with the lockwork in a modern Spanish or Italian-made double selling in the $1,000 range today.

Frequently you may hear that the great depression of the 30’s spelled the doom of the better American doubles such as Parker, L. C. Smith, Ithaca, A. H. Fox, and so on. The depression no doubt had an effect on these firms, but mainly in that it brought about certain consolidations. Parker, for example, was bought by Remington, Marlin took over L. C. Smith, and so on. Each of these guns, however, stayed in production throughout the depression and each was still on the market after World War II.

Another reason sometimes given for the demise of the American doubles is that they priced themselves out of the market. Is this really true? According to the 1948 edition of the Shooters Bible, a field-grade L. C. Smith sold for $96.10, the same grade in an Ithaca cost $91.47, and the sturdy Lefever cost only $52.09 and $7.15 more for the single-trigger model. The plainest-grade Model 12 Winchester pump gun sold for $78.50, and the Remington Model 11 autoloader sold for $94. Browning got $94.40 for its bottom-of-the-line autoloader.

In other words, the prices of doubles were about the same as, and often less than, competitive-grade pumps and autos. The simple fact is that nobody was interested in buying a side-by-side double, especially when a five-shot pump or “automatic” could be had for the same money. That’s when the doubles were checked off the list. Reason? No demand.

The postwar popularity of pumps and autos was in no small way a result of the appeal they held for the ex-G.I. After a man had spent several years sighting down the barrel of a Garand or B.A.R., a single-barrel fast-loading sporting arm had a certain familiar appeal. But I’m inclined to believe that the temporary demise of the double was also brought about by more-subtle factors.

One of these was the outdated stock design held over from the days when shooters liked to keep their heads erect and well back from the breech. The drop of these stocks was often as much as, or more than, two inches at the comb and three inches at heel. Thus, when a modern-style shooter snugs his cheek down on the comb, all he sees is a worm’s-eye view of the rear of the action. This picture causes a man to shoot under the target.

I was brought up in prime quail-hunting territory where shotguns were as common as kitchen stoves. This was the land of the “gentleman” bird shooter. I can remember dirt farmers wearing whipcord breeches, vests, felt hats, and neckties when hunting bobwhite. This custom put the occasion on a formal plane at least equal to weddings and funerals.

Even so, autoloaders and pumps outnumbered doubles in the field by a wide margin. The phrase “I love a double but hit better with a pump” was heard so often that I came to accept it as the eleventh commandment. I think this difference was largely a result of differences in stocking. Most shooters found it difficult to go back to a double after having used a straighter-stocked shotgun for a while.

I don’t mean that side-by-side doubles ceased to be respected. Quite the contrary. A good secondhand double was a highly tractable item. In fact doubles were held in such high· regard as a substitute for legal tender that you might have suspected that the entire Southern economy was based on how many doubles a man held in reserve. A farm hand or mill worker would blow a month’s wages on a double, show it off like a proud father, keep it as clean and polished as a hound’s tooth, and then carry a pump afield when he was after meat for the table. This situation puzzled me.

My first double was a nondescript veteran with the brand name “Cloud Buster” and featuring a razor-sharp comb that chiseled my cheekbone every time I pulled the trigger. It also had a locking mechanism that would, on occation, leave me standing with butt and action in one hand and fore-end in the other, while the barrels went flying elsewhere. This undependability resulted in the old gun’s retirement and my purchase of a secondhand 20-gauge A. H. Fox for which I paid $8. That same shotgun would fetch $200 or so on today’s market.

By the time I had succumbed to the spell of doubles, their prices, especially for a good Fox or Parker, had gotten out of hand, and about that time I was in college with no recognizable income. Nonetheless, whatever odd sums of cash I could raise were promptly spent on guns and reloading components.

It was my heart’s desire to own a 20-gauge Winchester Model 21. The price was about $400 then, and I despaired of ever owning one. A nice 20-gauge Model 21 turned up at a local gun show and trading session, and it made my mouth water. But at best I could have raked up only about $100 for a couple of clunkers I had for sale. So I didn’t even bother to ask the price. But somebody else did ask, and it was $75!

During the late 1950’s a few Spanish and Italian-made side-bys began to seep into the U.S. The quality ranged from pretty good to pretty bad, but they sold fairly well. Possibly it was because they had a more or less “classic” look and a spot or two of engraving, but more probably because they had straighter stocks that allowed better “feel” and pointability.

They usually featured beavertail foreends, single trigger, and selective ejectors. Prices for a Spanish or Italian double with all these features occasionally ran under $200. A Winchester Model 21 with similar equipment ran close to $500.

Some of these imports were pretty sorry. Especially those distributed by the discount chains. Firing pins broke, fore-ends refused to stay on, and barrels separated. This performance caused a temporary, but widespread, wariness of imported doubles. There were, however, enough really sturdy imports to convince folks that the Italians and Spaniards could make really good guns when they set themselves to the task.

More recently, shotgunners have come to recognize the higher-quality (and higher-priced) guns by A YA, Beretta, Perazzi, Gamba, and others as being among the world’s great guns. The Italian firm of Fabbri currently lays claim to the most expensive shotgun manufactured, and more than a few experts rank Fabbri No. 1 in the shotgun hierarchy. The samples I’ve seen-but never shot-were superb. The highest-grade Fabbri (the Puccinelli 8000) sells for about $8,000. Fabbri’s bottom-ofthe- line number, if you’re looking for something cheap, costs about $2,000.

The beautiful SO-7, Beretta’s top-ofthe- line side-by, is built along British sidelock lines as is the Mauser Model 580 built by Gamba. Both are outstanding examples of Italian workmanship, with prices to match. The SO-7 costs about $2,000, and the Mauser goes for $935 with single trigger.

It’s almost impossible to discuss fine double guns for any length of time without mentioning the British makes. The firms of Boss, Purdey, Holland & Holland, plus a few others have earned legendary reputations. Even a non fancier of guns is impressed by them-certainly by the price tags.

At its best the fine English double is custom-made-“bespoken” as the British say-for the customer and, ideally, in perfectly matched and identically balanced pairs. The catch is that delivery time averages up to two years or longer, and I understand that if you order a Boss, probably the greatest of all English doubles, you just have to get in line and take your chances. Boss doesn’t allow the customer any say about the grade of gun he can select. Their comment on this subject is flat and terse: “Boss makes only one grade of gun the best that money can buy.”

The production of English guns is agonizingly slow, and the prices are so high that I’m inclined to think that the customer pays for a great deal of tea drinking. Here of late the work force has been augmented, I understand, by Spanish craftsmen. A recent visitor to an Italian arms plant tells me that he saw a number of forgings and softfitted actions that were bound for a well-known English firm. Be that as it may, there is no denying that the spiraling prices of “best” English guns insures that the buyer can usually get the original purchase price for his double on the used-gun market.

In these days of intense trap-and-skeet competition, the side-by-side double is almost never seen on the line. That’s a pity. Skillful use of the side-by is a joy to behold. But when both barrels get hot, the mirage Qan be fearful; ventilated ribs are of very little help certainly less than they are for single-barrels or over-and-unders. And the two barrels also offer a lot of reflective surface to dazzle the eye in bright sunlight. The hunter seldom if ever notices this, but competitive shooters have a morbid fear of such things.

For hunting, however, the handling characteristics of light, well-balanced side-by-side shotguns make them unequaled for upland game. I have proven this, to my own satisfaction at least, with a 20-gauge lightweight Bernardelli I bought a few years ago from Hardin & Knight of Miami, Florida, a firm specializing in Italian-made custom-fitted shotguns and replacement barrels.

With this double I can approach to within 12 feet of a low skeet house, face it squarely, and hit about two out of three clays. This is the only gun I can do it with.

Doubles seem to bring out the oldfashioned tastes in shooters. My own preferences tend to be downright reactionary. Take single triggers, for example. I love ’em for over-and-unders, but somehow I tend to favor two triggers for side-by-sides. This opinion, I admit, is inspired by association with a grizzled old birdshooter when I was an impressionable teenager. He insisted that the purpose of having two barrels was so two triggers could be used. I can’t recall his line of reasoning, but the impression lingers on.

I’ve seen a few over-and-unders with combination triggers. They look like ordinary double triggers, but in fact the front trigger is a nonselective single trigger in that it fires the bottom and then the top barrel. If the shooter wants to fire the top barrel first he uses the rear trigger first. I would like this arrangement on a side-by-side. But all this is assuming that the barrels are choked differently. If the barrels are choked alike, a nonselective single trigger is just fine.

I like selective ejectors, too, but they can be a nuisance on occasions, especially if you want to save the fired hulls when shooting skeet or trap.

The stocking of side-bys always brings on lots of talk. Some traditionally minded shotgun makers, especially the English, feel that the only purpose of a pistol-grip stock is to compensate for some sort of physical deformity or handicap in the shooter. I am inclined to agree. A straight-gripped stock looks good, feels good, and works good. Frankly, I cannot claim to shoot better with a straight-gripped stock than with a pistol grip, or vice-versa. So I favor the straight grip because in my opinion it looks better, and lends additional grace of line and proportion to the whole gun.

I tend to run hot and cold on beavertail fore-ends. They feel nice in the hand, keep the fingers away from the barrels, and occasionally look pretty good. Some, however, look awful, especially those big square-end, blocky-looking designs. The Winchester 21 is an example of a trim beavertail fore-end.

The aptly nicknamed “splinter” foreends are disagreeable mainly to shooters who try to use them as a handle for the forward hand. The forward hand should hold the barrels themselves.

Some English and European doubles are finished without any sort of buttplate or recoil pad-only bare, checkered wood. Occasionally this feature is taken as the sign of a high-quality gun, but it ain’t necessarily so. The cheapest gun I ever saw didn’t have a buttplate either. I certainly pref er a plain butt to a plastic buttplate, but generally a plain butt is somewhat impractical. The ultimate in buttplates is the skeleton-type such as seen on some better-grade Parkers. It is vastly superior in appearance and practicality. But this type is tough to fit, and most makers avoid it like the plague. Next best are steel caps inlaid at heel and toe.

Read Next: Classic American Shotguns According to Jim Carmichel

As for the gauge, the 12 bore still holds sway but is steadily losing ground to the 20. Smaller gauges such as the 28 and .410 in my opinion, don’t look right in side-by-sides. They appear too whippy, and the whole profile tends to be out of balance unless the stock lines are drastically reduced. But this is a matter of looks, not performance.

The ideal double, in my opinion, would be along British lines but built by an Italian craftsman, engraved by an Austrian, and stocked in French Walnut by an American-all at Spanish prices.