by Stephen Wesbrook | Feb 3, 2026
As someone who spends a lot of time working to preserve late 19th century and early 20th century double guns, I have thought a lot about why some high quality and once very expensive shotguns have been well preserved and others have not. The formula for the...
by Stephen Wesbrook | Oct 30, 2025
If a person wants to hunt with the same double barrel shotgun that his or her grandfather or great grandfather used in the early 20th century, the odds are ten-to-one it would not be one of the premium brands that today dominate side-by-side competitions and shotgun...
by Stephen Wesbrook | Oct 14, 2025
Click Here to Read Part 1 This is the second half of a two-part article on classic European doubles imported into the U.S. between the end of our Civil War and the start of the First World War. Part I, which was published in Sporting Classics July/August 2025...
by Stephen Wesbrook | Aug 25, 2025
During the 50 years between the end of our Civil War in 1865 and the start of the First World War, American wingshooters had an extraordinary number of choices in double barrel shotguns, both foreign and domestic. This article is about classic imported doubles that...
by Stephen Wesbrook | Nov 4, 2024
Some of the finest shotguns ever made in America were hammer shotguns produced in the last decades of the 19th century. However, by the end of World War I, most had been retired to gun cabinets to be only admired, not fired. Their barrels had not been designed for the...
