Here's what you'll find in this edition:

• Classy Double Guns
  
• Holt's Upcoming Auction and Sealed Bid Auction
  
• Tulsa Arms Show and The Spring Southern SxS, Sanford NC .....Be sure to stop by and see us!!!

Classy Double Guns

If it looks good, feels good, and kills birds dead, it qualifies as a Classy Double.

By Steve Hickoff

XE Grade Fox Double Shotgun

My late grandfather — the one who manned a tank in WWII — gunned Pennsylvania red- and gray-phase ruffed grouse with the same Fox Sterlingworth I now carry afield.

This is how a double gun acquires history and meaning from one generation to the next (and what the anti-gun people don’t understand). Hunts add seasoned character to game-scene engraving and walnut stocks. Guys like us get warm and fuzzy feelings about such stuff.

Double guns, put simply, are shotguns with two barrels. Side-by-sides (not to be confused with the four-wheeled types that take us places), and over/unders (nothing to do with Vegas sports betting, mind you) qualify. The classy part has everything to do with what editor Kevin Michalowski calls: “Expensive stuff . . . stuff that makes people say . . . hey, nice!”

This wow factor rules.

Some double guns win you over at first look and shoulder mount. The qualifier: Does it look good, feel sweet in your hands, and kill birds dead? That’s a classy double gun.

Fox Double Guns

As the story goes, President Theodore Roosevelt travelled to Africa in March 1909, shortly after leaving office. The A.H. Fox Company had presented him with an FE grade, 12-gauge double. In a letter to Mr. Fox following the gun’s arrival, Roosevelt described it as “the most beautiful gun I have ever seen.” No doubt functional too as he used it as part of the mammal-collecting safari for the Smithsonian Museum (160 species all told, observed and taken by the Colonel and his group of naturalist/collectors).

Unlike Roosevelt, I have yet to wingshoot Africa.

I doubt that my English setter Radar cares what I carry afield, especially when he’s all business and locked up on a ground-crouching woodcock in a painted New England cover, but I do. That timberdoodle, like others before it, often rises, planes out. Boom. Dead bird, we hope. My setter boy does seem to care a little when I miss, flashing me that glaring WTF look (ask your text-messaging kid to translate that acronym for you). I think my shooting improves dramatically if the shotgun looks and feels good in my hands. Truth is, I know it does.

As mentioned at the start, my Fox Sterlingworth came to me through a family line of bird hunters — it killed a PA grouse on the first shot, fitting perfectly on my shooting shoulder. By fortune or circumstance, I also married into an A-grade Fox double. My wife’s great-grandfather, a.k.a “The Boss,” once appeared in an issue of Field & Stream back in the 1930s. Pictured there, a brace of Pennsylvania grouse held by the man himself, his nosed-minded English pointer nosing them READ MORE

Holt’s is Europe’s dominant auction house for fine modern and antique guns but we are also a major force on the global stage. With four sales per year from our London salerooms we are ideally placed to handle the sale of important international collections through to single Lots. We pride ourselves on quality of service and the efforts we go to in order to achieve the best hammer price for our vendors; for instance, we are the only house in our field to produce a full hard-back catalogue. We make regular visits to the U.S. but also have a representative based with you who makes the process of shipping items to England for sale a simple, straight-forward procedure.

Running alongside each quarterly sale, we also hold a large sealed-bid sale that typically will contain approximately 2,000 Lots ranging from game and clay-shooting guns, sporting rifles, vintage and modern fishing equipment, including collectors’ reels, and a plethora of accessories. Generally, the Lots are of a lower financial value than in the main sale but generate an enormous amount of interest. We already have a good many American buyers and so are well-versed in shipping Lots out to their new owner. Do browse through our website and see how we can help U.S. clients, buyers and vendors alike. Click here to view sealed bid items.

We are on the road again.........Worlds Largest Gun Show and a fun shoot coming up. If you have the opportunity to come, please stop by the GunsInternational.com booth for a visit.

Tulsa Arms Show

March 31 & April 1, 2012

More Than 4,100 Tables!

Southern Side by Side Championship & Exhibition Spring Classic

April 27, 28 and 29, 2012

Deep River Sporting Clays

Sanford, NC

Exhibitors from the U.S. and Europe will occupy four tents offering a wide variety of fine guns, sporting clothes, accessories, books, art, fine jewelry, dog kennels, sporting travel providers.

Competitions will be available for shooters of all gauges of SxS shotguns.