Like most boys my age in the early 1950’s, my first gun was a single-shot .410. It didn’t take very long for me to find out it wasn’t much good on flying targets or even running rabbits for that matter. My only source of income was a paper route, so funds were pretty scarce. A new Model 870 or a Model 12 was just a dream.

We had a local pawn shop dealer who was a very understanding man to the point he would actually rent out guns to high school kids to take out hunting by the day. He also sold us shotgun shells for 10 cents each. A whole box of shells was equal to a week’s worth of gas for our motor scooters, so a dollar’s worth of shells had to last all day.