The Third and Fourth

In the early 1970s we were living in the nearby city while I was going to school in the mornings and working in a factory second shift. I was working 40 hours a week to support the Boss and our oldest son while maintaining a full time student status to keep from being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Despite all that, I managed to spend a few Saturday mornings hunting small game. That was the only way to keep my sanity.

One day after returning from a multi-store sale in the downtown area of the city, the Boss told me about seeing a shotgun fairly cheap. She suggested I go buy it, because she knew all I had was a single shot .410 and a .22 rifle. A fine woman she is. So I picked up a Savage pump action in 3" 20 gage for the price of $65. It came with a 28" modified barrel that is easily changed. Years later I acquired a slug barrel that's shown in the picture.

I put a lot of meat in the pot with that gun over the years. Even today it's considered my primary home defense weapon. The cylinder bore barrel throwing #2 buckshot would be quite devastating to an intruder.





A couple of years later I poured a concrete driveway for a neighbor to earn money for my first deer hunting trip, to Michigan. I bought this pump action 30-30 that I carried there and on 3 trips to Pennsylvania. It's the same basic design and dimensions as the 20 gage except being a bit slimmer and with the name Springfield on the side of the action. I sometimes carry it varmit hunting because handloads with 110 grain exposed lead hollow points group at slightly less than 1" at 100 yards.