ONE DAY IN THE SUMMER OF 1985, I wandered into a bookshop and found, tucked away on a shelf marked “Sports,” a book by Michael McIntosh. It was The Best Shotguns Ever Made in America, published in 1981, and it told the story of the legendary American sideby- sides: Parker, A.H. Fox, Ithaca, L.C. Smith, Lefever, and the Winchester 21.
The book was drawn from a series of magazine articles written in the 1970s, when McIntosh worked for the Missouri Conservationist. At that time, all but the Winchester 21 were out of production. For such a slim volume (just 185 pages), the book had an enormous impact. By recounting the stories of seminal, forgotten guns, it reignited interest in the American side-by-side in the hearts of many more. My own…