Hey mule, glad ya dug this thread up. I remember seeing it, but it was a year old when I joined this forum and never posted on it.
I have seen of picture that my parents took in 1955. Might have it somewhere, I'll look. It is a picture of me out in the yard in a baby stroller. Across the front of the stroller was what looked like a Daisy BB gun. As long as I can remember, we have had some kinda guns around. My dad was a Chief of Police from 1955-81. I remember his Sam Browne rig hung from the bedpost with a large revolver, a S&W Mod 28 Highway Patrolman. In Jr. high, I started sneaking it off along with tth old Chevy wagon. I would take it to a range with whatever ammo I found in ashtrays. Never could fiure out why some were WAY more powerful than others. Some .38 spl. & some .357s.
My dad would hardly carry the gun unless he had to. He said that handguns wer for shooting people and that they had no other purpose. Living in a small town, everyone knew him and his prescense at a disturbance was often enough to calm down the hardheads, or a good smack with a blackjack. He had several I got to play with. Also snagged an Iver Johnson top break .38 off him that a lady ave him so her husband wouldn't shoot her with it. He hardly carried it cause he had no ammo, but I dug some up when I was in high school. Wore that thing out twice before I traded it. Also had a Mauser HSc .32 with Nazi proofs that I got from an uncle when I was in high school. My dad swapped it to an Orkin man for a job. That kinda pizzed me off, but he said I wasn't suppose to have it. I still had the I.J. .38 stashed. Guess he forgot about it. And I till have he Colt Trooper .22 the city gave him on his retirement and a Trooper III in .357 that I gave him at the same time in 1981. Got pics of those.
Myd dad was a WWII vet. He trained with the infantry and enjoyed shooting a rifle from an early age. He never went overseas. He later trained as a radial engine mechanic at a base where he was also an M.P. He had a second income as asmuggler/finance man to get booze on the base. He had control of the base gate at night. He had been trained to use a Gov't Model, but never liked it. His MP experience helped him getting a lob as an LEO.
Dad trained my brother and I to shoot with CO2 gas powered Crossman pellet rifles at @ age 6 & 7. He said those were alot better than our Daisy BB guns cause they had rifled barrels. He said rifles had a purpose. He worked at a dairy not even 2 miles from where I live now as a kid & teen. That was in the roaring 20s, but they were not roaring around here. He helped his aunt's husband run the dairy and he hunted the area with a single shot .22 rifle that he was given. He would kill small game for meat and sell some to restuarants for $ to buy ammo. During prohibition. He was often left at the dairy alone during prohibition times by his uncle. His uncle would ride down to Mexico on a horse with a pack mules and smuggle tequila into the ranches of south Texas. My dad said his uncle had a large heavy rifle with square corners on the barrel that he was not allowed to use, a lever action with a big hole up front. He remembers seeing it much later after the war at my aunt's garage down the road from the dairy. Gun was kinda beat up and the kids played with it cause it quit working and they had no bullets. After the aunts and cousins moved to town, no one knows what happened to the gun. The dairy and homes there kinda disappared in the overgrown brush. After al that was grown over, we use to hunt out ther with the first .22s we got. i got a Savage tube feed bolt gun and my brother a Marlin single shot. Spent weekends at my grandfandfather's ranch 40 miles south of here also hunting in the brush alot too. * was @ 8 and my brother 7. At 9 years, got a Winch. Mod. 43 bolt gun in .22 Hornet bolt rifle that my dad had used as an outlaw gun. He got himself a new Sako Forrester that year in .243 cal. I had that rifle too for some years after my dad died. i loaned it to my youngest brother and he sold it for nose candy money. Still have the Shotgun he got me at age 9, a Winchester Mod. 1200 pump in 20 ga. Lotta birds killed at both ranchos with that gun. Still have it. No, pics. I'll get some. The Hornet got traded for a Savage bolt gun in the "hot at the time" .222 Rem. It's gone too for a Ruger M77 in .270, which I still have. That was the start of my gun trading habit.
Well, about 2 years ago. I had a guy I knew come by with an old gun. He wanted to sell it. As a kid, I knew him as a problem kid and an alcoholic. He said he got it from some people that had moved into town from a ranch near here. He had taken it to Laredo with him when he moved to get a job there.He had tried to get it fixed, but it cost more than a new one. He had just moved back and needed some $ for gas to look for a job. More likely for a case of beer. Well, it could be my great uncle's rifle, so what the hell. I have it now. It's an 1892 Wnchester in .4-40, a smoleless model, made in @ 1905. It was locked up solid, but I got it loose and firing. It's missing an extractor, sights, loading gate, magazine spring and magazine plug. Bore was actually pretty good. Well, it fits the description my dad gave and I would like to believe that it is the rifle. Can't prove that it was cause all the people that could have identified it are dead.
My soon to be 512 year old Wnichester Mod 1200 in 20 ga. that my father gave me at age 9. That kinda gives ya my age. If the wood & barrel looke kinda new, they are. I swapped my finish worn wood for a set off a gun with no wear. The barrel too. The one on the gun was a 30" full choke. My brother had bulged the barrel near the end after he got dirt in the barrel after crossing a fence. It was cut and had no choke. The new barrel is 28" and modified. Much better for dove.
The more recently acquired 1892 Winchester in .44 WCF that could have belonged to my great uncle. Sights are off a Marlin .22 rifle. They work. Gun Shoots o.k. Barrel is o.k. Ya just have to fire it single shot and pull the shells out with a pocket knife. It needs @ 140 bucks worth of parts to get it working right. Might just leave it looking like it is.
And an Iver Johnson in .38 S&W short like the one I had in Jr. high & high school. It was in way better shape than my original gun.
