Sixgun (or any other gun for that matter) Stories

[nobearsyet]

As some of you might have read, I have been reading a lot of you guys stories and have decided that I enjoy them so much, I'm certain enoug hthat somebody else might enjoy it to. So here is a place to post some of those storied about haw some of your sixguns (or any other gun) you own got some of there "beauty marks". Keep in mind I am trying to get enough to compile a whole book of them. If I get enough then maybe it'll get published, if yours gets used and I can get it published, you'll get a copy on me.

[turbo]

You first.

[smokeeater2]

I'll give it a try.

I've always been fascinated with handguns but most of them were far out of my financial as a kid. When I was 12 my Dad "permanently loaned" me his old Harrington and Richardson Sportsman .22 and for years I was in hog heaven,that little 9 shot double action got one heck of a workout and I carried it everywhere I could. But the gun I really wanted was a Colt Single action Army since my Dad and most of his friends carried one as well as John Wayne himself! Along about that time I discovered Shooting Timesmagazine and the articles that Skeeter Skelton wrote about his experiences with the SAA and that just made things worse I had to have a Colt!
Saving enough money for a Colt was tough since high paying jobs for a ranch kid were few and far between in Arkansas in the late 70's but as my senior year in school started Dad made a deal with me,if I got my mind off of girls,football and cars long enough to graduate easily he would make up the difference in my hay hauling money and I'd have my Colt!
( I got a little long winded here and I apologize,I'll try to wrap this up)
I kept my end of the deal and so did Dad and a 1978 Colt SAA in .357 Magnum was all mine finally! I reloaded my first rounds ever for this gun and I've carried it everywhere and hunted everything with it. It has a bit of holster wear at the muzzle and the CCH has some thin spots but it's still as rock solid as the day I got it and it still goes deer hunting with me often. With the 158 gr. SWC's from Missouri Bullet co. it shoots better than I can and laid out a coyote that was eying the laying hens this spring. I have several hand guns I'm deeply fond of but if I was forced to spend the rest of my days with just one, the old Colt would be it.

[smokeeater2]

Another view, please excuse my lack of camera skills.

[bigmuddy]

I like that gun and the story. I don't have one of "those" guns. I have too many to have a good story about ONE!

I always like to read about them though.

[Madbo]

I ENJOYED YOUR STORY VERY MUCH.
THANKS
SU AMIGO
MB

[hoss]

TWO SHOTGUNS AND A RIFLE:
My maternal grandfather had a Marlin lever action 22... not a 39, but a weird looking (I believe) clip fed hammerless Marlin 22. I don't recall the model, but I do recall the efficiency of Grandpa Kenneth as he used it to dispatch garden pests and henhouse raiders. Wildcats, rabbits, and squirrels that ran afoul of Grandpas egg or produce operation had no chance for appeal. Snakes, water moccasins and copperheads were shot on sight near the yard or henhouse. The marlin was heavy as all get out, and laser accurate in his hands... it was the gun most of us kids (the children of my 2 aunts and 3 uncles) learned to shoot with. Peering through joke shop thick spectacles with an unfiltered Pall Mall dangling from his lips,I watched as he fired one shot at the tiny speck that was the protruding head of an egg thieving blacksnake. Seeing the snake frantically squirm, I assumed he'd missed it clean... until it ceased its struggle and dangled lifeless from the knothole it had crawled through. An egg still in its swollen abdomen on the other side of its escape route, brother snake had been hit in the eye. Grandpa was not one to waste cartridges.The distance was probably 25 yards or under, but I felt I had just witnessed a feat of Billy Dixon-like marksmanship. The rifle is still in the family. Grandpa passed in '86. If I see another like it, I'd probably mortgage the kids to get it.
On my dads side, shotguns were the norm. My grandfather had a winchester 37 in 16 gauge, a gun purchased with woodsbumming proceeds. It is responsible for the best shot I never made. Covered with rust, the stock was held together at the wrist with baling wire, a fence post brad, and electrical tape... (an irate cow had attacked Grandpa and he had bludgeoned the beast to sensibility, or at least to a better understanding of what not to do). I toted it afield after rabbits with Bernie, my uncle's rabbit dog. Unfortuanately, Bernie was far more interested in treeing squirrels than running lop ears. In spite of my gentle persuasion, choice foul language (delivered as only a 12 year old boy who thinks no one is listening can) and thrown dirtclods, he would not desist. Disgusted, I walked away from him and dropped a line and bobber in the pond as I prepared to walk the corn rows. A great ruckus arose behind me. When I got to him I found his nose was scratched and blood was welling in the deep gouges: He laid a squirrel at my feet. He caught and suffocated the bushytail, then gave it to me as if to say "Thats how ya do it, stupid." Grandpa, seeing the holes left by Bernie's teeth, threatened me with a serious whupping if he found a single pellet in the squirrel. He cleaned and dressed it thoroughly... No whuppin. Good dog. Never even fired the 16 gauge.
The last shotgun was my great grandfathers: a '97 winchester in 12 gauge with a long barrel. The old pump-gun had set in the same spot for so long the recoil pad had flared out at the top. Coming in to use the facilities, I eyed the old rascal... and decided I knew enough about guns to look it over. I eased the bolt back far enough to see the shell in the chamber, then eased it back. The hammer stopped at the half cock notch, then dropped on the live round. My head swam as the smoke cleared, aided by the breeze from the funny looking round window. The bolt hadn't closed fully, and as it popped open it took a good sized skiv of meat out of my hand. Thankfully, the muzzle was in a safe direction. No one hurt. God watches over fools and children. My brother has the shotgun... its a well finished wall hanger now. I took it to a well referred 'smith for a reblue and to have the trigger fixed and timing issues resolved. He reblued it "first", then found he couldn't fix it. Ain't that the way?

[mergus]

I have one for you, although its little bit different than most of the rest of the sixgun stories on this site. About the time I turned 10 years old, I got a huge hankering for a BB gun. Not just any BB gun, but a Daisy BB pistol. At the time Daisy made a replica of the Colt Peacemaker. It was an anemic 12 shot, spring powered replica, but my Lord did I want one of those. My father was an ex Wash DC cop who was not at all predisposed to me owning any kind of pistol, but I begged and whined at be allowed to earn the money to but one. As I recall, I sold seed packages or some such thing till I got enough money to send away for one.

We were living in Prince Georges County Md, even then a haven of anti gunners. Pop didn't want me to tell anybody that I had a BB pistol, he figured that if word got out, that surely somebody in the nieghborhood would tell a greatly exaggerated version of the "BB Pistol" story to the county cops. He used to set up a blanket on a door opening in the basement with a paper target taped to the blanket for me to shoot at. I felt like a big shot then boys!

A couple of years later we moved to the Eastern Shore of Md. I was amazed to see that every kid going was carting around a BB gun of some type or another on their bikes. I pestered my Dad into getting me a holster to put that BB pistol into so that I could ride around wearing it. That BB gun looked very realistic and drew many a concerned stare from city people driving through in their cars. I shot that gun every day for years, frequently going through several hundred BB's a day shooting at flying birds, jelly fish, bee's nests (not too brite) and every other thing that seemed to need shooting at.

Twenty years later, I'm married, living in Vermont and moving into a house with my new bride. I put a bag of misc shooting stuff into the attic and forgot about it. 15 years later I happened on that bag and pulled it out to see what was in there. Damned if my old BB pistol wasn't in there, still in the old holster. Of course I had to pull it out and see if I could still twirl it on my finger...Yep, still can. That BB pistol, while nothing at all special in the conventional sense, is the first "gun" I ever owned or shot. With any luck I will have it till I die and then pass it along to my son with all the other stuff I consider "valuable".

Thats my gun story.

Mergus

[nobearsyet]

OK, here's one of mine
About the time I turned 21 I left the United States Air Force due to reasons of overmanning and me being single wit ha two year old daughter (long story, am not going into it, period). When me and the rug rat returned t omy native northeastern Ohio I made the investment of 100 hard earned air force dollars in a Savage/Stevens/Springfield model 67A pump shot gun as Ohio was and still is a shotgun only state for deer hunting and my guns hadn't been delivered yet, it was slightly beat u pwhe nI got it and looks a heck of a lot worse today. I have (and will continue to) carried that beat up pump gun everywhere. But back to the story line. One day my gun club buddies and I signed up for one of those paid ranch Pheasant hunts in nearby Kinsman Ohio. I hunted all day for pheasant, chukkar, ruffed grouse, and and bobwhite quail, but was unable to ge tany of the above. Well, as luck would have it the dog managed to jump a mallard duck (the old man thta owned the place raised them for field trials and one managed to escape the pen and make a short lived break for freedom in the field we were hunting), well, needless to say I shot the duck, out of season, wit hlead shot, but the old timer that owned the place put in a call to the game warden and told him what happened and he said it was fine, just to put a band on it's leg like he did with the pheasants everybody was actually out ot shoot anyways. The duck folded nicley when I put a handload of 1oz. #6 lead shot under his wing at something like 1290fps out of that 12ga. I thought he was dead. I wrung his neck to make sure and stuffed him into the game bag. Which I threw into the back seat of my the nbrand spanking new extended cab Chevrolet pickup
On the way home (while doing approximately 65 mph down a country road) I heard a quack come from my back seat after hitting a rather hard bump thta moved the gear also in the backseat of the truck around and I figured one of the guns must have fallen on the duck and it was just the sound of the air escaping his lungs and running through his vocal chords that made the quack. Suprised was I when about 3 miles later I happened to reach for a cigarrette and saw that duck sitting on my passenger seat. I have never thrown a truck in park so fast and skidded to a stop in my life. I grabbed the duck and slammed him into the windshield several times until blood appeared on my windshield and the ducks head. Again, I thought he was dead.
About 20 minutes later I pulled into the center of Windsor OH. I stopped at the red light (which just happens to be in the center of the gas station, city hall, a convenient store, and a nice little restaurant/gunshop/liquor store/bar) and saw what I thought wa smovement in the duck, I looked at him again and sure enough, he lifted his head and started to flap his wings (man was he p@##$d).
He gave me a flailing I never thought a duck could give a grown man. I threw open the door, yanked open the back door, grabbed the shotgun out from the back seat palmed a round into the chamber and turned around in just enoug htime to see my duck starting to fly away, needless to say I eppered his rear end about 4feet from the muzzle(keep in mind that gun is choked full) and watched his entire back end seem to disintegrate int opuff of feathers and blood(it also put several tiny holes in the roof of my truck from stray pellets). By this time I think evryone in town was out on their front porches/sdewalks/etc. laughing at the spectacle that just ensued. And t omy ill luck on walks over a Trumbull county sheriff's deputy that was filling his cruiser up at the gas station behind me. I got lucky and he didn't charge me, but man did I get laughed at that day. And the worst part of it all was the duck was so ripped up I didn't even get to eat him (there wasn't enough meat left to try)

[church]

Hoss

The Marlin you describe is the "Levermatic" series. Vaguely Savage 99 like lever, vaguely Garand looking receiver, and a 1=piece stock. No raving beauty, but runners in every instance I've used them.

There was a box magazine fed .22LR version, which memory tells me might have been the Model 56.

In addition, a tube fed .22LR, a tube fed .22WRFM, plus box fed .30 USC and .256 WinMag guns were made.