I went over to my Dad's for dinner. My brother and his family was there too, and there were pork chops. All in all a good weekend all by itself right there. Dad found the single shot .22 from J Stevens and gave it too me. It has a light coating of rust on it that I am going to attend to today. And I have to figure out how Dad got the firing pin OUT of it so I can put it back in.
Last time he fired it, he noticed that some gasses came back at him from the receiver. THAT can't be good.
The rifle is a "Boy's" rifle. The first gun a 12 year old ever owns, at least from a time, 80 years ago, when you could give a .22 to a kid, warn him not to shoot the neighborhood pets of his sister, and let him go off.
I mean was that really done? Ok, I'll go along with kids having a bit more responsibility, but did they have the judgement? I can see a kid never dreaming of shooting his sister, but I can see him setting up tin can targets to shoot at and not thinking about what was behind the targets. Perhaps it was a little more complicated than the original assumptions. Maybe a responsible father took him out and show him where he can shoot and what to watch out for. Or if he didn't have a responsible father, the OTHER kids in the neighborhood did, and a kid could pick up proper judgement from osmosis. At any rate, what HAPPENED to this country? To the WORLD, even?
Anyway. This rifle was my Great Grandmother's squirrel rifle up in Elmira New York. It would be quite a handy piece for a skinny woman barely 5 feet tall. I'm sure no local rodent was safe from Gramma.
I'll have a gunsmith check it out before I dream of firing it, what with blowback issue.
Dad also found a coulple dozen mixed rounds of 20 gauge shells, birdshot and slug. Some in cardboard, which is neat.
One thing that worries me. My father is more of a hoplophobe than I figured. Doesn't like the scary looking rifles, and worried that they can be easily converted from semi-auto to automatic fire. He doesn't understand why I'd want an M1A, or any .30 caliber rifle with 20 round magazines. And he's sure that this blog has brought FBI attention and subsequent file on me. I explained to him that the BATF people would probably be the ones most interested, IF the gubmint was interested, but it's still an pretty innocuous blog don't you think? There are much more ardent blogs defending the 2nd amendment, there are MANY more individuals with larger arsenals. The truly nefarious don't have blogs.
By the way, ONE of the things I'd use an M1A for is deer hunting. Just to do it. I'd use a Garand this weekend if I was going rifle hunting.
Ah, but the truly nefarious are much more hazardous to the health of an enterprising fed with a hankering to get his arrest numbers up.
ReplyDeleteWe non nefarious types are much more likely to think it all must be just a big mistake and quietly submit to the handcuffs.
Those nefarious, non-blogging characters are MUCH more likely to start shooting when the guys in windbreakers with yellow block letters on the back show up.