Was Cage the BAR guy on combat? How bout the Sears catalog at Christmas? I had a marlin 30-30 picked out . My dad being a model 70 guy said you dont want one of those. I didnt get either one. Doug
As a kid, what gun did you dream of owning?
- Thread starter Infrequent Shooter
- Start date
Blackthorn
Silver $$ Contributor
Steve McQueen portraying Tom Horn lead me to the 1876 in 45-60. Love the movie and the gun.
Bigguy1951
Silver $$ Contributor
Weatherby MkV and a Marlin lever action in 45-70. I've had a MkV featherweight, used to pass it around the family as punishment. Have not gotten a Marlin, yet.
I read Jack O’Connor in the late 70’s and really wanted a prewar Model 70 in 270 - bought a Remington ADL in 8th grade instead.
I’m in the same boat with Mike McCormick and Capstick had me wanting a big double - in high school as close as I could get was a 375 H&H Ruger #1.
Marlin must have spent a lot of advertising dollars with Peterson Publishing in the 80’s because I really wanted a lever action .22 Marlin, but the Browning was all I could swing as a teenager.
Then I dreamed of a heavy barrel 22-250 Ruger #1…..bought one used that couldn’t hit anything - never had that dream again.
The guys shooting light rifle silhouette with a Remington 541 looked so cool, but a 582 matched my budget. I dreamed of being able to afford match ammo, but that crazy gun shot Wildcat Winchester really good.
The 375 JDJ in a Contender was super cool, but a .44 mag barrel nobody wanted was what I ended up with. Seems like it had some kind of screw in choke for shot shells - maybe that was 45 colt? When I was hunting, in my mind it was a 375 JDJ.
How fun to think back to childhood.
I’m in the same boat with Mike McCormick and Capstick had me wanting a big double - in high school as close as I could get was a 375 H&H Ruger #1.
Marlin must have spent a lot of advertising dollars with Peterson Publishing in the 80’s because I really wanted a lever action .22 Marlin, but the Browning was all I could swing as a teenager.
Then I dreamed of a heavy barrel 22-250 Ruger #1…..bought one used that couldn’t hit anything - never had that dream again.
The guys shooting light rifle silhouette with a Remington 541 looked so cool, but a 582 matched my budget. I dreamed of being able to afford match ammo, but that crazy gun shot Wildcat Winchester really good.
The 375 JDJ in a Contender was super cool, but a .44 mag barrel nobody wanted was what I ended up with. Seems like it had some kind of screw in choke for shot shells - maybe that was 45 colt? When I was hunting, in my mind it was a 375 JDJ.
How fun to think back to childhood.
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Cecil S.
Gold $$ Contributor
Yeah this post is fun for me getting me thinking about shots taken I have no idea of how far i was shooting. But it was out there for 22 LR. There was an older guy that worked on the farm that made fun of me because he could not make hits with a 270. LOL He would make fun of the big ole hunk of wood i was shooting with the little bitty bullet. But i killed more woodchucks then him......good memories.
I wanted a '"Genuine Daisy Red Ryder" but I must have miscommunicated because I ended up with a Daisy Pump instead.
Then for my 10th birthday I got a Mossberg 142A - the carbine with the folding forend, after that there was not a safe squirrel or rabbit anywhere, it founded my endearment for 22 rifles.
drover
Then for my 10th birthday I got a Mossberg 142A - the carbine with the folding forend, after that there was not a safe squirrel or rabbit anywhere, it founded my endearment for 22 rifles.
drover
I grew up with books like Gun Digest and Shooter's Bible as Xmas presents in the late 60's and early 70's. I liked the Alpine, Weatherby and Golden Eagle bolt actions, Schuetzen rifles such as the Stevens 44-1/2, Ballards, Win 1885, and of course the Ruger #1, and SxS rifles and shotguns,
Browning A5 and A5 magnum. My pappy deer hunted with a magnum and bird hunted with a Light 12. I was relegated to 870s in 16 and 12 gauge. But I always wanted what he had.
63 winchester...
37 winchester...
700 Rem bdl 243
37 winchester...
700 Rem bdl 243
Lucky Shooter
Gold $$ Contributor
Winchester 63.
bpd459
Gold $$ Contributor
Greetings.
An Al Biesen built Model 70. My grandfather had one, and it went to my uncle. I saved all my money during first year in the USAF. I came home on leave, drove to Spokane with a handful of 1982 $$ and a 1957 M-70. I came home 18mo. later and picked up MY Al Biesen rifle!
An Al Biesen built Model 70. My grandfather had one, and it went to my uncle. I saved all my money during first year in the USAF. I came home on leave, drove to Spokane with a handful of 1982 $$ and a 1957 M-70. I came home 18mo. later and picked up MY Al Biesen rifle!
Any of them
I was lucky. My Dad entertained my brother and I while we were growing up. As a teenager he was buying me guns by taking me to the good old gun stores which had huge inventories of used guns. I had pretty much whatever I dreamed of - Model 29 Smith 6", Model 57 Smith 4", Model 53 Smith 22 Jet, pre-war Colt 1911 Super 38, Browning B78 22-50, custom 22-250 on a Mauser (the maker was well known, can't remember him now), M1 Garand, Winchester 62-A, Marlin Model 39A Mountie. He taught us how to power the car through turns, took us to shoot rats at the dump, allowed us to set brush piles on fire with Molotov cocktails. All our friends wanted to go with us wherever my Dad was taking us for sure.
Chappy
Silver $$ Contributor
Back when I was into shooting trap a lot, I always wanted a Blaser trap gun. The salesman at the big trapshoots would let you shoot a box with them. I always shot exceptionally well. Later on I traded my BT-99 towards a Perazzi TMS and then inherited a Lujtic DynoKic that I shoot both equally well.
Damn John I have two of them
If one is deemed a "kid" at 14, after acquiring my first rifle- a .22 Magnum 640 K Chuckster with dozens of GH's taken with it under my belt, I wanted something longer range and more "refined". So I sent in those mail-in catalog requests to gun and optics makers you used to tear off in hunting magazines. After a great deal of comparison shopping I set my sights on Savage Anschutz in .222 Magnum. Never happened but I did get a beautifully stocked (had fiddleback from factory) Sako A1 in .222 around 1980. No telling what my wish would have been if we had the internet back then- if it wasn't found in Outdoor Life, Gun World, or Shooting Times magazines I didn't know it existed.
kevad68
Silver $$ Contributor
Marlin .22 WMR 882 Bolt Action w/Checkering – Owned Two and Sold Kmart's Inventory of Them!
As a kid when my folks would take me to the Kmart in Westland, MI each time I would spend a considerable amount of time in the firearms / accessories section. My Dad never owned firearms so I never knew where the itch came from. I guess in my mind's eye the vision of me tromping through frost covered Michigan forests in the early morning with my “big game looking” Marlin .22 WMR (and it HAD to be the WMR cause it had that squared off magazine that looked SO COOL compared to the slanted version of the .22LR) hunting the elusive squirrel just seemed like something a MAN does. When the Sears Christmas Wish catalog came out every October/November my sister and I would spend time pouring through it for our Wish Lists. The rifle was always asked for but I never expected to get one.
Three follow-ups to this story that make my fixation on this particular rifle a weird part of my life:
Finally made it to the age where I could buy one of my own (late teens), and as I was walking the aisles of the Dearborn roller-dome Gun & Knife show (may have been Bill Goodman's show being hosted there at the time prior to moving to the 8 MILE Armory Detroit location, but my memory at 55 is kind of fuzzy), a guy walking around has a used one in mint condition except for a nick the crown and wants $120 for it. Of course I buy it and while it shot OK, never really grouped well (maybe the crown damage, but who knows), so I sold it without using it much, especially when I saw how expensive .22 WMR was at the time, what...probably $1.50 / box(!! LOL and look at what it is now) hit me compared to good ole .22LR.
Now fast-forward to my mid-40's and working for Sears / Kmart Corporate in Hoffman Estates, IL in Logistics. Part of my job is getting rid of excess / used inventory at the highest value possible and I get the project of liquidating all the Kmart firearms inventory remaining in the retail stores' backrooms locked up in security cages. Sears had stopped selling years before and so had Kmart, but the Kmart folks never knew what to do with it so it all sat there. They finally decided to stop all the record keeping and backroom labor they were putting toward the upkeep of the 4473 logs and security measures so I was told to work with the whole retail store chain (probably about 1,000 Kmart stores still remained at that time) to come up with a plan that satisfied the ATF, our internal auditors, and the stores. First thing I had to get was an inventory from each store, as records had been corrupted so badly no one knew what they had. Guess what rifle came to the top of the list as the most in inventory? (Guess they didn't sell well or the Buyer had just bought too many and they never moved). Of course I wanted one again, but the way I had the liquidation sale setup through a large corporate third party that bought them it wasn't possible. Plus I remember while it had a weird nostalgia for me I really didn't have a true need for one, I was into AR's, long range pre-PRS shooting, and .22 pistols then. To make a long story short, after a few months of prep, documentation, ATF help/overview (it WAS in the tens of thousands of serial numbers after all), logistics, and documenting all the LOST rifle (and there were lots of missing or partial boxes found during backroom inventory)...my boss's boss, a real troll of a woman who was always out for herself, gets wind of how high-profile this project is, yanks it from me as we're already 3/4's of the way through executing it, and hands the remainder to her lackey who then proceeds to get a Chairman's Star Award for “his initiative” several months later at a Town Hall (yeah, years later still bitter about that as it was a recurring theme with her 3 more times after that with different projects).
So now a few more years down the road and my wife's dad passes. HUGE outdoorsman (hike into the Rockies and cart game he shot out on his back or in packmules, or taking bush-planes deep into Canada for hunting & fishing trips on a regular basis kind of guy). Unfortunately I didn't get to know him during those times in his life, only after I met my wife after he had a stroke years before that left one side of his body crippled. But in his slow hesitant speech would would sometimes tell me hunting stories, and of course I had slides of his escapades. So anyway after his funeral my wife's mom has me start going through his stuff since I'm the only “gun guy” in the extended family, and among several other firearms what do I find but a MINT, and I mean barely used Marlin .22WMR bolt action with the checkered stock with period appropriate Tasco 4x on it with the extremely high rings you could still use the iron sights (remember those?). It was still in its box WITH receipt bought where...Kmart. I did keep that for years but again, shot it once or twice as I never had a need for the caliber and sold it to a good friend who still has it to this day.
As a kid when my folks would take me to the Kmart in Westland, MI each time I would spend a considerable amount of time in the firearms / accessories section. My Dad never owned firearms so I never knew where the itch came from. I guess in my mind's eye the vision of me tromping through frost covered Michigan forests in the early morning with my “big game looking” Marlin .22 WMR (and it HAD to be the WMR cause it had that squared off magazine that looked SO COOL compared to the slanted version of the .22LR) hunting the elusive squirrel just seemed like something a MAN does. When the Sears Christmas Wish catalog came out every October/November my sister and I would spend time pouring through it for our Wish Lists. The rifle was always asked for but I never expected to get one.
Three follow-ups to this story that make my fixation on this particular rifle a weird part of my life:
Finally made it to the age where I could buy one of my own (late teens), and as I was walking the aisles of the Dearborn roller-dome Gun & Knife show (may have been Bill Goodman's show being hosted there at the time prior to moving to the 8 MILE Armory Detroit location, but my memory at 55 is kind of fuzzy), a guy walking around has a used one in mint condition except for a nick the crown and wants $120 for it. Of course I buy it and while it shot OK, never really grouped well (maybe the crown damage, but who knows), so I sold it without using it much, especially when I saw how expensive .22 WMR was at the time, what...probably $1.50 / box(!! LOL and look at what it is now) hit me compared to good ole .22LR.
Now fast-forward to my mid-40's and working for Sears / Kmart Corporate in Hoffman Estates, IL in Logistics. Part of my job is getting rid of excess / used inventory at the highest value possible and I get the project of liquidating all the Kmart firearms inventory remaining in the retail stores' backrooms locked up in security cages. Sears had stopped selling years before and so had Kmart, but the Kmart folks never knew what to do with it so it all sat there. They finally decided to stop all the record keeping and backroom labor they were putting toward the upkeep of the 4473 logs and security measures so I was told to work with the whole retail store chain (probably about 1,000 Kmart stores still remained at that time) to come up with a plan that satisfied the ATF, our internal auditors, and the stores. First thing I had to get was an inventory from each store, as records had been corrupted so badly no one knew what they had. Guess what rifle came to the top of the list as the most in inventory? (Guess they didn't sell well or the Buyer had just bought too many and they never moved). Of course I wanted one again, but the way I had the liquidation sale setup through a large corporate third party that bought them it wasn't possible. Plus I remember while it had a weird nostalgia for me I really didn't have a true need for one, I was into AR's, long range pre-PRS shooting, and .22 pistols then. To make a long story short, after a few months of prep, documentation, ATF help/overview (it WAS in the tens of thousands of serial numbers after all), logistics, and documenting all the LOST rifle (and there were lots of missing or partial boxes found during backroom inventory)...my boss's boss, a real troll of a woman who was always out for herself, gets wind of how high-profile this project is, yanks it from me as we're already 3/4's of the way through executing it, and hands the remainder to her lackey who then proceeds to get a Chairman's Star Award for “his initiative” several months later at a Town Hall (yeah, years later still bitter about that as it was a recurring theme with her 3 more times after that with different projects).
So now a few more years down the road and my wife's dad passes. HUGE outdoorsman (hike into the Rockies and cart game he shot out on his back or in packmules, or taking bush-planes deep into Canada for hunting & fishing trips on a regular basis kind of guy). Unfortunately I didn't get to know him during those times in his life, only after I met my wife after he had a stroke years before that left one side of his body crippled. But in his slow hesitant speech would would sometimes tell me hunting stories, and of course I had slides of his escapades. So anyway after his funeral my wife's mom has me start going through his stuff since I'm the only “gun guy” in the extended family, and among several other firearms what do I find but a MINT, and I mean barely used Marlin .22WMR bolt action with the checkered stock with period appropriate Tasco 4x on it with the extremely high rings you could still use the iron sights (remember those?). It was still in its box WITH receipt bought where...Kmart. I did keep that for years but again, shot it once or twice as I never had a need for the caliber and sold it to a good friend who still has it to this day.
DarkStar
There are those who have crossfired. . .
As a kid, I was fascinated by the M16 rifles, so I wanted an AR-15.
I was 13 1/2 when Clinton signed the 1994 Crime Bill/AWB. I was mad. Fine way to make a young teenager interested in 2A politics.
Uncle Sam issued me my first "black rifle." First personal rifle purchase, however, was a Springfield M1A Super Match.
I was 13 1/2 when Clinton signed the 1994 Crime Bill/AWB. I was mad. Fine way to make a young teenager interested in 2A politics.
Uncle Sam issued me my first "black rifle." First personal rifle purchase, however, was a Springfield M1A Super Match.
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