frkelly74
06-14-2013, 09:47 PM
When I stopped by the range today there were a few people there shooting their 22's and whatnot and I happened to notice one group with several cased long guns and what appeared to be an 03/A3 out and they were taking time shooting it. They just kind of had the inexperienced look about them and so I went over to chat and look at the A3. It looked nice, almost too nice so I asked for a closer look and on the receiver was the old Santa Fe roll mark. They asked me what I thought and I said that it was a nice rifle put together on a newer made receiver and I thought it ought to shoot just fine but was not an original 03/A3. They asked me how I knew so I showed them and told them what should be on the receiver ring in an original. They looked at each other and one said " I wonder where grandpa got this from" And one other said something like " I think Grandpa might have gotten took". I reiterated that it was a nice rifle and they should enjoy shooting Grandpas rifle. So then they took out a Garand ,also grandpas rifle, and were wondering out loud how to load it up. They knew that if it was done wrong it would mess up your thumb but had no real good idea how to go about it. So they asked me and I showed them a couple of times how to close the bolt, and the older brother took the rifle and after some cautious fumbling was able to get a clip loaded without injury. Very soon he was doing it like he had been doing it for quite a while. They all three really enjoyed shooting the Garand. I got a kick out of watching them discover how to shoot a legendary rifle. Then finally they got out a fancy but well worn Winchester 1894. Long barrel, short magazine, curved grip , checkering, Marbles Tang sight. A real elegant rifle probably from the 1920's or earlier and shot that a while. The younger brother proved to be a crack shot with it and had no trouble breaking clay pigeons on the bank offhand.
I can only assume from my limited listening to their talk that Grandpa had recently passed on and his son with his own two sons were out shooting grandpas guns and his ammo stash and enjoying each others company..... and remembering. It was a good thing to witness.
I can only assume from my limited listening to their talk that Grandpa had recently passed on and his son with his own two sons were out shooting grandpas guns and his ammo stash and enjoying each others company..... and remembering. It was a good thing to witness.