Whimsical gun buying

[ktw]

Or
How we end up coming home with guns that we had no idea we even wanted an hour earlier.


I'm primarily a rifle guy. I also have a couple of handguns. Only one shotgun and that hasn't been out of the gun closet in years. My handgun needs are fairly simple and I always thought well covered by a 45 Colt/45 Acp convertible, a 32 H&R mag and a couple of 22s. Life was good. A 38/357 was just another one of those unnecessary cartridges that I didn't want to go to the expense of tooling up for.

Then, a couple of years ago, my dad, in his early 70's and with no plans to retire from the family business but facing increasing pressure from everyone else associated with the business to do so, decides he needs a new hobby. He decides guns would be a good idea. Give him something to do with the grandsons. So he goes out and buys some. Shows up at my place with a Marlin Cowboy and a Ruger GP100 in, of course, 357 Mag. Asks if I could load up some ammo for him. How do you say "no" to your dad?

So I start tooling up; brass, dies, couple of molds. I do a little load development with the Marlin and put up 500 rounds for him. I expect that will last him for a long time. Now I have these tools and components. They take up space. They add to the clutter. They don't see much use.

This week I stopped by one of the little gun shops that I get to less than once a year. Larry, the proprietor, is retired (chainsaws and guns), but he has a pole barn out next to the house from which he still keeps his hand in the gun game. Primarily used guns, but interesting models at reasonable prices. Poor Larry is terribly distraught over our political situation. His inventory is down by 2/3rds. From his perspective we are at the end of times and he doesn't want to be caught sitting on inventory when all guns are banned in a couple of weeks. He's got "move them out the door" prices on a lot of what is left.

Spent some time trying to figure out how I could help the poor guy out. I was tempted by a couple of ratty, post 64, top-eject Winchester 94s. There was a Garand and a Krag. No 03 Springfields. No 45/70s. I decided to take a spin by the powder shelf in order to take a few moments to mull over my rifle options. I had to walk past the handgun case on the way and out of the corner of my eye I spot a S&W 15-2. He's got a "well worn" price on on it. I do have all those tools and components. Larry is pretty quick about getting it out of the case when he sees me looking at it.

It has some blueing wear issues, but it doesn't seem all that worn mechanically. Reasonably tight all the way around, in fact. Rifling is good. Crane is tight. Underneath the Packmayers someone has done a roundbutt job on it. Great trigger. None of the screws are boogered. An old S&W with a history and some soul. It would be a good excuse to cast up some more boolits. What the hell. Someone has to help poor Larry out of his predicament.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g232/ktwna/guns/SW15_a.jpg

-ktw

[Riverrat]

ktw, you are a man of true compassion! I salute you.

Ed

[MT Gianni]

Welcome to the dark side. I predict many hours of fun with that gun.

[3rptr]

Looks like a good one!
Glad you rescued it from that old barn before...
3rptr

[singleshotbuff]

Those old S&W wheelguns with some character are a treasure. You'll never regret rescuing it.

That one looks to have a pinned barrel. Those were some well made handguns.

Please let us know how it shoots.

SSB

[405]

Like you, I'm primarily a rifle sort. But I love those SW 14s and 15s ! Just something about them. Hope that one is in spec. They do hold, handle and shoot well. Been down that path before.... too often :( Stop by a gun shop mostly out of habit. Then have some stray cat follow me home. The other symptom of THE disease as you described goes something like.... someone gives you a bag of odd brass for a caliber you never thought of nor intended to get. It just sits there staring at you :roll: then before you know it you see a gun that fits the brass.... down for the count!

[runfiverun]

it's even worse when you wake up one day and have 4 357's and 3 44's made by the same company,in similar configurations.
ain't saying who did that. though.....

[The Double D]

I prefer the M-19 over the 15, but hey...by the way are you sure the RB isn't factory, there were some.

Those old Jordon pattern Pachmyar's are nice. worked good with the old load a peel speed loader and the push-snap Safariland. They would bind a bit with twist top HKS.

Oh man those were the days, never did learn how to shoot that M-19 SA. Carried that gun from 1971 through to 1994 when I traded over to Glocks. The last time I had to quailfy in the field, 2002, I got the M-19 out and qualifed it as my secondary weapon. The Glock shot a 299/300 and the M-19 300/300. That was the first time I had fired that gun since 1994. And the serial number 2K182XX...

Awe ain't nostalgia grand.

[blackthorn]

Well---about 10 or 12 years ago my son was looking to buy a 375 H&H magnum so we went to this auction. This mauser sporter came up and the auctioneer couldnt get a bid on it. So--just to help him out I bid $25.00 and then another guy bid so I ran it up a bit more. When he got to $140.00 I bid one last time at $150.00 and he QUIT! So I have this mauser in my gun safe, never fired it, dont even know for sure what caliber it is. One of these days I will have to chamber cast it and see. Oh well it is a nice looking rifle but it seems to have a rather large bore and it feels pretty light so maybe it will need to be a reduced load cast gun!

[ktw]

The other symptom of THE disease as you described goes something like.... someone gives you a bag of odd brass for a caliber you never thought of nor intended to get. It just sits there staring at you :roll: then before you know it you see a gun that fits the brass.... down for the count!

:-D

I had a big pile of 5.56 brass and some 6mm gas checks, but no 223 or 6mm rifles. So I bought a 6x45 Contender barrel in order to use them up.

-ktw

[armexman]

For all those tormented souls that have guns they "shouldn't" have bought, let me help you by taking them off your hands and placing in my "Safe" home. Do not send anything but the rifle, pistol or revolver; all their needs will be taken care of-high quality feed (Pb based diet of course), cleaned with only ED"S Red and placed in a nice warm bed at night; alongside all the other unwanted guns that good people have sold to me.

[Sprue]

Congrats on the find.

My Model 15 snub has the best trigger of the herd.

Welcome to the disease. Its NOT uncommon to, aquire dies, brass or compinents and a host of other stuff over time. Around here its the norm. I've made purchases before simply cause the only thing needed or missing was the gun itself.

I always try and keep something in Layaway. Layaway is just plain kuhl. Just today I stopped by one of the pawn shops to make a payment. In doing so I noticed a, not so common rifle, hanging on the wall for a song..... I now have two payments.

Its not a great gun by no means but a little on the pricey side if you can find one these days, it was a VERY clean Norinco SKS. :-D

Yeah, I know what you're think'n ! Let me finish. It's a Model D or M. The one with that takes AK mags ! Regular plain old SKS's are selling for more than this one cost.[smilie=s:

Again, nice find.

[FN in MT]

Must be all the years of having to carry a gun...but lately I can NOT pass up QUALITY sixgun leather. If I find anything from Milt Sparks, El Paso Saddlery or Kramer to name a few and the price is remotely reasonable..... I buy it.

Two years ago I bought a sweet El Paso Saddlery rig for a short SAA. A year later I find a short USFA SAA that I really didn't need, but Hey! I have leather for it! So I had the excuse to buy it.

The other day I found a half dozen GI M-14 mags ..........so now I need an M1A.

Had leather and a few spare mags for a PPK/S .380 for years...guess what? Found a good deal on a LNIB PPK/S a few months ago....so...HAD to buy it. Honest! I had to!

FN in MT

[hicard]

Ya, funny how that works. I have an anchor, no boat. What does that mean?

hicard

[Box13]

At the moment I have a set of redding 41 mag dies...250 empty 41mag brass...150 factory 41 mag rounds 100 handloads I did myself several holsters that would fit a S&W57 pretty good...but no gun...I always wanted one though and Im most of the way there now...

[wonderwolf]

Hmmm knee jerk gun buying...I did that this past weekend. Was getting ready to walk out of the gunshow and walked past a table that I had already been past but noticed something that I missed before. A rolling block in 50-140( not sure how I missed it before the thing is massive)...I didn't know I needed it but the price was alright so I walked out with it. Never thought I would own one an hour before but there I was walking out the door with the thing.

[ktw]

Please let us know how it shoots.


Unfortunately, no better than I do. Still looking for that gun/load combination that has a compensating waggle for every one of my wiggles. Happy with the gun. Very pleasant to shoot.

The previous owner did a good job of sighting it in. Just my luck, buy a gun with adjustable sights and they don't need moving. Buy a gun with fixed sights and invariably they do.

About out of Bullseye. Been itching to look for an alternative. Have some Red Dot. Will look into picking up some Win 231.


http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g232/ktwna/reloading/sw15-target.jpg

-ktw

[crowbeaner]

Gosh, I hate to add to your misery and dismay, but if you cast some RCBS 38-150-KT SWCs, you'll have at least something to occupy your time while you while away your time with your dad. Size them .358, lube with 50/50 or RCBS green lube, and load over 5.0 of Unique or 3.5 of Bullseye. These loads will break your wallet; at $20 a pound, you get 2000 out of the Bullseye, and 1200 out of the Unique. Your mileage may vary of course; nice looking old Smith. Bill Jordan shot one for years, and he never missed much.

[Southern Son]

KTW, I just got back from the range where I was testing out some new loads for .38 (It is actually a 686 in .357, but it mainly gets 38s loaded to power factor 125+ for NRA/International 1920). I have heaps of trouble getting Unique, Bullseye, Reddot or any of the dots for that matter. All I can get is Win WST, WAP and Mulwex AP70N (sold in the US as Hodgdon Universal). WST and WAP were both disappointing from accuracy point of view. Universal was shaping up the same way, until I started loading a bit more in the case. At 5.4 (max in the book I am loading) the revolver was filling up with unburnt and half burnt powder, the Extream Spread and Standard Deviation were both fairly large (extream spreads of 250fps were normal), and it just would not group. Being that the loads are in a large frame .357 I went a bit further and all of a sudden there was NO unburnt powder, Extream Spreads were 125fps and less, and groups shrank to less than 2 inches (I can't do better with the Tasco PDP3, the red dot just covered too damn much).

Maybe you could give the Universal and try? Just my $0.02 cents worth. Worth less than that, but that is what I charge.

[Tom Herman]

What motivates me is primarily BARGAINS!
If I see something that I know is a value, I'll either pick it up for resale, or add it to the collection.
I always wanted a Colt Lightning (pump rifle) clone, and swore I'd never own a Tuarus Thunderbolt version of it due to the hammer lock.
The USFA version of the Lightning was a thousand dollars more than the Taurus, so it went into the "if I ever have tons of money I don't know what to do with" list along with a Spencer rifle, and other stuff that's just insanely priced for those of us that are frugal.
Well, lo and behold, I'm at the Gun Show and have found nothing so far (per usual) when all of a sudden, I spot a new Thunderbolt. The poor schlub gave up his FFL, and is now selling everything as a private citizen at fire sale prices.
The magic conditions of no paperwork, gun availability, and bargain pop up. I can't afford NOT to buy the thing!
So I plunk down the money, he gives Mr. John Smith a receipt to get the gun out the door, and I'm off like a rocket....

Happy Shootin'! -Tom