Snagged an oldie but a goodie today at my local gun shop!

Back in 1974, we had a chain store in the town 30 miles north of us, mom and dad usually went there on at least one Saturday night a month. The chain store here in KY was called Roses, and they had a good stock of firearms, especially Savage's and Marlins along with a few Winchester thrown in. As a young lad I pestered the assorted clerks to let me look at them. Two guns I drooled over were the Savage model 24, especially the 30/30 over 20g. full choke w walnut stocks and the Savage/ Anschutz .22 rifles. Apparently in the early 70's old Dieter Anschutz had trouble getting someone to import his fine rimfire rifles, and Savage Arms struck up a deal to import his firearms along with their version of his rifles. One I lusted after was a heavy barrel single shot rimfire, with a fine set of competition peep sights. Believe it or not, I had saved up enough money working on local farms, raising and selling orphan pigs, and an occasional bottle calf I got for cheap from a local dairy farmer. Dad was having none of it, so all I could do was wear out the brochures and wish. The only difference between the model 54 and the Savage/Anschutz, was the former had a walnut stock and aluminum trigger guard, while the Savage version had a birch stock that was a greenish/brown stained and had a plastic trigger guard. Both had the adjustable aluminum butt plate. Since then the prices have skyrocketed, and I never did get one. Today I stopped in my local gun shop and he was taking the scope off the very same rifle, in mint condition. He had sold the scope to a guy. When I asked him where he got, it said an older guy who had bought it new 38 years ago had sold it to him. He and I are good friends, and I asked him what he had to have for it, he said $450 tax included. Now I had an old antique scope that he had been pining for, that I only had about $100 in, so I offered him the scope and $200, he took me up on it! I am stoked to get to shoot it tomorrow evening after church, and start looking online for set of sights, a scope will do in the meantime! Just thought I would share with you guys!

Sure is gratifying to fill a dream, Huh Koger

Glad you were finally able to get what you wanted. I used to have a Savage Anschutz .22 that I shot regularly around 1976 at a gun club. Really nice rifles.

Great story. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing.

My lusting for unobtainable firearms has yet to diminish @ 76. However regret for parting with some has lingered since I let go a 1911 with a Caspian frame in '72. The only three that I have not regretted were a Beretta .25 ACP, a LLama 380 ACP and a Ruger honking big .45 Colt with a non fitting .45 ACP cylinder on a brass frame with jigged grips. That Ruger felt like a brick in my hands and had a troublesome hand that hung up without warning. The .25 was a gift from a widow who just wanted to get rid of it, I did too once I fired it. What a useless cartridge! The Llama was a neat little gun. A scaled down replica of a 1911 again in a useless cartridge. Not only that but the tiny gun actually hurt my hand when fired. It just felt lousy in my hand and it had a sharp and nasty recoil way above the level that I expected. It was not a gun I enjoyed shooting. The 45 Colt was an interweb purchase cobbled together from a Long Island NY seller who obtained the gun which had been sold by Ruger with a 6" tube in blued steel (and not a convertible as sold) back in '76. Someone had substituted a 4 5/8" blued barrel, a set of nasty jigged grips and a non fitted 45 ACP cylinder and put it into a brass frame. The only saving grace was the low price of $200 which I thought to be a bargain. I traded off the .45 and the 380 for a Romanian SKS straight up. The SKS works just fine but needs me to work up a decent loading of 7.62x39 MM cartridges. I expect that my Lyman 311410 would make a nice boolit for starting out. I years ago sold off a Winchester 94 in 32 WS to a fella in Oregon via the interweb for a measley $350. I musta been on Ambien that day. It was made in '52 and in very decent condition although I could not get it to group with my handloaded fodder. It was probably my fault.

Parting with a Remington Nylon 66 semi auto in .22 lr was a major mistake. Ditto for an Enfield Model of 1917 in 30-06. I scored a Winchester 94 in 30-30 made in '29 and a Baker SXS 12 gauge for a song back in '07 for a tidy $200. I kept the 94 and cut down the tubes on the Baker to 18 1/2" for a nasty home defense shotgun. Somehow I overlooked a big dent in one of the tubes so that gun went South for $175 to a Vietnam Vet who could care less about the dent....he just wanted something mounted on his wheelchair that he could handle if he needed it. We rigged up a nice scabbard that we laced into the frame and he is wheeling along and scaring the @#%$ out of other folks when out and about. I had the scabbard mounted on the side of my motorcycle earlier but he coveted it and the shotgun so....

Then there was a H&R .22 Magnum derringer and a Mossberg 500 12 gauge that also were sold and instantly regretted. The derringer was perfect for formal wear as it fit in any pocket and although useless beyond 10 yds it was lights out in close. Ditto for the 12 gauge although it could reach out far beyond 25 yds it was most effective closer in with No. 4 shot. A good friend was moving to Mexico and he wanted a decent self defense weapon to keep in his house. I told him that being caught with this gun would insure a long stay in a Mexican prison he insisted and I sold him the shotgun along with a Steihl chainsaw. Using the chainsaw would be as effective on an attacker at close range and may prevent a long enforced stay in Mexican buildings. I ended up giving him the shotgun and he paid $75 to another friend of mine so I would not have to pay for a large box of unneeded reloading dies. I sold off the dies for well over $600 on Ebay over the next few weeks. I ended up replacing the shotgun with a Chinese Norinco copy of the Winchester Model 1897 trench gun which cost me only $300. So over all I made out like a champ.

Since then my selling off of weapons has ceased. Now I am looking for a knowlegible person to act as my Firearms Disposal Administrator after I take my final dirt nap. Seriously my wife knows squat about the value of my collection of firearms and my roomful of reloading tools, dies, molds and lead alloy pile. Although capable of using a firearm she is not conversant with the reloading process nor the tools necessary to make quality ammo. I do not want her to be taken advantage of after I am gone. So I am in the process of working out an arrangement with a decent fella of 60 years whom I may not outlast.

Fellas: It is not pleasant but ya gotta think ahead. Prepare your will and provide for your loved ones soon as our Lord may take you out without warning sooner than you expect. I am 76 and with COPD my life is limited and my expiration date is coming up anytime now. It is depressing to see so many of my friends gone. Then there are the famous folks over which the media is fond of reporting when they come to their expirations. They always mention their age. A lot of them are gone by 76 and it jolts me every time. Even the one who go out in their low 80's make me think of my own mortality...…

Prepare now or leave a mess behind for your family to squabble over...………..

My lusting for unobtainable firearms has yet to diminish @ 76. However regret for parting with some has lingered since I let go a 1911 with a Caspian frame in '72. The only three that I have not regretted were a Beretta .25 ACP, a LLama 380 ACP and a Ruger honking big .45 Colt with a non fitting .45 ACP cylinder on a brass frame with jigged grips. That Ruger felt like a brick in my hands and had a troublesome hand that hung up without warning. The .25 was a gift from a widow who just wanted to get rid of it, I did too once I fired it. What a useless cartridge! The Llama was a neat little gun. A scaled down replica of a 1911 again in a useless cartridge. Not only that but the tiny gun actually hurt my hand when fired. It just felt lousy in my hand and it had a sharp and nasty recoil way above the level that I expected. It was not a gun I enjoyed shooting. The 45 Colt was an interweb purchase cobbled together from a Long Island NY seller who obtained the gun which had been sold by Ruger with a 6" tube in blued steel (and not a convertible as sold) back in '76. Someone had substituted a 4 5/8" blued barrel, a set of nasty jigged grips and a non fitted 45 ACP cylinder and put it into a brass frame. The only saving grace was the low price of $200 which I thought to be a bargain. I traded off the .45 and the 380 for a Romanian SKS straight up. The SKS works just fine but needs me to work up a decent loading of 7.62x39 MM cartridges. I expect that my Lyman 311410 would make a nice boolit for starting out. I years ago sold off a Winchester 94 in 32 WS to a fella in Oregon via the interweb for a measley $350. I musta been on Ambien that day. It was made in '52 and in very decent condition although I could not get it to group with my handloaded fodder. It was probably my fault.

Parting with a Remington Nylon 66 semi auto in .22 lr was a major mistake. Ditto for an Enfield Model of 1917 in 30-06. I scored a Winchester 94 in 30-30 made in '29 and a Baker SXS 12 gauge for a song back in '07 for a tidy $200. I kept the 94 and cut down the tubes on the Baker to 18 1/2" for a nasty home defense shotgun. Somehow I overlooked a big dent in one of the tubes so that gun went South for $175 to a Vietnam Vet who could care less about the dent....he just wanted something mounted on his wheelchair that he could handle if he needed it. We rigged up a nice scabbard that we laced into the frame and he is wheeling along and scaring the @#%$ out of other folks when out and about. I had the scabbard mounted on the side of my motorcycle earlier but he coveted it and the shotgun so....

Then there was a H&R .22 Magnum derringer and a Mossberg 500 12 gauge that also were sold and instantly regretted. The derringer was perfect for formal wear as it fit in any pocket and although useless beyond 10 yds it was lights out in close. Ditto for the 12 gauge although it could reach out far beyond 25 yds it was most effective closer in with No. 4 shot. A good friend was moving to Mexico and he wanted a decent self defense weapon to keep in his house. I told him that being caught with this gun would insure a long stay in a Mexican prison he insisted and I sold him the shotgun along with a Steihl chainsaw. Using the chainsaw would be as effective on an attacker at close range and may prevent a long enforced stay in Mexican buildings. I ended up giving him the shotgun and he paid $75 to another friend of mine so I would not have to pay for a large box of unneeded reloading dies. I sold off the dies for well over $600 on Ebay over the next few weeks. I ended up replacing the shotgun with a Chinese Norinco copy of the Winchester Model 1897 trench gun which cost me only $300. So over all I made out like a champ.

Since then my selling off of weapons has ceased. Now I am looking for a knowlegible person to act as my Firearms Disposal Administrator after I take my final dirt nap. Seriously my wife knows squat about the value of my collection of firearms and my roomful of reloading tools, dies, molds and lead alloy pile. Although capable of using a firearm she is not conversant with the reloading process nor the tools necessary to make quality ammo. I do not want her to be taken advantage of after I am gone. So I am in the process of working out an arrangement with a decent fella of 60 years whom I may not outlast.

Fellas: It is not pleasant but ya gotta think ahead. Prepare your will and provide for your loved ones soon as our Lord may take you out without warning sooner than you expect. I am 76 and with COPD my life is limited and my expiration date is coming up anytime now. It is depressing to see so many of my friends gone. Then there are the famous folks over which the media is fond of reporting when they come to their expirations. They always mention their age. A lot of them are gone by 76 and it jolts me every time. Even the one who go out in their low 80's make me think of my own mortality...…

Prepare now or leave a mess behind for your family to squabble over...………..

I signed papers the other day making my daughter " Keeper of the Plug". She says all the guns are
hers and is hacking on the boys. They know which ones are the heirlooms and which ones are just
guns. I keep a running log of the values and after they keep what they want my SIL will sell them.
He's not a gun man but a good business man and realizes the value of these guns. Daughter will
hand them out after she has extracted maximum "pain" from the boys. She said she has years of
abuse to get even with.

Congrats! I live a few miles from the main DC for Roses, Variety Wholesalers. There were many firearms that were copied for sale by local retailers or rebranded. Montgomery Wards, Sears, Western Auto etc. All just like the original and all just as good.

It's great that you were "Johnny on the spot" and caught that gun.