I was straightening up my gun storage locker, when suddenly something hit me. My favorite 1903 Springfield left the arsenal in 1919, was refitted with a new barrel sometime in WWII and now is mine. Two more years and that gun will see its 100th birthday! I started examining other rifles and my M96 Swede has already passed the century mark by four years. Others date back to the 1880's and 1890's and yet, like most shooters/collectors I still think of them as fairly "modern".
I realized that I'm not a collector after all.........I'm a caretaker for some unknown future shooter. I think he'll thank me, just as I silently thanked all the people who handled these guns before me. It's more than something that goes 'bang'. It's a piece of history that has been entrusted to me.
Okay, back to sizing 8mm boolits for my 1888 Commission carbine............