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Thread: tell us about a firearm you found, not bought, not given to you...simply found.

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    tell us about a firearm you found, not bought, not given to you...simply found.

    i cannot wait to hear the stories !!

  2. #2
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    Winger Ed.'s Avatar
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    During the Civil War, the Potomac River & area around Quantico, VA was a pretty busy place.
    We used to go metal detecting with a GI issue mine detector we'd borrow from the Combat Engineers over the weekends.

    On the bank of the river, we found a old percussion revolver that looked like it was made completely of solid rust.
    Our best guess was that it started out as a .36 Cal. Navy Colt.
    My buddy kept it in a display case with other assorted glass bottles & things we'd found.
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  3. #3
    Boolit Master

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    I've never been that lucky. If I did find something, it would probably have been stolen & used in a crime.

  4. #4
    Boolit Bub
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    Found? A dug up rusty old Allen revolver found with a metal detector after an old farm shed was torn down would be the only really found one. I did end up with the parts to a couple old guns when helping a friend clean out an old workshop that was part of an estate he was handling. Found the box full of parts in a pile of old lumber and he told me to keep it............. The good part was the complete rear half of a Stevens Favorite. Just the rear half but @ a year later he was sorting through tools he had pulled out of the garage and found the rest of it in a capped tube and brought it to me. I have had a few other guns given to me that someone else found but didn't want. Mostly people cleaning out a family members stuff and who weren't into guns but knew I was.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    oh the stories it could tell, well found this old sears semi auto 22 in the wall of attic in old house I was helping to putting insulation in. the home owner said something like yah eek its a gun get it out of here and don't bring it back. I would have been much happier if it was something like an old Ballard or even Winchester but its a sears and roebuck special and it still looks and works great.

  6. #6
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    I've found none personally, but had a solid chunk of rust Winchester 1886 rifle brought into my shop by the guy who did find it. This was a very small community in the Oregon Coast Range Mtns. The finder was plowing up a small field that many years before had been a vineyard. The owner at that time had been murdered by a gunshot, but the weapon was never found.

    Another time my son-in-law the deputy brought two badly rusted guns to the shop to be identified. One was a Mossberg 500 shotgun and the other a Savage 110 rifle. A little judicious scraping and sanding revealed the makers' names and serial numbers. They were found in a culvert wrapped in an old tarp and had no doubt been subject to running water for (?) how many winters. Neither had been reported stolen... so...?

    DG

  7. #7
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    Once when creek fishing years ago I found the barrel of a 12 gauge muzzle loader in the middle of the creek. Must have been in there for 150 years or so. Nothing else remained.
    Britons shall never be slaves.

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy Sig's Avatar
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    While fishing for fluke (summer flounder) in the great south bay, I caught a pneumatic speargun. Not knowing anything about it(pre-internet), I cleaned it up & started taking it apart. I was lucky when I removed a cap that it was pointed away from me. It still had plenty of pressure.

  9. #9
    Boolit Buddy skrapyard628's Avatar
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    When I was about 20yrs old one of my friends moved into a new house with his mom. We were cleaning up and refinishing the basement to make it into a bedroom for my friend. Hidden on top of one of the hvac ducts we found a single shot bolt action .22 and a bolt action 12ga along with a box of ammo for each one. I didnt have much of a chance to figure out what models they were though. My friends moms scummy boyfriend took them away almost instantly.

    This guy was a total scumbag with a rap sheet who was constantly drunk. And he didnt have a FOID (we are in Illinois) so he couldnt even own guns. My friend and I tried explaining this to his mom but those words fell on deaf ears. At the time both my friend and I had FOID cards and would go trap shooting regularly so we werent really new or unsafe "kids" around guns.

    Shortly after that my friend joined the Marines and when he finally came home his mother was no longer with that man and the guns were gone.

  10. #10
    Banned
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    I cleaned up my shooting buddies property three years ago after the cancer took him. I knew he had a few guns left, but I was surprised at the ones I found hidden in nooks and crannies all over the house. A nice 12 ga pump gun, short barrel type and a 44 replica 1856 Navy. There were others too numerous to mention. And I didn't know he had any of them.

    Ken

  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy memtb's Avatar
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    I’m still looking.......for the one I misplaced! memtb
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  12. #12
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    I was doing a home inspection for a new buyer where the home owners had been transfer to another state. When I was in the attic I found 3 rifle cases and a camera case with a big Nikon single reflex and telephoto lenses. I left them there and let the sellers agent know when the buyers were not around. She had me get them down after the buyers left and got them back to the owners. I got a gift card from them a week later with a nice note. They had totally forgot them.
    Steve,

    Life Member NRA
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  13. #13
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    My bestest best friend all through public school went on to become a Methodist minister. A bit after "getting" his own parish" he was driving his auto, to come upon a very recent automobile collision. He egressed his vehicle to ascertain injuries, if any; render comfort; and -- police having been already rung -- reckoned he should stay, at least until they arrived. *BUT*, "nature" began calling quite loudly, and he adroitly managed to get behind a bunch of shrubs about a light pole not too far away, while discreetly being out of sight. However, looking down, he spied a revolver!
    David picked it up after relieving himself, and attempted to give it to LEOs who had just arrived on scene. He ended up getting unceremoniously handcuffed and got a free ride to local station. I know very little about "the rest of the story" other than the moral: *TELL* LEOs about a found/seen firearm; do not touch it, much less pick it up. While he eventually ended up with a clean record, David did comment that it cost just about one thousand dollars (lawyers) so to do.
    My story re a found firearm...
    geo

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    My father in law had a single action 22 revolver he lost. He thought he had set it down in the barn. My son and I looked for several days for the missing gun. After he passed away my wife sold the ranch to a friend who has several small grand kids. We didn't want one of the kids to find it so we told him about the missing revolver and he looked through all the out buildings for several weeks to no avail. My father in law had a Honda 4 wheeler that hadn't been started for at least 8 years after his stroke. After he passed I brought into town to get running. While cleaning it up I looked in the "trunk" and found the revolver rapped up in an oily rag. It had been missing by this time for at least 10 years.

  15. #15
    Boolit Buddy
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    1886 Winchester. Found in the side of a gully in NW Nevada saw the lever sticking out of a gravel bank. Figure it was lost in a flash flood as there was 5' of gravel above it.

  16. #16
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    I found a box of 12 ga 7 1/2 shot shotgun shells with one round missing in a house we bought once. no gun though.
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  17. #17
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    One time I was fly-fishing Chamberlain creek in western Montana. The creek was overgrown with berry bushes along it's banks so you had to hop in the creek and stay in the creek to fish. I had fished up the creek a ways and was fishing my way back out when I spotted a revolver lying in the gravel underwater. I pulled it out and it was a nice Cimarron 1851 Colt conversion about like one that I had. Sad to say it actually took about half a second or so to register that it was the one I had

  18. #18
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    A family friend had spent a full career as a clandestine services officer in the agency and in his later years before retiring he served as an instructor at Camp Peary, near Toano, VA and also did rotations at Langley as a case officer answering the over night OMG phone. When he passed away his widow asked us to sweep the house to remove anything necessary so that the home and barns could be prepared for sale. My assignment was site assessment as safety officer and to facilitate removal and proper disposal of any toxic or hazardous materials. I was assisted by a state fire marshall who was also trained as a military EOD, an Electronic Countermeasures Technician, two drug and bomb sniffing dogs and an intelligence agency document security officer. We spent two full days in the sweep.

    No classified materials, illegal drugs or explosives other than sporting powder and primers were found. The team did remove a pickup truck load of guns, knives, ammunition, reloading equipment and components, 12 passports and over $100k in cash. You would be amazed at the hiding places where we found stuff. The list not for public distribution, but an official report was prepared which is still used as a training document for conducting searches at FBI National Academy at Quantico.

    After the items were examined and cleared by FBI, ATF and agency reps, the knives, sporting firearms, handloading equipment, components, ammo and most of the cash was returned to the attorney probating the estate and was sold at auction. I bought several pre-war Colt revolvers at the estate sale.
    Last edited by Outpost75; 08-25-2021 at 08:32 PM.
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  19. #19
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by Outpost75 View Post
    A family friend had spent a full career as a clandestine services officer in the agency and in his later years before retiring he served as an instructor at Camp Peary, near Toano, VA and also did rotations at Langley as a case officer answering the over night OMG phone. When he passed away his widow asked us to sweep the house to remove anything necessary so that the home and barns could be prepared for sale. My assignment was site assessment as safety officer and to facilitate removal and proper disposal of any toxic or hazardous materials. I was assisted by a state fire marshall who was also trained as a military EOD, an Electronic Countermeasures Technician, two drug and bomb sniffing dogs and an intelligence agency document security officer. We spent two full days in the sweep.

    No classified materials, illegal drugs or explosives other than sporting powder and primers were found. The team did remove a pickup truck load of guns, knives, ammunition, reloading equipment and components, 12 passports and over $100k in cash. You would be amazed at the hiding places where we found stuff. The list not for public distribution, but an official report was prepared which is still used as a training document for conducting searches at FBI National Academy at Quantico.

    After the items were examined and cleared by FBI, ATF and agency reps, the knives, sporting firearms, handloading equipment, components, ammo and most of the cash was returned to the attorney probating the estate and was sold at auction. I bought several pre-war Colt revolvers at the estate sale.
    Where do I sign up to get that guys job/career??

  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy pete501's Avatar
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    When I was 10 years old there was an escaped convict that was running from police. It was in our neighbor hood, and we were watching the sheriff's helicopter shining it's flood light a few blocks away. My brother hear some leaves rustling under one of the avocado trees. He told dad to call the police, which he did. The convict had climbed the tree and had fallen out right on a chain link fence, breaking his ribs. Cops arrived and arrested him. The convict was reported to have stolen a pistol while on the lamb. The next day the police came with metal detectors to no avail. We were told that if we found the gun, not to touch it, but call police.

    About 30 years later we were clearing the dirt around the gas meter and un-earthed a 1911 style hunk of rust. Grips were rotten away and you could see it had 38 super rounds in the magazine. We called the police but they were not interested. I still have the pistol as a momentum.

    I have found several guns while working as a range officer. These were all claimed a day or two later by embarrassed range members.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check