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

[Butzbach]

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

Can you say “hammer thong?” Thoughtchacould.

[azrednek]

Back in the late 80’s I found a Randall 45, two mags and carry case laying in the street. I had cop friend run the numbers about a week later. It wasn’t reported lost or stolen.

[imashooter2]

I found a Remington #6 boy’s rifle in the basement of my late Father In Law's old place years after he had passed. Thread with pictures here:
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...y-what-I-found

[Walks]

Back in the 1960's My Dad bought a small 2 bedroom house in Los Angeles. Going through the garage rafters I found an old Pre-War radio, about 12" X 20". We plugged it in, dial lit up but no sound. Took off the back and found a Colt SAA 5 1/2" bbl in .38-40 with Hard Rubber grips. It was wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Dad checked the SN, it was made about 1910.
About 85% finish with perfect bore and chambers. Dad didn't want to mess with loading. 38-40, so it was converted to .45Colt.

And We did get the old radio working too.

[SciFiJim]

About 25 years ago, my wife and I bought a foreclosure house. The word was that the previous owner had been a drug dealer. After we fixed it up and moved in, the kids were playing in the back yard when they noticed that our dog was digging something up. When they checked it out and finished digging it up, it was a sealed ammo box. Being little kids, they thought "Buried Treasure"!!! Luckily, they couldn't get it opened and showed it to me when I got home from work. When I opened it, it contained a Ingram MAC10 9mm submachine gun without serial number, a well crafted homemade suppressor and 200 rounds of Black Talon 9mm ammo. I called the cops, who came and got it. They also swept my backyard with a metal detector looking for more.

If my kids hadn't seen it, I might have been tempted to keep it for myself. However, I couldn't be certain my kids could keep that kind of secret. It is just as well that the cops took away the temptation.

[azrednek]

A former but now deceased shoe string relative found two WW2 P-38’s in original boxes with capture papers in his fathers garage after his death. Long story short he lost the P-38’s as they were confiscated by Chicago Police and he was charged with possession of unregistered handguns. Charges were dropped after a night in jail and he agreed to give up the pistols.

[Winger Ed.]

I almost forgot--- Years ago, back in the 80's, I'd taken the family dog to the horse Doctor.
I decided to hang around and wait for some blood tests instead of going back later.

The office was on an old 2-lane humpback blacktop road a few hundred yards on down from a busy city street & stop light.
As I was walking around, I found a new/unfired looking Stainless Colt Mustang .380 in the grass.

It was in the right place for someone to have panicked if a cop got in behind them while in the big street's left turn lane,
as they went around the corner, made a blind spot to the car behind them, and threw it out.

I called the Police and asked if it was stolen. They said it wasn't.
Not being a .380 guy, after awhile, I sold it.

[Thin Man]

One of my friends had luck of the find when he was helping tear down a barn several years ago. Stacked inside some of the framing was a rusty, half lever single shot rifle that no one could identify for him. When the next local gun show arrived he took it there for ID and perhaps to sell it. After getting several "I think that is a ..." answers he met a vendor who happened to be Turner Kirkland (think Dixie Gun Works). Mr. Kirkland took a brief look at the rifle and identified it as a Ballard, named the cartridge caliber, pointed out all of the rifle's challenges of rust, broken forend, on and on. Then came Mr. Kirkland's offer he would pay for the rifle. With that offer he said for the owner to carry the rifle around the show until he was ready to leave. If he got a better offer for it, sell it. If not, the offer would stand until the end of the day. This finder got no better offers and accepted the offer a few hours later. I am sure both of them were happy with this sale.

[ericp]

I was doing survey work up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and had a first gen LCP in my back pocket. While crossing a swollen stream (May) I fell and was swept about 30 yards downhill before I got hung up on rock. Got pretty banged up but nothing major broken. While spreading out my gear I realized the LCP was missing. Spent 6 hours up there looking for it until I had to hike back out and came back the next day to look some more. I reported the gun as lost to the Lincoln PD and showed them on map where it was.

3 months later I was back in the same area so I headed over to the river and found the LCP in 15 minutes. The water was way lower and just the barrel was sticking up out of the gravel. Took a while to get it stripped as it was full of coarse sand and grit. Ended up getting a new barrel and the finish on the slide is ruined but otherwise it works fine. All of the ammo fired too. Went to the police station and the Sergeant's jaw about bounced off his desk when I showed him I had found it.

Now I carry an old 38 Special Colt Agent in my front pocket but I keep the LCP around for the story.


Eric

[Gator 45/70]

I'm not the lucky one in the family...But a younger brother worked for a moving and storage co up in AK.
At the time the un-paid rental unit's were auctioned off in a public sale.
The owner of the company would allow lil brother to go thru auction units prior to the public sale.
He found in 1 unit a Spencer, Possibly civil war era?
Another a couple of very old swords, Looked like Union army swords.
The owner keep the Spencer and the brother got the 2 swords.

[bedbugbilly]

When I was a kid, we went to my Aunt and Uncle's which was about two hours away from us - my uncle had passed away and my Aunt was going to sell the house and move into a townhouse. My uncle was a "gentleman hunter" - i.e. he went deer hunting every year up in Northern Michigan at a deer camp that he owned with four other guys. All of hi9s hunting stuff was stored in the attic by him and I was assigned the task of going up through the access hole and hand things down to my Dad. My Uncle stored his hungitn clothes in suitcases and there were other things he had put up there as well - boxes of business records, etc. I took a break and came down to help my Dad and Aunt go through the suitcases and lay out the hunting clothes and in one of the suitcases full of wool hunting clothes, I found a "bank bag". In the bag, wrapped in wax paper was a nice 32 caliber hand ejector S & Wesson revolver. My Aunt knew nothing about it but she said she would give it to her son.

When we got done with the suitcases, I went back up into the attic and handed the rest of the things down to Dad - mostly boxes of business records. I told my Dad that everything was down and he handed me a flashlight and told me to look around carefully and make sure nothing was left up there. My Uncle had floored a section of the attic and everything had been placed on it, but my Dad told me to look around the edge fo the flooring to make sure something had fallen in between the floor joists. The attic where there things were stored was over the garage and the ceiling was not insulated. I worked my way around the edge of the floored area and about half way around it, I shone the light into the space between the floor joists and I spotted the end of a small leather satchel like case - I pulled it out and it was definitely old - it looked almost like an old time Doctor's bag but a small one. I finished looking and when I was done, I handed it down to my Dad. We set it on a table and when I opened it up, there was something wrapped up in what looked like an old square of torn linen sheet. Inside of the cloth was an old British Bulldog revolver. It had surface pitting all over it and the bore was pretty much done in - but all the stampings were legible. My Aunt had no idea about why it was up there or where my Uncle wold have gotten it. They had built the house so it obviously was from him. She told me that she wanted me to have it and while my Dad had reservations about it, he agreed to let me eep it. I never knew anything about where it had come from but I kept it for many years until I gave it to a young fellow a few years back that had a great interest in collecting Saturday Night Specials. He was just getting started in collecting and I knew he would appreciate it and enjoy it.

It is interesting to read about other's "finds". I have done a little "treasure hunting" with a metal detector but have never found much other than I did accumulate a collection of old nails! LOL But I have always enjoyed seeing some of the "finds" by those who have had the opportunity to relic hunt on Civil War sites - especially those that "magnet hunt" in old rivers. It must be a real thrill to find the things they do.

[Ithaca Gunner]

First of all, I never found a gun, just spent cartridges, what was left of a bayonet, and canister/grape shot in unlikely places. The canister/grape shot was in a creek where we were cooling off as boys. Not far from the creek a very minor ''action'' happened during the Gettysburg campaign, (it was about as close to Harrisburg as the Confederate army got). Though I've read the story and some artillery was present, no mention of it being used and if it had been, it would have been a ball that flew over the heads of whom ever it was fired at to end up where it was. It's the real article, I've seen matching balls the same size and type in museums and collections and showed it to the guys at, ''The Horse Soldier'' in Gettysburg who assured me it was a grape shot ball.

The bayonet was in the same creek, but several miles down stream close to the mouth where it empties into the river close to where the old Harrisburg Nail Works factory was. I was exploring what was left of the nail factory, mostly just some brick work, (it burned in 1911) had gotten away from the factory itself a ways looking at the aqua-ducts in the creek and started seeing nails, a lot of nails in the creek of all sizes. I grabbed a few hand fulls as keep-sakes and saw a strange looking object sticking out of the bank, it looked like a stick, but it didn't look like a stick. Freeing it and washing it in the creek I had about a 5'' shank stub of a Civil War Enfield bayonet. What they called, ''Ft. Washington'' was on the other side of the creek, down river from where I was about a mile. I figure some soldier, (militia) from there had been at the creek, maybe fishing and lost his bayonet. Ft. Washington was across the river from Harrisburg to defend the bridges leading to the city during the Gettysburg campaign.

The cartridge cases are still a mystery, .45-70 Gov't issue found under ground while digging a trench on land that was, ''Camp Curtain'' during the Civil War, a major training center for Northern troops and closed at the end of the war. No record of P.N.G. using it for training or a range in the later 1800's, all their old armories are at least a few miles away. I guess it's possible they used it during the Spanish-American war, but I've not found any record of it, as far as I know, it reverted back to farm land after the Civil War. Maybe somebody just shot there at one time having a cash of Gov't ammo.

Not the coolest stuff I've ever found, but the only gun related stuff.

[Shepherd2]

Almost 40 years ago I was insulating the attic of an old house we owned. I found a nickel plated pin fire .22 revolver with genuine ivory grips. It was in about 95% condition, really nice. I gave it to my son a few years later.

More recently we sold our farm and most of our possessions at auction and moved to a new home. When I put the firearms away I came up 3 handguns short, 2 of which were pretty valuable. I looked all over many times and couldn't find them even though I was sure they had been moved. We hadn't brought much with us and there wasn't a whole lot to look through. About 6 months after we moved I was getting something out of a tote that I had been in several times before. I got curious about what else was in there and started digging. The 3 guns I had been looking for were on the bottom. You can imagine how happy and relieved I was. Then I remembered that those 3 guns were in a separate cabinet and were packed as part of the last minute rush.

[blackthorn]

Went to a yard sale years ago at the end of the day. There was a five gallon bucket of junk and on top of it was a heavy duty, stainless steel, swivel type object designed to be used between two chains to prevent the chain from kinking up. I asked how much for the swivel and he said he wanted the whole bucket gone so, two bucks for the lot. I brought it home and as I went through it I found a fair amount of useable stuff along with a hand forged tomahawk head and the complete lock from a flintlock. A few years ago I went to the local gun show and just for giggles I stuck that old flintlock mechanism in my pocket. While at the show I came across a table selling some old percussion firearms and I asked them if they could tell me anything about the mechanism I had and he said it was from an old Hudson's Bay trade gun. He said it was worth up to two hundred dollars. He only worked with percussion fired guns but there was another dealer there who might be interested. He introduced me to that guy (warning me the guy would try to low-ball) and after some negotiations, I wound up with $175.00. I put a handle on the old hawk and I still have it. Pretty good return on a $2 investment.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

When I was about 12 years old my friend's dad was helping someone move. They did a last walk around to make sure and while in the basement my friend's dad saw a rifle leaning against a wall and asked, are you going to take that? The man said no, take it if you want it. He brought the rifle home and gave it to my friend to play with. The rifle was a 1873 Winchester carbine in 38-40. I traded my friend something for the rifle and played with it for a while. In the mean time my father had returned from California where he had been working in a shipyard. He had found a cigar box full of all kind of cartridges, mostly Japanese. I found one of the cartridges would fit in the chamber of the rifle. I forced it all the way in with the lever. Being young a stupid, I pulled the trigger. Once again my guardian angel was on the job, [how do any of us boys reach adulthood] the gun did not fire. I found a metal rod that would go down the barrel but I could not get the live round out. I was afraid to hit it too hard. I traded the rifle off still loaded. I lost track of the gun and never heard of any accident with it.

[hpbear101]

Can you say “hammer thong?” Thoughtchacould.

It had a hammer thong

[labradigger1]

Found a Gwen and Campbell Union grapevine rifle last year while metal detecting in a civil war hut. Right around 4000 made. They were issued to Calvary and they hated them. Found a sword scabbard in the same hut also.

[d4xycrq]

I was a Range Safety Officer at a Air Base in Germany. U S Army COL came in with a pristine K98 to shoot. Like new. Well, it was, as he found it in a barn in Belgium. Wrapped in some sort of preservative wrap. Think of all the others out there, as well.

Me, never found nuttin’.

[Texas by God]

My "found" H&R 20 ga 490 Jr. It had fallen from the tractor and got "disced" the round before.....fixed it and gave it to my girlfriend then married her to keep it!
I hope to "find" my Hi-point 9mm that my Blue heeler probably carried off in a Ruger pistol rug....
I'm not a gun finder, apparently!

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[Outpost75]

Where do I sign up to get that guys job/career??

I'm now retired and trust me, you DON'T want to TDY to Astan.....