Most true “hunters” that I’ve known were NOT “gun guys” and didn’t have much use for anything beyond what met their needs and reliably brought home meat. They didn’t care much about bullet construction as long as it shot straight and killed what it hit……oftentimes they preferred 180’s for deer and 220’s for everything bigger…that was the extent of their foray into external ballistics. There certainly weren’t the myriad of choices back then either. For a capable rifleman there really aren’t too many “wrong” choices of brands, calibers or styles, each being unique to the rifleman/hunter’s preferences and maybe perhaps intended quarry….at least for the real forward thinking hunter of the day. 😀
My father in law grew up in the logging camps and fishing villages of Alaska back in the 50’s so, as a teenager when he saw the biggest black bear of his life (and he’d seen a lot in his young life) he had to buy the rifle the Indian used, a model 53 in 25-20, which is proudly and forever in my “collection”. I hardly consider the 25-20 big bear medicine but that old native thought it good enough and my father in law didn’t know any better…..until he got to Kodiak. 😀. He had a different rifle for Kodiak that he and his brother left there and shared….a 25-06. That rifle almost cost his brother (uncle Rick) his life and even though the Kodiak skull sits proudly in Rick’s front entryway the rifle is somewhere out in the bay…they swore that 25-06 off after that experience and bought a brand new Winchester 70 in 7mm Rem Mag with 2 boxes of shells…in 1965 and then they never shot it and my father in law spent the next 10 years flying in SE Asia for Air America. My FIL’s dad held onto it for safe keeping while he was gone overseas and through the natural process of losing the one’s we most love I inherited that rifle. I took 3 shells (because I’m a sentimental fool) and fired it 3 times for chronograph numbers with the same shells they bought in 1965 before setting it up in a synthetic stock for use back where she first started life…Alaska. I have the brand new 1965 factory stock in a rifle sock and box but I’ll never swap it back out and the scars we share from here on just add to the story.
I spent my pre-teens, teens and young adulthood hunting with the only centerfire rifle I owned until I was mid 20’s it’s another cherished family possession that my grandpa bought me in the desert of Apache Junction at Diamond Jim’s gunshop, a Remington 788 in 30-30. That accompanied the .22 Glenfield bolt action rifle I got for Christmas 1980…another cherished possession of mine that is ALWAYS included in my “arsenals” of daydream requirements. 😀
The older I get the more the OLD guns mean to me and the more my connection to them grows as well as their souls seem to grow immeasurably deeper with time spent together afield. Once I’ve declared a deep and sentimental attachment to a particular firearm I don’t refinish it, we wear many of the same scars and that deepens the bond. This is my long winded way of saying mine WAS a Single shot 20ga Savage, Glenfield 25(iirc) and 788 in 30-30….nowadays I don’t think I could choose just 3 because I have too many that meant too much for those I loved and they allow me to still take a quiet walk through the woods with my most cherished people…
