Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Rifles with the most sentimental value- post'em if you've got 'em!

I have owned a lot of nice rifles over the years, but there are a couple that have more value to me than any of the more expensive rifles in my safe. The first one is was my first hunting rifle, a Remington 700 Classic in 30-06. I took my first deer, a muley buck, with it when I was 12. My dad had traded an old pre-war Model 70 270 with a bunch of miles behind it for three Classic's back in the early 80's. I watched him take a 31 inch mulie buck with it on a snowy Halloween days hunt in NW Montana. My mom shot her first buck with the Classic, a beautiful 4x4 whitetail buck. My wife took her first buck with it before receiving her own rifle. It's a plain looking rifle, not much to look at if it wasn't for all the dings and scratches and worn bluing turning purple. The trigger pull sucks and it kicks like a mule, but it's almost the last one i'd leave in a burning house. This is the only picture with the rifle that I have handy at the moment.........
http://s739.photobucket.com/user/madisonvalleywapiti/media/047.jpg.html?sort=2&o=122
My dad mentioned to me a few years back that he wanted to switch to a lighter rifle as his old Model 70 XTR in .338 WM was getting heavy. He was going to trade in his rifle, but wanted to see if I wanted it. I gave him the money to pick up a Tika in .338 WM and I got his old rifle. I've seen that rifle kill a truckload of game so I couldn't pass it up! It has accounted for a couple cow moose, a mountain goat and probably a dozen elk and more deer and antelope to boot. Here's a picture of it with my best mulie buck from a few years back.
http://s739.photobucket.com/user/madisonvalleywapiti/media/IMG000151.jpg.html?sort=2&o=10
And another nice mulie...........
http://s739.photobucket.com/user/ma...untingseason013.jpg.html?sort=2&o=43
and another.........
http://s739.photobucket.com/user/ma...7Huntingpics045.jpg.html?sort=2&o=47
some whitetails.........
http://s739.photobucket.com/user/ma...18-R1-09-15_010.jpg.html?sort=2&o=66

I've got a 10/22 carbine, that Dad gave me new in '87 when I finished hunter's safety...they will probably have to bury me with it some day. Gotta be squirrels wherever we end up after this life...don't plan on finding out for a good long while though.

Not a rifle but

I was given by my uncle my grandfather's 1953 Ithaca 37 16 ga modified featherlight.Unfortunately it wasn't cared for after grandpa passed in 1966. When I received it, it was rusted pitted and you couldn't even open the action, along with scratches,dings and gouges in the stock.If it wasn't my grandfathers and someone tried to give it to me I would have said "thanks but no thanks"
Being that it was my grandfathers prized shotgun that my grandmother bought for him by saving a penny here and a dime there( he actually cried when she gave it to him)
I decided to have it restored. I brought it to Frank at Sycamore Hill Designs http://www.sycamorehilldesigns.com/
It wasn't cheap,I'm sure I paid far more than the guns monetary worth but you can't put a price tag on some things.
All metal stripped blasted and reblued, engravings retouched,stock and fore end repaired and refinished.
The gun looks and functions like the day my grandmother presented it to grandpa

dvd -

man---that 37 is S W E E T !!

I "would have" done the same.


Jerry

ismith -

That trigger on the 700 Classic is so easy & simple to adjust. If you don't know how or trust yourself to do it, a real gunsmith should NOT charge much to adjust it.

Jerry

Ken Howell gave me this rifle 18 months ago.

Santa Barbra Mauser action,Marqhuart barrel,Garnet Brawley did the stock work.

I'm lucky enough to have some great pre 64 M70's that I'm trying to give a proper history to, but to pick one that means most to me it is this .270 fwt a dear friend built long ago, took on many hunts and one day just shipped it to me.

This is my Grandfather's Model 94 in 30 Winchester. By the serial number, it was made in 1906.
The story goes that he took a tumble in the fog on an Idaho mountain and broke the butt stock. He paid $9.50 to get a 'high-grade' replacement.



I also have my Grandfather's '97 Winchester 12 gauge. Made in 1914. I took my turkey with it in 2014.
30" full choke. Dad said when they were boys, they called it 'old ka-schliticker-shlot' because of the sound it made when you worked the action.

The .280 RCBS gifted to me by the late Ken Howell. One of my most prized possessions. It was on the cover of March-April issue of Rifle Magazine. miles

Double-sweet... What a gorgeous restoration. Damn.. Now it's way too purdy to take into the field..

I don't have a picture of it handy, but Dad willed a rifle to me that Mom bought him for his birthday in 1948, the year they got married. It is 22 rimfire in a Browning pump that folks call a Trombone. It has seen lots of use, and has a healthy patina on it, but it is still a tack driver. I learned to shoot on that rifle, and so did my two daughters.

My brother got the rest of Dad's rifles, a 99C Savage, a Lee Enfield, and a single shot 410 Cooey, but that little Browning pump is one that is destined to stay in the family.

I don't have a pic of it, but my sentimental piece is much lowlier than those posted. It's a miserable old N.R.Davis single shot 12 gauge. The story goes that my dad sometime around the WWII era traded one of his buddies a jackknife and some other small treasures for a horrid POS gun called a "Zulu"- 12 gauge single shot with a side hammer and rickety swinging breech. When he proudly showed it to his grandfather (local country "gunsmith"), to my father's horror the old man took the gun and smashed it over the chopping block, saying "no grandson of mine is gonna blow his fool head off with a POS like this!" He then gifted dad with the Davis gun. It eventually became mine and taught an excitable 12 year old to become a cool beady eyed wing shot.

A lot of fancier guns have come and gone, but that one remains in my hands. Restore it? Not on your life. Every scratch, dent, and pit in it reminds me of those pheasant fields in Pennsylvania and the quail and dove fields in Maryland, from a galaxy long ago and far away...

It's the gun I plan on taking with me when I take that Road to Tinkhamtown.

Ditto on the 10/22. Bought this one in 1968, original walnut stock that I refinished with a mixture of Tru-oil and ground up charcoal briquets sometime in the 70's, and that's the same Williams FoolProof it's worn for most of its life although it got a new Skinner blade front sight last year. Bit of surface rust on the barrel, lots and lots of "honest" handling marks, but it and the Remington 1100 my father gave me for Christmas 1966 are the two that will definitely be in my estate sale.

dvd,very nice Ithaca! I love those older models with the corn cob forearm .I would like to find an older 16 ga. Deer Slayer.

No it's not grandpa would want it hunted

hey Elknh. & milesp-

Those are some great rifles PLUS coming from Dr H.
WOW .....




I will DOUBLE what both of you paid for them.




Jerry

Here is my Savage 99F .358. I have taken the most deer with this rifle.

It wears a 2-7 Leupold now however a 4X Lyman All-American was the original scope in 1966.

I have two, the first is a 1952 Model 70 FWT in .308 that was purchased new by my grandfathers best friend. Bob got too old to hunt about the same time I started hunting, and he sold it to my dad for a ridiculously small sum. It was my first deer rifle, and I'm still looking for a better one. The second is the Marlin 336 .30-30 that dad bought new from K-mart in 1963. He used that gun continuously until the mid-80's, and sporadically after that. It was the gun he was holding when he died in his deer stand in 2003. Neither of those are going anywhere, and if my kids don't want them, they'll go with me.

Dang nice.



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9x57. Oh yeah!

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Arrrrgh. Hate a buggered screw slot.

None of my family were big game hunters so I purchased my own first deer rifle, a Rem 710 in 30-06. Killed my first 4 deer with it then traded it off when I won a Ruger M77 in 280Rem in a raffle and figured out what a nice rifle was. I don't miss it at all.

Ones I'll keep:
Marlin Model 75c 22lr - my first rifle
Browning 12ga BPS - first shotgun
Rem 870 Wingmaster 50s model bought new by my grandfather
Hi-Standard Duramatic 22 pistol bought new by my grandfather
50s S&W Nickel revolver in 32S&W long bought new by my other grandfather. It's still in the box with both sets of handles, wood and mother of pearl, paperwork, and cleaning rod.

I guess the toughest CF rifle to let go of would be my first Pre 64 Model 70, a 220Swift.