Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Products which just work, despite abuse

Sure there's the ubiquitous Toyota Taco, the Leopold scopes, and Garand rifles, but I was pleasantly surprised this spring by a cheap Toro push type lawn mower from Home Depot.

It is about five years old, only had the oil changed a couple times, runs on 87 octane regular w/ ethanol, and got horribly neglected this winter.

I last mowed the lawn around Thanksgiving. Next thing I noticed was the lawn mower under a foot of snow, then two feet. Then we had to shovel the roof of the house and the mower was buried under a full six feet of snow and ice. I really expected to buy a new mower this year.

After the snow all went away, and the grass started growing, I stepped out, checked the oil, added some gass, and started the engine on the first pull. Pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

A neighbor had an old Toro mower he bought at a garage sale for cheep. He was trying to kill it so he'd have an excuse with the wife to buy a new one. He loaned it to me one afternoon and was pretty unhappy when i returned it full of fresh oil. I didn't realize he was trying to kill it until he started cussing about how now, it would never die.

Honda 300 Fourtrax 4x4

1999 Dodge 4x4 5 speed w/Cummins

Bobcat 753 skidsteer

New Balance tennis shoes

I got a Toro from Home Depot years ago, and it just keeps on working.

I mowed our yard in Anchorage for five years with a Honda Mower with a badly bent crank. I had to put a bend in the blade hub area to compensate.

Pre-powerstroke stickshift solid axle diesel ford pickups...

$15 Kershaw fillet knives (orange stripes on handle) - I've not found better.

Big girls. - They go and go

Cee-Tee pliers.

2 stroke lawnboy mowers. paid 25 bucks for it 30 years ago. i literally ran 2 sets of wheels off of mine. got a freebie out of somebodies garbage and did a carb and cable/linkage/wheel swap and ran it for about 10 years afterwards. it was still running when i gave it to a buddy. i hope my honda does half as well but i kind of doubt it.

Don't have time to do this story justice, but twenty some years ago I had a Pontiac Parisienne, GM corporate 5.0 liter The catalytic converter was clogging, but I hadn't quite figured that out yet. I towed a heavy U-haul up the mountain behind Uniontown, PA (long, pretty steep hill) on a hot day, had to drop to first gear, barely going 10 mph, valve train literally sounded like silverware in a garbage disposal, temperature gauge pegged high. Long, long, way, up and two more similar hills after that. Top of the hill, down the other side, temp comes back down, engine quiets up, no problemo.

Put probably another 30K miles on that car, never fixed anything on the motor. Automobile magazine once said about those first GM downsized fullsize cars, "They'll run bad longer than most cars will run".

🤣

Leupold should include a small ball pein hammer with every scope. And don't use the Long Range Target Scope... for long range target shooting either.

Mauser rifles...

Had a Snapper and Toro push mower(10+years each) and the decks rusted thru before anything mechanical happened. And that is even after washing thourlly after. My newest Toro has an aluminum deck with a Mexican engine hope it holds up as well.

Mossberg shotguns sure hold up.

I have an old craftsman cordless drill I think it a 9.6 volt that my wife gave me 18 years ago.

The old Penn 109, 209 and 309 series of reels.

Scotty electric downriggers.

Glock pistols.

2000 era Chevy trucks and the 5.3.

Old console TVs.

Anything manufactured before 1970.

4-71 wins hands down.

Yes!

Is that what you have in the Glory?

Yes. The fleet still uses them extensively. I'm at 15k+ hours on mine, expect at least another 10k before rebuild. I'm addicted to the hum..

Akubra hats

Barbour waxed jackets

HK pistols

Ruger automatic .22 pistols and 10/22s

Sounds like it might be an engine of some kind? Please elaborate.

Yeah great engines. The low rhythmic hum always makes me sleepy. 😁

It's a inline 4 cylinder Detroit diesel. Very common in boats and about as reliazble and bulletproof as one can get. They sip the fuel and just keep working. Calvin can tell you more than I can since I've driven plenty but I've never owned one.