Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Guns during the depression - What did your family have?

During the Depression here's what granddad had:

Remington 1889 12 Bore double hammer gun.
Winchester 94 in .30-30
Winchester 1890 in .22 Short

You can assume quite a bit of the story just looking at the guns. The '94 got carried a bit, but not much. There were indentations on the grip area of the stock from being carried. Other than that, there were very little wear anywhere on the rifle, and the bore was near mint. I've killed several bear and boar with that rifle; it's my favorite in my collection.

The 1889 Remington seems to be a big food getter; it was well worn when I got her. Rib was a little loose, front bead had been missing for decades, the forend was extensively worn and battered away from the forend metal, all the checkering was worn smooth, and the fancy hard rubber butt plate was nearly smooth. Remarkably the action was only a smidge loose and she was still ready to hunt. I've taken turkey, squirrel, and duck with that gun.

The Winchester 1890 pump action .22 Short seems to have been THE gun for putting food on the table. The barrel was nearly a smoothbore, the stock was broken and repaired with bailing wire. The bolt and it's locking recess were not even a sloppy fit - the gun would only fire if you exert forward pressure on the forend to hold the bolt against the breech. Regardless, even in such shoddy condition, I've head shot'ed enough bunnies to be considered a Jihad.

Grandpa also had a S&W K frame in .32-20 but that was sold before I was born. The rest I have today.

Would love to know, my dads side ran shine in Tennessee, I'm sure they had some firearms with some stories to go with them. Sadly I've never met anybody from that side of the family.

My father had a Remington 11 semi-auto 12 ga. shotgun, a Winchester single shot bolt action .22 LR, and a Colt's Police Positive Special .32-20 WCF. (My mother was also a good shot with that .32-20.

L.W.

In 1933, Earl Ozel Osbon was a homeless waif of 11, living in filthy squalor in a barn on a ramshackle ranch a few miles southeast of Lander Wyoming. My parents, who were childless at the time, paid the rancher $50.00, took the boy from the ranch and informally adopted him as their own. The family soon found employment at Torrey Lake Ranch, near Dubois, where they lived until 1942.

After being homeschooled to an 8th grade level, Earl spent his teenage years working as a cowboy on several Dubois area ranches. In 1940, he enlisted in the Navy and spent all of World War II in the Pacific Theatre. A career Navy man, he also served throughout the Korean conflict. He died tragically in 1956 while still serving his country.

After a summers work on the Double Diamond ranch near Dubois, Earl accepted this rifle as partial payment of wages. He made the scabbard himself and carried the rifle on his saddle for the remainder of his years as a cowboy. When Earl enlisted in the Navy, he left the rifle with his foster father , who then passed it to me, his son . I used the rifle for hunting occasionally, the last time in 2009, harvesting a bull moose only a mile or so from the old Double Diamond ranch. I also shot it quite a bit in Metallic Silhouette.

The rifle is an 1886 Winchester, caliber .33 WCF, made in 1907 and shows the scars of years in the saddle and in hunting camps.

Last Summer, my wife and I donated the rifle, the scabbard and a pair of Earls spurs to the Lander Pioneer Museum. The Museum was very happy to receive the items, and made them a central part of their cowboy memorabilia. There was a nice article in the local paper about the donation, which brought about a truely astonishing event .

Soon after the article was published, I received a call from an elderly lady who told me she had known Earl and wanted me to come over, which I did. It turned out that she, Marie, had been Earls first love, his girlfriend all during his cowboy days in Dubois. He had proposed during the war, but she had turned him down, something she said she had regretted over the years. She gave me some pictures taken of him and his group of friends back in the 1930's and when he was home on leave in 1942. Marie is now my only link to my beloved foster brother, I left her home with tears in my eyes. These are the things that can only happen in small town America.

Here are some pix of the rifle:

My great grandfather (whom my grandfather worked for) ran shine in West Sacramento. But there wasn't much threat, their two biggest customers were the Chief of Police, and the Mayor.

When my great grandmother died in the late '80's, we cleaned out her house, and in the very back of the garage was the still. My aunt quickly stepped in and confiscated that. She and her husband cleaned it all up, shined up the copper and brass, and it put it in their entertainment room...after making just one batch for old time sake.

A Neuman Bros. 12 gauge sxs, a 30-40 Krag, and a Stevens Favorite .22.

My father didn't tell me of many hunting stories other than some small game and varmint shooting when they visited relatives in Stockton or Chico. He and his brother had a Remington #4 rolling block in 22 long and their father's 1911 45 acp from the great war.

Good stories! If (when) another depression or crisis hits, I and my family will at least be better armed than most during the depression, but then so will others.... Trying to collect some MRE's, ammo etc as I go.

We have a couple that belonged to my GGFather, a tiny little take-down Winchester pump 22 - think it's a 1906

and a side by side 20 gauge, I take it a fairly cheap gun in the day. Only markings on it are Daniel Boone and a portrait of dude in a coonskin cap. I hunted with it growing up till it shot loose, wallhanger now. I do remember that the left barrel in particular is choked so tight, it's fairly easy to clean miss
a squirrel with it - modern turkey guns should shoot so tight!

Still have one shell left from the last case GGF bought, Remington paper hull Express #5, roll crimp

My grandpa didn't have schit. He was the oldest of five kids and had to hit the road as a result. His mom couldn't afford to feed him.

He prospered. There was a lot of fighting over his guns when he passed though.



Travis

From what I've heard from my dad, I'm not sure that his family could even afford guns during the depression. They relied heavily on traps, snares, fishing, and trot-lines. If they had no luck, they didn't eat dinner. They weren't very picky about what they caught, either. Blackbirds, Blue Jays, Wrens, Mockingbirds, it didn't matter. If it went in the trap, they ate it.

hard to imagine that kind of poverty in America now.

One of my grandfathers had a hardware store 16 ga. double during the Depression. That's about it.

Grandpa passed in 34 leaving Granma with 4 kids, so I would imagine any firearms he had were sold, it was hard times. Dad tells me of a shotgun they had that had the trigger tied back and rubber bands on the hammer. Pull the hammer back and release to fire.

The only ones I know of were the Winchester single-shot .22 that I now have, a Springfield single-shot .22, and a Winchester pump .22. Those were the three owned by my great grandfather and his sons on the farm they had. The Springfield and the pump are long gone through other lines of the family tree.

The Winchester I have is a stone killer. My great uncle and my grandfather both said "that thing has killed more schit than typhoid".

None! Dad's dad always borrowed neighbors 30-30 when meat was needed. They didn't have gun of their own until cousin went to WWII. Left all his guns with grandpaw.

Mom's dad had single shot 16 ga. Then old man in town gave him a remington rolling block. But there wasn't anything bigger than a possum withing a 50 mile radius of them!

My dad's dad was a mean mean man. He supposedly was involved in many backroom deals and later worked for Dallas county in a variety of positions. The family was not a gun-embracing group but probably had a single-shot shotgun or two for meat getting.
The only known firearm that my dad's father carried was a Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless in .380 ACP.
He carried it in a long coat or his coveralls everywhere all the time.
When he passed away in 1975 what belongings that were left were piled on a kitchen table to be divided between my dad and his sisters....only.
The old worn Colt 380 was there. As the evening progressed i noticed that an aunt's husband was slowly moving the little Colt toward him. I whispered in my dad's ear and without saying a word my dad just nodded his head.
When finally the division was settled one sister noticed my dad had only a couple of items before him....he had let his sisters take the bulk of the stuff. She said it didn't seem fair.
Dad replied that if no one cared he would take their dad's handgun for himself and me.
The sisters (and their husbands and a couple of my cousins) noticed the table center was bare....no little Colt.
After a bit of silence,my dad requested in low tone that the one brother-in-law slide the Colt over to my dad.
After a longer silence,the sneaky b-i-l sputtered that it must have slid under his jacket's sleeve somehow during the evening.
I have it now.

a .22 and double barreled 12 ga. Fulton/LC Smith. Seems my Dad would drive the truck (he would have been about 8 or 10 years old), while his adopted father sat the hood/bumper shooting rabbits.

If people didn't get food stamp credit cards and had to stand in line at a soup kitchen, we'd look worse that the great depression right now.

I'd say in regards to moral poverty, we're much poorer today than 80-90 years ago.