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.

I don't recall ever hearing any relatives say exactly what kind of firearms they had back during the depression but I do remember an uncle telling me about pitching some old "worthless" black powder guns in an erosion ditch after they finally got to where they could afford smokeless powder guns.

Funny. And in the same vein of the thread. The follks I was raised and brought up around, we're all gun folks/outdoorsmen, but their philosophy around handguns was totally different. It was simple. If you had a handgun in your possession, you were either in law enforcement or you were up to no good. This was pretty universal around all the old timers. That cut and dried. A handgun would get you nothing but trouble.

That was their way of thinkin' not necessarily mine.

Uncle Son used to load up an old Civil War era shotgun with a buncha crunched up "strike anywhere" match-heads for propellant and use popcorn kernals fer shot.

He'd stick a match head in the hammer to serve in lieu of percussion caps.

He kept blowin' holes in the kitchen floor while fuggin' with it so Pappy Hill took it away from him,...

,...so he blew up the outhouse with an early 1900 series pipe bomb.

I recall my Papaw talkin' about it,..

"They wasn't enough left o'that outhouse to kindle a far. Son always did like playing with that black powder".

there wasn't much, a model of 1917 winchester, a "long tom" 12guage, a remington single shot .22rifle, and a colt SAA in 38wcf.
My dad told me he had lost a lever coming out of a saddle scabbard up a canyon way back when. Wish i could find it.
I know that colt killed one deer, right through an open window in the front of a model A, killed a grizz, and a man on whiskey row in prescott.

A single barrel 12 game of unknown origin which has disappeared and a Stevens Crackshot 26 which I have.

The Crackshot 26 was bought/bartered from the feed store for three cases of quarts of green beans and $2.60 in cash money by my Great-grandfather and given to my Grandfather for his first gun. My Dad got it as his first, and I got it as my first when I turned 7 years old. It now belongs to my oldest son.

Ed

Yeah,...I remember askin' Papaw what Pappy Hill did to Uncle Son fer blowin' up the outhouse,...he said,..

"Awwww,...he give him a good talkin' to".

I was born quite a bit later and we had indoor plumbing for the most part,...but I thought at the time,..

"Pappy Hill musta been a good soul".

My old man woulda beat me half to damn death fer blowing up the outhouse with a pipe bomb.

"he give a good talkin to" might have been in code too

Sometimes the stupid stuff your kids do leaves you more perplexed and sometimes a bit bemused rather than angry.

Also makes me recall the burning of our outhouse.

I was a little Opie Taylor lookin' runt.

The old man headed out to the backyard.

"Whatcha doin?,...whatcha doin?" I asked as I chugged along behind him.

He didn't say nothing.

But he got some gasoline and threw it on the outhouse. Then he stood there with a thousand yard stare while smokin' a cigarette as it burned.

I distinctly remember it saggin' to the side and falling over.

I was just a kid and didn't understand the significance of the matter,....but getting the indoor plumbing hooked up and setting fire to the outhouse was a "I have arrived" moment to the old man.

The thunderbucket era had ended for all time for our family.

probably a 303

For his time, Granddad was pretty well armed.

He had 3 Winchesters:

Model 67 .22 lr single shot
Model 1897 12 gauge
Model 54 .270 Winchester

My Dad was born in 1914 and grew up on a farm in Colorado, The depression hit and he said other than having little money they were okay on the farm. His shotgun was a Model 12, 16 bore. He lost it in a poker game in Denver about 1938. He never mentioned having any other guns and didn't own any when I was a kid.

My Grandad, a Central Kansas farmer with 3 young sons, owned the following during the Depression. A Winchester Model 12 shotgun bought for him by my Grandmother in 1915, using her saved up egg money. A model 1915 Stevens Favorite .22. It is almost a smoothbore now. A 1903 Colt Auto pistol in 38 ACP caliber. A Hopkins and Allen Safety Police revolver in 32 S&W. He bought that in 1908 to kept wild dogs away from his buggy horse while he drove the 5 miles to court Grandma. I own these guns now. He also had a Winchester 9mm shotgun. I don't know the model number, but it was similar to the model 20. A cousin now has this. A model 1890 Winchester .22 pump. Another cousin owns this one now. And last, but not least a Springfield Model 1863 that was carried by his Fathers brother in law during the Civil War, with the 82nd Illinois Infantry. My brother owns this now. It was bored out to a shotgun shortly after the War. Guess there was not much use for a .58 caliber rifle in rural Southern Illinois!

My Dad's paw had a 410 Winchester single behind the bed and when later worked as a guard at a warehouse,he had a 38 of some kind.

Later he got a Remington 11-48 in 16 ga. and dad bought a Savage Model 820B 12.

They never went without something to eat.

Dad had a single shot Remington .22 and grandpa had a cheap 16 gauge single shot.

Winchester Mod 20 .410 single barrel and a 12ga Crescent hammer double are all that have survived in my family.

Mine went back to Italy. They had about nil when they came to the US and had little during the depression round trip.

that model 67 Winchester probably wiped out more rabbit and squirrels than any other gun in existence

wow, but just wow, what a great story and pic!

thanks for sharing that


my dad's dad had at least a 16 ga. 1906 Essex shotgun and two .22's one a crackshot and one a sharpshooter IIRC


I've got the shotgun and the crackshot, somehow the sharpshooter ended up mia

they may have had others, but no stories of them if they did that I remember.

my mom's dad didn't have jacksquat, whether his dad, that I knew for 5 years, did or not I have no idea.

I doubt my family had any guns during the depression

I believe you may have a point there.


course we'd also have a lower ue number too.

I'll tell you something else hard to imagine now. When things got a little better, they managed to acquire a couple of milk cows. My dad and his brothers had to get up every morning, milk the cows, bottle the milk, AND deliver it to the neighbors on their milk route. BEFORE school.......... Imagine trying to get today's kids to do that.

94's and 73 Winchesters, also some sort of pump 12 ga Winchester with a hammer on it, IIRC Paps said it was his Dad's WW-I scatter gun.

My dad was not a gunny or interested in hunting; he was an introverted reader as a kid and later became a college econ and history professor. He was the tail end of six kids in the Depression, and as they say, the family was so poor; so poor, they couldn't "pay attention," as a friend would say.

My earliest memories of my grand dad were of my junior high days when he already had a dementia and was in his early eighties. Though my dad's brothers-four of them-were a lively group I don't remember any being gunnies or having anything remarkable though they did hunt and shoot very informally. One brother, a plumber, and WWII African, German prisoner of war (a medic), was an occasional pheasant hunter and I remember on one outing when I was about twelve or so seeing him make as beautiful a double on pheasants as I've ever seen. I can see it to this day. It hinted at an expertise and past we could only imagine.

I'm quite sure grand dad's family had nothing more than the ubiquitous .22 and a 12gauge of some sort, typically of the hardware store variety.

I'm nostalgic for dose days as I believe the late 40's, 50's and 60's were this countries golden age.

My granddad had an old double hammer gun of unknown origin (to me.) I remember quail hunting with my dad and his brother back in the early 60s at the farm in Foyil OK and my uncle would tote that gun with both hammers cocked. My dad always thought that was unsafe. He hunted with a Stevens Mod 311 16 ga.

Granddad also had an old British Bulldog in .44 short which I now have in my safe. Here is a stock photo. History tells us that Gen Custer carried a British Bulldog at the battle of Little Big Horn.

Because the industrial capacity of the rest of the world's factories had been bombed to oblivion and we where the only nation who could still produce anything.

At the end of WWII we owned 80% of the worlds industrial capacity. Yes, that was a gold age for us, but not because we were so great, but because everyone else was suffering from the most tragic war in the history of the world.

38 special that my Dad used in a job as a security guard. I remember my grandfather having hunting rifles, but I don't remember what they were. I do remember he had a double barrel shotgun.
The other gun I remember and have came after WWII, a mauser my Dad brought back from Germany, all puttied up where all the nazi insignia were dug out and I have the 30-06 he bought when he got back, since he had trained and carried that over there.

My parents told me lots of stories from the depression. Mom still going strong at 94. Certainly a different time and the skills needed to live well were very different. Everything was hard work, effort and will. Just going to school was unbelievably difficult. My mother getting up at 3 so she could ride into town on the milkman's wagon in the winter with only a blanket on her and a neighbor girl in single digit temperatures. Getting to school and helping the janitor stoke the coal burner.

But you do the youth of the country an injustice, my newphews and nieces and cousins all get up early to milk and feed cows and help out with whatever the can. Then clean up, grab breakfast and go to school. It's the examples that they have that matter.

Savage 99 .300

Browning O/U 12g

Browning 12g auto

was just thinking, probably a lot of black powder rifles still in use.

That's true, but the US was kinda special

My dad did most of the gunning in the depression. Grew up in Claysville, Pa. where there were no deer at the time, so the small game caught hell. He used a Savage Model 219 single shot 16 ga. Cylinder bored.
He acted like it was pretty routine to get a small pile of game, give some to friends who needed it worse and take the rest home. He also raised chickens and rabbits, so they went into the pot.His father was one of the lucky ones....had a job as an electrician through the great depression, but the family still had to 'take in boarders' to make ends meet.
I still have the gun....

This old Winchester shotgun I spoke of earlier is dangerous loaded or not, it has a 12/14" pig sticker on the end of it.

I still have the old Remington # 1 rifle that the old man in town gave my grand dad. Appears to be a work of frontier gunsmithing. Looks like someone took an old slow twists, octogon muzzleloading rifle barrel, cut off and threaded the muze end and fitted it to the action. There are two filled dove tails that look to me to be where old wedge tennons were on the bottom flat forward of the forearm. The "extractor"started out life as Mebbe a 8x32 bolt. And run into the breechblock just below the chamber. A groove was cut in the bottom of the chamber to allow the then filed sharp bolt to grab the bottom of a fired case and extract it when the breech block is opened. I should post photo! Perhaps tomorrow!

My father was the owner of an Ithaca 12 sxs, a Stevens 410 pistol and an 1890 win 22 pump. Mother had an IJ 410 single shot. Her folks had a Stevens 22/410 24 and an 1897 win pump in 12 gauge and dad folks had a Stevens 22 auto. Boy I wish I knew what happened to the Stevens 410 pistol. Cousins got the 24 and 97. Mothers 410 was burnt up in a car wreck in the late 40's and dads shotgun I gave to a friend 20 years ago and the 1890 went under the wheels of a cornpicker in the 50's. Oldest sister has the Stevens auto

Main rifle my dads family had was an old Monkey Wards bolt action clip fed 22, likely made by Springfield. Grandpa bought it for $11 new if I remember the story right. Lots of squirrels, rabbits as well as hogs and beef fell to that old rifle. My older brother managed to lose the clip in the 70s, really ticked me off that it had made it all that time to be lost by the third generation.
I still have the M94 Marlin 25-20 that they didn't use much, claimed it was too inaccurate. When I got it the bore resembled a sewer pipe and the front sight was half a penny. It's been relined and now carries a Williams 5-D receiver sight. Far from inaccurate now.

Gramps has a pair of Ithaca 20 ga pistols, haven't seen em in years, IIRC they are double barrels, legal too.

My Grandfather was a Gangster. He owned and operated breweries,speakeasys and gambling dens in the area. I know he had a Tommy Gun. He gave my Dad sporting shotguns and rifles that Grandma kept throwing away so he kept giving Dad the guns. Dad wised up and cached the guns and hunted after school

funny how that stuff just disappears. A pair of Ithaca 20 ga's had a holster, hope you still have the leather

LOL ET, glad ALL our ancestors "wised up" or we wouldn't be here.

We buried Gramps in the Winter of 2012, one of his sons [my uncle] has those pistols, need to have him dig em out for a shoot, IIRC they say 'auto burglar' on 'em.

My father didn't have a Thompson until 1942, Pacific Theater of Operation, got some runners in Detroit in the family as well

Grandpa had a 10ga. double of some sort, I've never heard the brand. It went away, someplace or other, before I was born.

Dad had a Stevens 86D .22 bolt-action tube-fed rifle, which I have now. It will still shoot as good as I can see, the bore is perfect, but no scope rail, and I'd refuse to D&T it. Dad also had an old JC Higgins (High Standard) 12ga. bolt gun, also tube fed, that kicks like a mule and hits about as hard, it's choked TIGHT.

Don't know the exact date but dad took a liken to shootin venison out of season rather than starve out. Weapon of choice was a Parker SxS 12 gauge, and the huntin grounds were out under the apple trees at night. One night he commenced to shootin a big old blacktail buck, but it charged him rather than dropping like it was sposed to. He bent the barrels of that old Parker SxS over the deers rack and the big buck veered off and kept going.

Buried my dad in 1982 old stuff is cool stuff

Hope you found that shotgun and it's resting in a place of reverence above the fireplace.

And many times the 'best' stuff, no doubt it is when the histories are revealed.

My grandmother was a pre teen girl during the depression. They lived in Blytheville Ark. Said they never knew there was a Great Depression cause they was always doing for themselves anyway.

She did say one indicator was my gr grandfather went from an 11 chair barber shop down to 5. She had three brothers, and everyday they were out together sharing a bolt action 22. They picked muscadines, fox grapes, gathered walnuts, pecans, killed squirrels and rabbits. She said the best blackberry picking was on an island out in the middle of the Mississippi River they'd have to swim to it. They were gettin .08cents a gallon for blackberries. Said it went up to .15cents and wooo they thought they was going to get rich.

All in all she said they didn't want for anything. Had chickens running around everywhere and more eggs than they could eat. Had a big garden, kept a few hogs and had a couple milk cows. I think they were probably doing well considering.

We complain today, in reality we are nothing but over-fed swollen spoiled poosies, we have no problems.

I remember as a kid in the 60's my grandfather had an old break action 20 gauge and an old single bolt action 22 LR. I don't know if that is what he used in the depression or if he had others back then.

We have problems, they just have to be kept in perspective. Back then, a major problem would be the corn crop not coming in. Nowadays, the world is ending if the Internet is down for an hour..........

All I know of -
Paternal Grandfather had a 30" barreled 97 Win 12 ga, and bought a Marlin 1893 30-30 and a Mossberg bolt action 22 from "some Russian trappers" The 30-30 is owned by one of my younger brothers, now.

Maternal Great- grandfather had a 2 digit SN Model 1905 Win SLR (which I have) and a Rem model 11 12 ga that one of my younger brothers has

Cool stories Scotty, HH and MS, I only wish I were afforded the ability/luxury to listen to the stories ALL these old guns have to tell, wouldn't converse with humans for years.

Nothing came down from the grandparents, all deceased prior to my birth. My fathers parents gave him and his brother each a 22 single shot Hamilton rifle around 1910. Best Dad could remember was they cost approximately .75 cents each. That an a single shot 12 gauge was what got a large young family through the depression. Most small game was trapped as they had no money to waste on ammo. They lost their savings of $28.00 in the local bank when it went under.

Shotgun was sold to a friend of my father during the 70's. The Hamilton got run over by a farm wagon in the 40's. I restored it for Dad for fathers day in the 1970's. My oldest brother who is now deceased acquired it from Mom after Dad passed. I hope my niece still has it and plans to pass it on. Parents had few physical things left to pass after raising eleven children. But being the youngest of the group I sure have many good memories and stories to pass on.

I have several guns from good friends that I will be passing on to my children and grandchildren. GW

My Mothers father was a carpenter/farmer and had a Winchester 73 that had had the octagon barrel cut to about 17/18". It was a 32-20 and he said it was particularly good on turkeys. My other Grandfather was a railroad paymaster and he had a FACTORY L.C. Smith 12 gauge double barrel pistol. I remember it had a sawhandle grip. Have no idea what happened to it but I know he still had it in the war years. He moved after the war and I never saw it again. Neither one ever owned a handgun. I can't remember that my father EVER owned a gun of any type. He had an accident of some sort as a teenager and a friend was killed and as a result he just never owned a gun. However he was an excellant shot with anything which I credit with his service with the Marines in Nicarauga. His favorite weapon was a Thompson Sub-Machinegun. I watched him shoot one once at the National Guard Armory and he really was good. When we hunted squirrels he just used one of my Ruger 22 pistols that he particularly liked.

that "long tom" i mentioned was made by several manufacturers. It got it's name from a 36inch barrel. Now my grandfather who was about 5ft6 shortened the stock since he didn't have long arms which makes it look wierd. It disappeared years and years ago. Until one christmas some years back, and my nephew admitted he had it. His father had "borrowed" it and never gave it back. It was missing the firing pin, and extractor. The firing pin was not a problem, the extractor was. I was saved when numrich sent me a number of them in different sizes so i could find the one that worked. I got it back operational, and have never fired it.
The remington single shot has peep sights back and forth. One could use it to shoot the heads off of quail if one were of a mind too.

Antelope your words seem to come right out of the teacher's lounge. Yes, I'm generalizing and not all in academia are infected by liberalism. Not quite all. I was a teacher for a couple years before going leaving and going another direction.

We did not start WWII if you recall nor were we anxious to "impose imperialism" on others until Pearl Harbor was bombed into the mud. Another small detail often omitted in selective history's is that, post-war, we essentially rebuilt a good part of the world, meaning those that brought the war on in the first place.

No one said the US was or is perfect; But extending the Blaming America Apology Tour is just phony baloney.

As far as we know...

a Marlin 30/30
Savage 410 Shotgun
Winchester Model 12 Shotgun in 12 Gauge....

PawPaw loved to eat Rabbit and Squirrel, his favorite two dinner fares...

I still have the 410, the 30/30 some A Hole stole out of my truck along with my camera one cold night in Minnesota..

Outside of some health calamity...you are right on.

Just got an old Stevens Favorite that belonged to a great uncle. Cross set it up for 22lr, as it was chambered for 32rf originally. Excited to have my boy use it when he's old enough.

I bought my first gun, a Savage single shot 410 , from the Fuller Brush Man. The gun and a box of shells was $6.00.

Winchester single shot bolt action M67 .22lr. Mostly, it was used to dispatch butcher animals, but it took a lot of squirrels, quail, doves, and rabbits, eliminated some soybean hogging chucks, the occassional fox or bobcat, chicken killing dog, egg stealing skunk, etc.

1927 manufactured Win '94. It's still my usual carry gun for walkabouts here in Alaska.... Killed my first deer (ND) with it in 1966 - nothing since, but I'm planning on taking a moose with it one of these years.

And a Damascus steel SXS.. Must have been built right, cuz I was shooting up to smokeless baby Mags in it through high school. I didn't know any better. If it hadn't been stolen, I'd still be using it with BP reloads... I liked that old double hammer/double trigger gun!

I have a story about that gun and how I was frost-bit before conception, which I've told before....

My grandfather had a browning A5 16 gauge, a marlin 36 30-30 and a winchester 67 22lr. except for adding a winchester 9422 22wmr and a s&w k-22 some years later those where the only guns he ever owned even though he was a very avid hunter.
Guess he never got into the whole rifle loony thing

A Pennsylvania flintlock rifle
A Model 12 Winchester
A double gun, Fox I think
Savage 99 I believe in .303 Savage

Almost forgot an old Springfield Trapdoor .45-70. We still shoot it every year
A .32 revolver made by Harrington Richardson

There's been a few in my family, but I am uncertain of their exact history. I know one great uncle had both a Browning Auto 5, and a .405 Winchester, as Dad told stories about them. He shot the .405 at a fairly young age, and folks were amazed he could tolerate it.

One I had some dealings with was this 1896 Krag, that was sporterized many moons ago. I am told my great-grandfather owned it originally. It shot respectably well with 180gr bullets at around ~2200 fps, even tough the bore had a few pits:



It had 7 small notches in the stock when I got it. In 2011 I managed to drop a doe with it:



So I added a notch of my own. I eventually added a Ruger in the same caliber, and worried about the Ruger's stout loads finding a way into the old Krag. So I "handed up" the Krag to my elder uncle. He was delighted, commenting that he'd killed his first deer with it. He was quite amazed to hear that I'd killed a deer with it, and see the loads I'd made for it. He no longer hunts, so I am sure it's already gone to a cousin, and then his son. Both of them hunt & shoot, so perhaps it will continue to serve the family

Maternal grandfather had a Army Colt .45 ACP, Winchester Model 12, 12 gauge and a 30-40 Krag.

Paternal grandfather had a Savage 99-H, 250-3000 and a Winchester Model 1906 22 lr. Also, a single shot 10 ga shotgun and a single shot .410 which I can't remember manufacturers.

Grandpa's 1906 was in bad shape from horse sweat while carried in a cheap leather scabbard he bought in Mexico. Dad had it refurbished and gave to Gramps on his 80th birthday.

A Savage 23A 22LR. Used for almost anything shootable in the Texas Panhandle as well as killing hogs for slaughter and putting down sick animals. My dad learned to shoot very quickly and accurately. The chamber became ringed with the use of 22shorts. I was given my own M23 for my birthday in about 1962; Dad payed about $12 for it. Used, but in excellent condition. I never could shoot it as well as my dad could; he had been an top turret gunner in the Army Air Corp. in WWII.