When I was 22 I bought a vanguard in 243. Blissfully happy and content with one centerfire. Didnt know it was a barrel burner that had the wrong twist rate and was too heavy and the safety locked the bolt and it was too big for groundhogs and too small for deer. Didnt know I needed a golf bag full of rifles for every occasion or that I could buy guns online and trade.

Didnt know mauser from Mossberg. I miss all that. Can I go back to not being a Looney? Lol

Coulda funded my retirement by now

No.

....and me too.

No....you can never regain youth and innocence. It's the burden of growing older and gaining "experience".

This ain't Oz.

Bob and I are about the same age and he's right. Just remember those days w/fondness. There will be many more transactions and regrets before it's all over. powdr

Just give all your fluff guns to the kids and grand kids and go back to the start. At least that way you can still play with them if you need.

No. Innocence lost is lost forever...

So...all of us who you sent thong pics to...won't ever recover??

Yep!

I have a 7x57 AND a 270Win.

Oh [bleep]. This is known as the tipping point. Soon we will all be turdlike and smoking soggy ones youknowwhere...

Its not too late to sell the loser�.you don't have to suffer under the burden of a gay rifle.

Hey thats just the way that rifle was born. Stop being a hater.

True dat. Its not like the rifle made a conscious choice to be gay�it was born a .270 and couldn't help it�.

Looking back I also had one rifle for many yrs, of course I had no money then and coming full circle ain't got much now. But as a kid we use to play "army", point sticks at each other and "kill" each other, horrifying by today's so-called standards, but we all turned out just fine thank you. The point being I had a bunch of "stick guns" in the basement. One was my machine gun, a couple rifles ,one a bazooka......I didn't have a chance, rifle poor from the word go!!

Hmmm. Rifle poor huh? None of us know what you're talking about. Lol

It never goes out the door actually. Last year the 257Roberts and 7mm were the go-to choices.

Does this make it less gay for me? Say yes.

That just makes you in the closet (or cabinet, as it were) !!

I can solve your dilemna. Just buy ONE MORE, a really pretty Mauser with great Walnut and Ebony and a slender 22 inch barrel in 275 Rigby. This one happens to reside in my safe right now, but to help you with your crisis I could part with it... You can then sell all of your other rifles and live a long blissful, happy life

I'll bet Ingwe would say, that makes you Bi!

I'm very comfortable where I'm @.

You can go back. I recently rekindled my Ruger 243. Took it out of the McMillan, put it back in the boat paddle stock, slapped on a basic 3-9 scope, and will load up some 95gr ballistic tips. My problem is not only too many guns, but no gun is good enough as is. I always have to dick with them.

You've got a witness!

Of course my next custom will be THE ONE that will end all that.

Haha, I sold my first custom and not even sure why. I am also about to rebarrel my last custom...it never ends.

I can't even remember when this all started......

I can when I JOINED THIS SITE when I was 18 I had guns and shot a bunch. but now all I want to do is buy trade tinker and get something different that was suppose to be better than what I just had. Most of the time I wish I had the old back

I can relate! I want my old pre 64 Model 70 in 257WBY back.

well i went from when i was buying factory ammo and not reloading to now sizing 7mm brass to fit my 257 weatherby so i can shoot it with reduced loads of trailboss.

yep, i'm a looney and i guess it's permanent.

Thought about this more than once and have come to the conclusion that each new rifle/shotgun is subconsciously and effort to go back. As if the gun can recapture some of our youth. And in some smoky corner of the mind, where hope springs eternal it does.

I did get that urge to go way back and I started finding my real old guns and they aren't as cheap as they once was...

Shrapnel those top two lever actions look awfully familiar.i can still remember my mom driving me to the post office to pickup my birthday present .a loop lever just like the one you have. I must have been about 5. Had a number of shoot n shell Mattel Winchesters and revolvers too. Like some one mentioned above I was a looney from kindergarten days.

The top is a Mattel Shootin' Shell, the next is a Hubley "Rifleman" and the revolver is the second part of the Mattel Shootin' Shell rifle/pistol set that I got when I was in second grade. I remember how much I wanted it when we circled the toys in the back of the Sears catalog when we were kids. The small rifle is a really old rubber band gun and the Spud gun was one of those you could get at Woolworths for 99 cents. The other 2 are the miniature rifles you could get at Woolworths also. The package of Shooting Shell shells and bullet tips are almost $60.00 in the original package if you can even find them...

My rifle loonyism took a dramatic downturn when I discovered overseas hunts.

Since then I look at a new rifle purchase as what could be the trophy fee for another critter.

I have since only bought a couple rifles since that first trip to Africa.

i put enough bb's through my red ryder to melt down and build a battleship. you'd think if i were going all the way back it would cost like $29, right? lol

Shrap, that is just no fair. My long departed and much beloved grandparents, for a very memorable Christmas, gave me the Mattel saddle gun with the belt full of metal cartridges that actually worked through the mechanism. Later my grandma gave me the revolver that actually fired the little gray plastic bullets. I had a spud gun too which pretty much drove my mom nuts, as the little cores were all over.

All that was until one day when I was twelve and saw a High Standard Double Nine at the local hardware store. I took my grandma down there and showed it to her and she told the clerk we would be buying it. She then handed it to me and said something like: "Be real careful". I literally wore it out. And people wonder why we want to go back.

Same here with those guns. I got this BB gun and had to share it with my brother. Later I fell in love with Colt's SAA, but obviously couldn't have one. I did get a Ruger Bearcat from my brother's girlfriend and was in heaven. I wish I could get that gun back...

Brothers. I have the same combo but unfortunately that is just one branch of my collection. SStill no 270 though.

That BB gun looks just like one I have at home. It has a compass in the stock, I can't remember who made it. Have you ever seen " A Christmas Story?" You'll shoot your eye out kid!

Boy howdy, all 3 of those things were/are true of me!!!

A condensed story. My first deer rifle (1972) was a Model 94--enuff said? Moved thru 2 243s, first one was a 788, wasn't satisfied, moved to a Win 670, BETTER than the first 2 but WAS NOT a 70.

By 1976 I bought a BRAND NEW 700 BDL 270 Win for $150.00 (those were the days!!)

***I SHOULDA stopped right there!*** Actually this is where the Ferris Wheel of my gun trading actually began. Can't tell ya how many or exactly which ones I had and went thru.

IF I had stopped with that first 700, 270 AND saved the money I spent I'd have A LOT MORE $$$ today. OTOH I can recoup some of it by selling off and reducing the inventory. Oh don't worry, my Dad had several guns and between him and myself, my kids and grand kids will be well equipped.

While we are wishing, I wish that I had been no taller than Shrapnel, standing beside a '60 Olds. By then I was already keeping an eye out for folks who were driving them "inappropriately," ie., drunk, too fast, and etc. Oh well, age is "snowballing" on me.

But those were the days. I don't know what the law was as a kid. I do know that the hardware people knew that kids had to have a .22 and "shells". As a teen ager, I had some nice handguns. Two that come to mind were an American Eagle stamped Luger, and a SAA .44-40. I had a near do well uncle, that used me instead of pawn shops. I didn't charge interest, but did shoot up his ammo while his guns were in hock to me. He would get flush and buy them back.

I suppose my warping started early, as soon as I was able to do extra work or odd jobs to support my habit. We survived WWII with just a single shot .22 and rationed ammo. I never had a BB gun. Post war, when consumer commodities became available again, I went straight to a semi auto .22. That habit too, has "snowballed."

Jack

Ya ever see a luggage rack on a hearse?

Hey!, Hey! That's a new way of saying it that I've never heard!!

I was just going back this morning..

That whitetail is a hawg!

DAD GUMMMMED!! Ain't that the truth!!

If I could only forget all that I have "learned" here...I could go back to just my trusty CZ-550 in 270 and happily hunt anything I wanted in the lower 48 and have no clue that it just bounces off anything bigger than a whitetail...not to mention I would never for a minute suspect it was gay...I could go back to happily not liking 7mm's but having no logical reason for it(oh wait, I still do that one ;-) )