My first rifle was a Remington 788 in .308 Winchester. Dad bought it for me used, I believe in 1978. I killed my first deer with it on Pleasantville Mountain that December, and quite a few others with it up until I joined the Army in ‘85.
I was in Ft Lewis WA the fall of ‘85, so I couldn’t go hunting. I called home and talked to Dad to see who got what.
“I killed a nice 8 point on the Mountain” Dad says. “Oh yeah? Where at up there” says I.
“Over in that hollow below the Big Rock. You know where I’m talking about?”
“Yeah Dad, I usually always hunted that hollow the first day. What was you shooting?”
“Your .308!” He then asked if I wanted to sell it. A family friend had seen it and wanted to buy it.
“No, tell Bill it ain’t for sale” I said.
“That’s good. That means I can use it till you get home!”
When I returned to Pennsylvania, I bought myself a Ruger 77 in .30-06, and the .308 became Dad’s gun. He hunted the last 25 years of his life with that gun. When he died, I finally put it back in my gun cabinet.
It’s still a shooter. I still hand load for it, I drag it out once or twice every year in deer season.
But it’ll forever be “Dad’s Gun” to me, and when I go on to hunt with Dad again, Ben can say “it was Pap’s Gun”.
7mm
