Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Long shot finds

Yep. Winner winner.

Of course, I’d have to call BS if you said the same occurred at the post office.

Was in an LGS last week run by a good friend. They were selling a gun collection for a customer (on consignment I guess) and there were 3 Ruger No. 1s. One caught my eye especially: late 70s red pad, unfired in the box, nice (not spectacular but nice) walnut, 7mm Rem Mag. $950. I’ve always wanted a No. 1 and that one I drooled over but alas, I didn’t have the cash and had to walk out.

I bought this rifle in Texas several year ago. It had a serial # mismatched buttstock that had been cut. I had another rifle in the safe that I'd purchased years before from back east. It had been upgraded with fancy wood. When I removed the buttstock from the one back east it was numbered to the rifle I bought from Texas several years later. Here it is reunited with it's proper buttstock.

Do we ask if it was a her?

Quite a few years ago, my wife came home from garage saleing with a present for me. A Gun Digest from 1969, in perfect shape. She told me she thought I probably had it, but it was only 50 cents. Turned out it was the only GD I had let slip out of my grasp, loaning it to a coworker who left the company without returning it.

Fireball2: Good for you finding that "Wildcat" Rifle so close to home and so quickly!
Enjoy.
Over the past 50+ years of "collecting" pistols, Rifles, rare ammunition, rare books, arrowheads, snake oil medicine bottles, quality optics, receiver sights, Winchester catalogs and accouterments and etc, I have come across many LUCKY finds!
But just last week while doing a Montana gunshow two travelmates and I stopped in at a seedy pawn shop in western Montana. And I came out with a minty Bausch & Lomb Made in America 15x60 power spotting scope and window mount at 50% off an already low price during their end of the year sale!
As I am waiting to pay for this item I look over and there is a "brassy" looking "old timey" flashlight standing on end in a display case. I excuse myself from line and walk over to it - all the time thinking that sure looks like a "Winchester" flashlight - indeed it was! No price tag on it but I see the big "W" on the end and the smaller word Winchester inside it.
I ask a clerk how much for the flashlight he say's "what'll ya gimmee"!
I reply $5.00.
He pushes the activating switch and IT LIGHTS UP!
I said I'll take it and this spotting scope also.
I get to my turn at the register (lots of meth addicts in line ahead of me!) the guy rings it up saying $37.50 for the scope and how about I give you the light for $2.50 make it an even $40.00!
I said thank you very much and pulled out 2 twenties.
One of my gunshow travelmates is an avid and LONG time collector of guns and stuff (he used to be the gun department manager at Eddie Bauers in Seattle!) had been watching this whole transaction and when we got outside he said "you thief"!
I am sure I could get $40.00, easy, for the flashlight itself - but it looks good in amongst my Winchester "stuff".
Yeah it feels good to get a rare item/bargain every once in a while.
Again good for you.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Wow....the stars aligned for that one.

if you're not a marlin guy you won't appreciate this but about 8 or so years ago i was at a little country LGS checking out the used rack and i spied a stainless marlin in the back of the rack. i asked to see it and it was a like new 336 SS LTD 35rem guide gun. one of 500 made for Davidsons. they wanted 600 and while i was holding it the lady dropped it to 550 and then to 500 without me even dickering on it. came with box and all paperwork. slickest little fugger you can imagine and the wood looks like fancy walnut. i couldn't get my wallet out fast enough.

There's some pretty good stories here. Shrapnels is pretty cool.

Two part find.
Part one: In the 70's I was active in traditional muzzleloading, building rifles and powder horns. Always on the lookout for something interesting and my neighbor, an insurance agent, approached me about a rifle his client had. Belonged to her late husband's grandfather and she knew nothing more about it and didn't want a gun in the house. Half stock, back action lock percussion, walnut stock, brass fittings, small caliber (.38). I bought it for $300 which was fair at the time. Only marking was on the lock, B. Mills Harrodsburg KY.
Shot it a few times with a light load, lock was tight, triggers crisp, but the last inch of the bore was worn and it wouldn't group.

Part two: 1999 was showing a few guns to a friend from work and he saw the Mills. Turns out his father use to write for Muzzle Blast, the NMLRA club magazine and he said he would do some research on the lock markings. Came back a couple weeks later with this information. Benjamin Mills opened his gun shop in Harrodsburg, KY in 1850 after doing apprentice work in PA, and Ontario Canada. He was a skilled machinist known for his locks and triggers and always stamped his locks B. Mills. His early guns were made with iron butt plates and trigger guards while later he switched to brass. He made both fine target rifles as well as hunting arms and made two rifles for Kit Carson. In the late 1850's he was offered the position of chief armorer at Harpers Ferry and was one of the hostages durning the John Brown raid. After the raid was ended by Union Army forces led by Col. Robert E. Lee, Mills resigned his post and moved back to KY where he ran his shop through the Civil War, even making some sniper rifles. One of his rifles is housed in the Gettysburg museum.

Neat piece of history, and I have fired it , but not since I received the makers background.

Broomd: Your story reminds me of an incident that happened here in SW Montana just a couple of years ago.
The VarmintWife and I were hosting a couple and their young son here in SW Montana, they were from Seattle.
We were driving to dinner on a late summers early evening. Travelling from Dillon north to Twin Bridges when my friend asks me "how come there are no Pheasants in Dillon, it looks like great Pheasant country"?
He is a Hunter and curious about all things wildlife.
I answered "well there are no Pheasants to speak of at all in the Dillon area, we're just at to high an elevation and we have to many predators and birds of prey for them to propagate"!
BUT... I further stated "there are lots of Pheasants as we get closer to Twin Bridges"!
Not twenty seconds after the words came out of my mouth I see a pair of Chinese Pheasant Roosters coming up out of the burrow pit onto the shoulder of the road, as I am starting my warning to my friends wife who was driving her Honda family van WAY to fast, the Roosters both take flight.
One of the Roosters strikes the Honda vans electric passenger side rear view mirror and breaks it "clean off"!
The resulting crashing noise and cloud of feathers scared most all the vans passengers and the young child began crying.
We stop the van and my friend retrieves whats left of the electric rear view mirror AND the dead Rooster!
We all commented on what an amazing situation that was having just finished a conversation on how rare the birds seemed around Dillon and how there are some living around where we were headed.
The resulting repair to the Honda Van was $400.00! They decided not to suffer the deductible and insurance claim and pay out of pocket.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

When I started this most recent business I decided to sell some of my gun collection to raise cash for a Bobcat purchase. I laid them all out and called a dealer that I knew. He offered me $12,500, which was about half what a low hour Bobcat usually cost, but I didn't want to sell any more so I figured I'd have to borrow the rest.

I got on Craigslist and found a machine that was 10 years old and had just 176 hours on it, for $12,500, and was only 80 miles away from home. The previous owners kept it inside and put about 18 hours a year on it. I still own it.

Sacramento CA , 1975, I'm in the Veteran's Thrift store for some reason or other, walking toward the checkout I go by the toy bin which is about 15 feet long, stuff just piled in there, reached down and picked out a Lyman 14X Supertargetspot scope with the mounts and all. Paid my 3 bucks at the front for the "toy telescope" and got out of there.

I still have it and use it every so often, and tell the story out at the range, which makes another member knash his teeth in envy every time he hears it. Makes it fun.

When I was a newly married aspiring young alpinist my wife came home w/ a like new Eddie Bauer Everest Down Parka and pants. She found them at a neighborhood yard sale and thought I would like them. The day she bought them it was 106* and she paid $10.00.

It is a sin to covet thy neighbor's goods but I wish Shrap couldn't schidt until he gave me one of those Sharps.


mike r

Lvmiker: I absolutely LOVE the old Eddie Bauer down filled parka's!
I have two of them and I think one is called Kara Koram - anyway its red and WILL keep you warm.
I bought mine at one of the annual Eddie Bauer manufacturing warehouse sales there in Seattle many decades ago. The line for the opening of the sale was nearly a half mile long according to my late arriving buddies!
Ten dollars for those items was indeed a great "long shot find" good for you and the wife.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Bought 4X Leupold at a swap meet for four dollars.

Your found 22 is one of the best.

My longest shot find was a diamond earring my wife lost when we were dating. The pair were originally her mother's who died when my wife was young. She realized she lost it getting out her car in her driveway one winter day. As she had no idea when or where she lost it she was rather disappointed and made no attempt to find it.

I kept it in mind and the next spring after the snow melted I looked around where the cement and the lawn met and, lo and behold, I found the earring! I did not find the backing but as it did not hold that was probably a good thing. Needless to say, my wife was pretty happy with me!

Sheeps age has nothing to do with it in the wilds of Alaska. GW

That reminds me of a find I made.

When I was a kid, I was digging in a mulch pile for fishing worms to sell to a bait shop and I found my father's wedding ring that had been lost for about 2 years.

Unfortunately years later, Dad is gone and I'm wearing his old wedding ring when I believe I lost it gutting a deer.

Is it possible for miracles to happen twice? I'm still hoping for this one!

Was at a GS in Little Rock and sitting in one of those glass cases full of odds and ends is a Pre '81 BLR magazine with a little bluing loss marked $10. This just a couple months after finding a like new one under the same circumstances at a Ruston, LA GS for $75.