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

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