Those Special Guns

Here is a another great guest article from Jim Northum.

Those Special Guns
by Jim Northum

Let’s leave the reloading arena for a bit today and talk about those special guns that have entered and usually unfortunately left our possession. Unless you are just getting into the game, I bet every one of you has had some special gun or guns in the past. If you are lucky, or smart, you may still have most of them.

In August of 1956, my dad bought a Remington 870 20 gauge for “us” to go with the one 22 rifle we had. I learned to shoot that little shotgun pretty well, I could shoot along with the auto runners any day. We shot tubs full of shells at crows all through high school. I went to college and my brother left home. While in the US Air Force I got into skeet shooting, which “absolutely required” an over/under so the little 870 was Dad’s behind the door gun for about 30 years.

Dad passed in 1994 and the last thing my brother picked up as we left the house was that little 870. In December 2006, he brought it home to my son, almost 50 years after it was first purchased. It is scheduled for rebluing and I’m in the process of refinishing the stock and adding a good recoil pad. The original owner’s manual with the date of purchase, our names and address, along with my son’s name and date he got the gun is still in the hole in the stock. It is neither fancy nor expensive, but is this a special gun? I think so.

For my 16th birthday, Dad offered me the option of a Browning auto loader 22 for 22 Shorts or a Winchester 62A. I chose the 62A and shot buckets of shells. That rifle wasn’t just overly accurate, but it did account for lots of squirrels and tons of sparrows around the barns and feedlot. I haven’t shot it in years, but it is a special rifle to me.

While in college, I bugged Bob Olive to get a Browning O/U .410 skeet gun for me, but it never materialized. After 4 years in the USAF and not visiting his shop, I walked in the door and he said, “I’ve got something for you”. Expecting a Browning .410, he pulled out a Browning 28 gauge instead, with its luggage case. It is now my wife’s skeet gun.

Along in the mid to late 80s I happened onto a Winchester Pigeon Grade 101 .410. It was a delightful little gun to shoot, though it made skeet a tough game. For some reason I traded it on a Remington 3200 Competition skeet gun, a real, heavy shooting machine. In the late 90s I got the .410 fever again and traded several guns for a .410 exactly like the one I had years before. When I entered the serial number in my book, it was the same gun. The little gun came home to stay. My son now shoots it some.

Years ago, I picked up a Winchester Low Wall barreled action in Winchester 22 Center Fire. Like an idiot, I traded it on something. That action would have made an absolutely wonderful little 22 Hornet or 218 Bee. Not a good trade especially since I don’t remember what I traded it for.

Once I had a Browning Safari Grade 222 built on the old Sako L461 Vixen action. Beautiful little rifle with the three step barrel. Should’ve kept it, but it was not as accurate as the Remington 700, which by the way was shot out when I got it. Live and learn. I haven’t seen a Vixen action in years.

I traded an 09 Argentine Mauser action for some machine work on a heavy barrel. Lost an excellent action and ruined an exceptional barrel at the same time.

The list goes on and on, much longer than I like to think about, but it was fun. Not necessarily smart.

I bet most of you have some of the same stories to tell. Some we should’ve kept, others we should’ve never gotten and many, many lost to memory that were just guns.