Glocks….ick….

 

Ironically, I learned how to shoot with a Glock, but wanted to learn on my Grand-dad's WWII issue 1911. Unfortunately he passed away and his house was burglarized- the 1911 was recovered later during a meth lab bust and tied up in the OK court system for years. My mom was able to get it back but I've never even had the opportunity to shoot it. A friend had a G17, glock was available, inexpensive, and I learned how to shoot with it first. I partly agree about the trigger but they point and shoot well for me. I don't think they're attractive, but they carry well. I don't do match shooting, and my take on concealed carry is that it is concealed. it doesn't matter to me what a CCW looks like as long as it is reliable and concealable. It's not something I'm ever going to advertise to others and I don't see it as an object of desire or prestige.

I think if I got into serious match shooting, my take would be a lot different. I'd probably appreciate some of these fancy steel pistols a lot more.

 

That CZ is gorgeous.

 

@ErichPryde what part of Oklahoma are you from? I'm from the South West corner, an hour from Lawton.

I think that what you learn to shoot with is what your brain will always default to. Maybe that's a reason why many police departments didn't start changing to auto loaders before the Glock. If you have a bunch of guys that have carried revolvers for fifteen or twenty years and give them an auto loader, under stress they may not remember to flip the safety. With a Glock that wasn't an issue. I think another reason was price. Up until the introduction of the Glock most autos cost too much to outfit a police department, but the Glock was comparable to the venerable Model 10.

 

Now we're talkin' Waltesefalcon.

"...the venerable Model 10."

My favorite. In barrel lengths top to bottom of 6-inch, 5-inch, 4-inch Heavy Barrel, 4-inch, 3-inch, and 2-inch. The 4-inch Model 10 Heavy Barrel is the first handgun I ever owned at 18.

 

I was born in Houston, but moved to Norman when I was 5. I grew up there but spent a lot of time in the summers in Mangum where my grandparents lived. There wasn't much out there then, we drove to Altus to go to Western Sizzlin.

From Oklahoma I went KS-AZ-TX-OR-WA.

 

Altus!

I have a cousin who is five days younger than I am. He and I have been up to mischief since May of 1957. He has a goodly sized ranch he uses for hunting situated about 2000 yards southwest of the Red River east of the now non-existent town of Hooleyann. At night, we can see the lights of Altus to the northeast from the porch of his cabin. We see C-17 Globemasters daily as well as the occasional KC-135s seemingly lumber just overhead.

 

Ha. Mangum is probably close to due North of there looking at a map. It's a small world! There's a cave- Jester Cave- up near Willow, OK that I used to explore. part of it overlapped with some family cattle land. Spent a lot of time camping out there. If @Waltesefalcon is an hour from Lawton, he's probably not more than 30 minutes to an hour from Altus.

Good to meet both of you! I don't miss Norman all that much, but the sort of Mesquite scrub from that part of OK I do miss.

Here are mine- I should say, were- the OD G19 is no longer with me.

 

Good to know ya @ErichPryde it really is a small world. I was born in Lawton, I've lived all over Oklahoma and Colorado but moved back here about twenty years ago. I live in Fletcher, which is in the far north east corner of Comanche County, about halfway between Lawton and Chickasha. I teach over at Cache High, and at Cameron University in Lawton. I have been to both Altus and Mangum many times. During Desert Storm my dad and I used to park 62 just at the end of the runway at Altus and watch the 117s and C5s take off and land. It was great fun. Fishing at Lake Lugert and hiking around Quartz Mountain are a couple of my go to summer activities.

 

Man, I hiked Quartz mountain a lot when I was growing up! Our standard route from Norman to Mangum was down Highway 9- I used to have all of the towns memorized because we'd always ask "are we there yet" when we were little and my mom would tell us to look for the next town sign, and we'd know how much further. It wasn't until later, when I was driving, that I'd sometimes take I44.

My grand-dad was Navy, and served on the Destroyer U.S.S. Beatty. After WWII he worked on the Minuteman Project and the AWACKS- among other things.

 

Favorites from my collection (.41, .44, .357, .357, 1911, .454):

 

My granddad was also Navy. He was an aircraft mechanic and worked on Hellcats and Corsairs. He was originally from Sayre, and his last duty station was Naval Air Station Norman. After he got out in 53 he got a job as the shop foreman at Klein Truck and Equipment in Lawton. When they were building the Minuteman silos, he got a weekend job driving cement trucks for the Government.

Because we're causing a bit of thread drift here is a gun. This one is for @noelekal since he likes to show off his Smiths. This shows off one example of each model of the Colt DA revolvers that live here.

 

I have a Springfield Range Officer 1911, chambered in .45 ACP. It’s one of my favorite handguns.

 

I'm not above trolling local pawn shops for undervalued or special items. Of course here in Florida, pawn shops are everywhere so I actually have my favorites to pop in as I'm driving around. This was from a new one though...Godfather Pawn. Clever name, eh?

Anyway, found this nestled in the corner of gun rack. I asked to see the 1903. The what? The brown stock rifle right there. Which one? The longer one, next to the Universal Carbine. Huh? So I lean over the counter as far as I could and point it out.

Magnificent. Smith Corona 1903A3. 99% condition. Non import. Original. Even had the cleaning kit tucked into the buttstock. Wow. Stupid cheap. Just another old rifle on the rack. Makes me wonder what they gave the seller for it, probably pennies.

Smith Coronas are the rarest of the breed, only 7.8% of total production. Yes, it was the typewriter company. They retooled for the war effort in the early 1940s.

This one was built in August of 1943.

 

Oh yeah!

Tremendous find Wryfox!

I know my way around one of those very well. Yours is nicer than mine is.

I've had a Smith Corona '03A3 since late 1975. It shares duties with a Krag Jorgensen acquired at the same time as being the first center fire rifles I ever owned. I'm very attached to mine. It served as the first deer rifle, first rifle I ever used for high-power rifle competition, and companion for endless fun shooting and plinking sessions. A very tough, dependable, accurate rifle.

Mine has a low serial number in the Smith Corona series and is dated December of 1942, only two months after Smith Corona began production. It is also early enough to have one of the six-groove barrels of which 6000 were produced.


Shown here with two other World War II "typewriter company" contract arms, an October 1943 produced M1 Carbine produced by Underwood and a January of 1944 produced Model 1911A1 pistol manufactured by Remington Rand.





Plinking with the Smith Corona "From Here To Eternity" down a canyon from off its rim, south of Sanderson, Texas and four miles from the Rio Grande.

 

Absolutely a splendid score!!! Well done (and dibs )!!

 

You betcha! I hadn't even finished the paperwork and a fellow comes in asks if they still have the Smith Corona....said he had seen it earlier and went home to look it up. You snooze you lose

 

Yeah mines the 4 groove. The 6 is a rare variation!

Dirty little secret, I have two other Smith Coronas but they are both a bit bubba'd unfortunately. Nice in their own right, but not original.

 

Oh. My. Beauty.

 

Hey guys,

question from my side. Friend of mine found this rusty piece of what was a rifle in the woods near Berlin / Germany. Any Idea what it could be from this pic? My initial thought was of course K98k, but the metal piece before the trigger is weired and also parts of the gas operations (not sure if this is the correct terminus) are not there or missing. Happy for any hint.

Cheers Nico



Edit: Here I found the exact same one, but with not pic inscription