So... any of our members here have an interest in firearms?

I like that Benjamin. It has a more substantial pump handle than mine does.

Although not classified as a firearm here, I bought this Stoeger a few years ago to replace the old Crossman 760 pump pellet rifle (I had since I was probably 10 years old) after the old Crossman finally gave up the ghost.



It's a .177 by the way...and has decent accuracy.

Very cool! Full-powered .30 calibers are my favorite.

Speaking of "600-yard-eye-out-shooting" here's some supernatural shooting prowess.


http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2018/04/amazing-accuracy-sauter-shoots-0-282-group-at-600-yards/

Good stuff Wryfox!

I'm more of a high-power dabbler than you obviously are but still love it more than any other form of shooting. Youth and arrogance, yeah. I'm 61 yet can still see the sights. Vision isn't all of it though and it seems harder to be "in a shooting humor" while position shooting. Love ... love ... love rifles and admire them and their use most of all!

An "action shot," the empty cartridge case ejected and suspended in mid-air. This was a few years back when I took someone to the match to acquaint them with high-power. Didn't have my own mat or my shootin' shoes that day.


An even older photograph. Ummmmm ... no shooting glasses ...




Some .30 caliber love happening on the firing line at the Central Texas Rifle & Pistol Club. Photos are a bit dated except for the M1 on the mat which was taken in October of last year. Was at a special retro "Garand match." I had big fun that day and managed 4th place even though I was rusty. Also, even though I felt as if one of the other M1 competitors had fixed a bayonet on his rifle and run it through the center of my back while I was prep'ing for the prone stages. Shot the prone stages despite the discomfort and even did quite well. Was really hurting by the time the match was over, and miserable for the 2 1/2-hour drive back home. A trip to the emergency room later that evening set me on a course that ended up having quadruple bypass surgery a few weeks later.




Plinking fun with my beloved M1. We were under attack by the invading hordes of gallon milk jugs full of water. Late afternoon summertime shooting at 190 yards according to my brother-in-law's range finder.

I began shooting High-Power in about 1980. I happily used a Smith Corona Model 1903A3 until about 1987 when a second M1 was acquired. Shot the '03A3 about one match per year afterward, just for old time's sake. Got to drawing a crowd who was curious to see the bolt-gun put through its paces on the rapid-fire stages. I never really embraced the AR 15 for high-power shooting. Never really believed in it as a "real" high-power rifle and only experimented with mine a few times on the firing line.

Smith Corona mfg'd Model 1903A3


This photograph was take a few years back during some long range plinking fun with the '03A3, shooting down a canyon from the rim, 100 yards to infinity.

Yeah, love the M1, the cartridge it shoots, its place in history, the fact that it's an ol' softy to shoot, and the good fortune I've had with the rifle and the design with both accuracy and reliability. I've fired way more rounds through the M1 rifle than any other center fire rifle. Have owned other M1s through the years, one an M1D which I later foolishly traded away and one a low serial number pre-World War II rifle. I still have its serial number written down somewhere around here. Think it dated to 1939-1940. Memory's getting hazy now but believe it hadn't ever been rebuilt. Was one of those "learning" purchases.

Oh no! I feel a tale coming on.

I began wanting to accumulate U. S. military arms early in my teen years. I've loved World War II history all my life. I grew up around surplus examples of U. S. military arms of all kinds (even to include a World War II M2 .50 which was made by the AC Spark Plug division of General Motors - never saw that one fired). Not long after turning 18 I'd picked up the first two rifles to be added to the accumulation, the '03A3 seen in the post above and a Krag Jorgensen and still have both. Gave $200 for the pair from Prince Jewelry & Loan on Main Street in Downtown Fort Worth, Texas in 1975. I think the '03A3 was $85 and the Krag was $115. Sounds like a fabulous deal now (at that price stack 'em up 'till I can't see over the top of 'em) but really wasn't much of a deal at all back then. Besides which, I only made $385 per month working as a commercial teller at one of the downtown banks. Not long afterward a Model 1917 came my way for all of $75. It was at this point that I got a hankering for an M1. I mean ... I wanted an M1 Garand bad!

M1s weren't so easy to come by in the mid-1970s and were pretty costly if encountered on the rack of a gun shop or on an exhibitor's table at the gun shows. One day in about 1977 I went into my favorite Fort Worth gun shop, Donn Heath Guns out on the west side and there, amid the used long arms in the ample racks out on the shop floor, stood an M1, just into the shop and put out for sale. Why I could touch it, smell it, "fingerprint" it! I could even hear it and it was calling to me! It had a $300 price tag dangling from its trigger guard. That was considerably more money than I'd ever spent on a gun before in my life. Still, it was somewhat cheaper than most of the M1s I'd been seeing at gun shows. Oh, it had to be mine!

I "busted a gut" (and busted the bank account) hurrying that rifle to the counter and cash register. Then out the door and home. I remember constantly looking at the rifle leaning on the front passenger's seat beside me all the way home. Home was still with my parents back in those pre-marriage days. Upon arrival that evening I gleefully took the new M1, along with some surplus European military .30-06 ammunition (headstamped "OJP '58") I had also purchased that afternoon, down the hill, through the pasture, to the stock tank for its inaugural shooting ceremony.

I pointed the rifle at some gallon paint cans I'd set up on the bank on the other side and began shooting out over the water. I was either hitting the cans or else in their general vicinity and enjoying that first clip-full with great relish. Much to my surprise one round made the most disconcerting ringing "ping" noise and something flew out of the rifle's action and landed in the mud at water's edge.

I never had before realized how the M1 operated or that it ejected its enbloc clip with the last of its complement of eight rounds. I thought my new rifle had blown up. Soon worked through that though and was pleased to have acquired an early grail firearm.

Took the M1 to our old place on the lake where it made splinters of mesquite stumps at close range. I was mostly firing it for effect rather than making any attempt to zero the sights or establish any accuracy performance. Then the day came when I took the M1 to the rifle range. Stretched across the bench rest with the rifle rested on sand bags and shot it on paper at 100 yards so I could find out what my new-found pride and joy was capable of.

It wasn't capable of much. Groups were in the 15-18-inch range with some rounds fired that never could be found on paper. The '03A3 and the Krag were both capable of 2-inch groups or even less when I was in a shooting humor. I eyed the surplus ammunition balefully.

Ammunition wasn't the problem and that's when the learning experience manifested itself. Puzzled about this dismaying accuracy performance I began cleaning the M1 one evening in my bedroom. Pushed a .30 caliber bronze brush down the bore from the muzzle end and the brush practically ricocheted side-to-side as it traveled down the bore toward the chamber, it was so loose within that barrel. So loose in fact that attempts to scrub were mostly futile so I swabbed out the bore with patches and scrutinized it.

The bore looked like a plowed field! Just a mass of ugly pitting. Was that a shadow of rifling down the bore about four inches from the chamber? One couldn't be certain. There was no useful bore left in the rifle.

Field stripping, something easily accomplished with the M1, found more grim discoveries. Just beneath the wood of the stock line on the receiver were great ugly scabs of pitting. Wasn't apparent on the portions of the receiver seen outside the stock. Barrel was liberally sprinkled with more ugly pitting, some fairly deep. Trigger group was nasty with corrosion. The rifle was a barking dog!

I'd been had. The tagged price wasn't bad but there was a reason for it. It's certain that this M1 had been fired with corrosively-primed ammunition and not properly cleaned afterward. I had to wonder though if the thing was a battlefield pick-up from the surf at Normandy or a Pacific island, spirited out of the service, and brought home without any cleaning attention whatsoever.

Chagrined, I swapped the M1 for some now long gone shotgun at a pawn shop in Cleburne, Texas. Went without an M1 in the budding U. S. military collection for nearly a decade before obtaining the M1 I still enjoy from the DCM (Director of Civilian Marksmanship), predecessor of the CMP (Civilian Marksmanship Program).

I'd lucked out with a few used gun purchases prior to that ratty M1. That M1 taught me a lesson and that is to study and learn much about the object of one's hobby pursuits before buying and thoroughly examine proposed acquisitions before laying down the hard-earned cash. "Buyer beware" applies.

I became a savvy gun trader because of that M1 and never again suffered such a bitter disappointment.

Have I always heeded what I learned from the purchase of that first M1 when I first plunged into the watch hobby? No, I have not and I have been burned there too ... to a crisp.

That's a difficult question to answer MTek. I've spent my life "having a blast" with guns of all kinds. I can be entertained by most any of them.

Gallon milk jugs full of lake water? I've busted a jillion of 'em. Any good high-power rifle makes for jug-bustin' most gratifying.

Here's Mrs. noelekal irrigating the countryside, showing how it's done with the AR 15, one of those photographic happy accidents of timing and light that wouldn't ever occur again in a million attempts.



If it's .22 Long Rifle I love it. Lots of .22s live here, rifles and handguns and all are cherished.

Love antique Winchester lever-action rifles of any kind. The Model 1873 in .38-40 and especially the Model 1892 in .32-20 are endlessly fun, especially because those two have companion revolvers so-chambered for twice the fun. I handload for oldie cartridges so they can be shot on the cheap.

Love consuming large quantities of .38 Special in revolvers and .45 ACP in the 1911-guns.

Love shooting accurate rifles off the bench rest and playing around with center fire rifles and handloaded ammunition concoctions.

Here's a dandy shot Mrs. noelekal essayed in the direction of this prickly pear cactus from 20 paces, using the old 1905 vintage Colt Single Action Army in .38-40. She's a regular Annie Oakley.

I expanded my original interest in World War II U.S. military arms early on when I read an article in an early 1970s "Guns" magazine titled "Kris versus Krag" which caused me to become fascinated with the U.S. Krag Jorgensen rifle and its cartridge. Hence the two-fer acquisition at that pawn shop so long ago.

I didn't ever intend to collect farther back than the self-contained metallic cartridge arms beginning with the Trapdoor Sprinfield, didn't even intend to collect all the early variants of the Allin conversion and subsequent designs. Did come near to acquiring a Civil War Springfield on an occasion or two and now wish I had back then. Love U.S. Civil War history too.

Of course now I'd enjoy acquiring examples of U. S. military small arms from the beginning of this nation to present. All it takes is money. Oh well, I'll have to be content to gaze at my "Flayderman's" and the slick Rock Island Auction circulars.

U.S. Rifles on hand

Model 1884 "Trapdoor" Springfield .45-70 ("need" .50-70 variants and cavalry carbines)
Model 1894 Springfield "Krag Jorgensen" .30-40 (need cavalry carbine and Philippine Constabulary variant as well as 6mm Lee Navy)
Model 1903 Springfield .30-06 (have several)
Model 1917 Enfield .30-06
Model 1922AII .22 Long Rifle target/trainer variant of the '03
Model 1903A3 .30-06
M1 Carbine .30 Carbine (Have two. A couple months ago my dad just sent along his he's had since 1945)
M1 Garand .30-06
M1A .308/7.62 NATO (civilian version of the M14)
AR 15 .223/5.56 NATO (Colt SP-1 civilian version of the M16)

U. S Handguns on hand

Don't have a Colt Model 1873 but only a commercial 1st Generation Colt Single Action Army (sure "need" a Colt Model 1873 .45 Colt - military contract version of Colt Single Action Army)
Colt Model 1901 .38 Long Colt (military contract version of the Colt New Army)
Colt Model 1909 .45 Colt (military contract version of the Colt New Service)
Colt Model 1911 .45 ACP
Colt Model 1917 .45 ACP (military contract version of the Colt New Service)
Smith & Wesson Model 1917 .45 ACP (military contract version of the Smith & Wesson N-Frame Second Model)
Remington Rand Model 1911A1 .45 ACP
Colt Commando .38 Special (WW II military contract version of the Colt Official Police)
Smith & Wesson Victory Model (WW II military contract version of the Smith & Wesson K-Frame Military & Police)
Don't yet have a Beretta 92 9mm (commercial version of the M9)