Confession of a Gun Nut

| November 22, 2015

I collect guns, there I said it. Those of us that collect have to speak in whispers about or hobby. We have been called gun nuts and several other things by the media. We are questioned about why we have so many, or asked what we need them for. Few other hobbies draw as much criticism as an avid gun collector. I don’t hunt, I do not have any moral objection to and will gladly assist my friends that do. I am adamant about firearm safety.
One of the things I enjoy most is seeing kids under proper supervision learn to shoot. I am often asked what I recommend as a first real rifle for a kid, my answer is a Henry Lever action .22 caliber youth model. It’s made in the USA and I do not think a finer rifle can be had at any price. I know for a fact that if you send the president of that company an email he will respond personally. Now I have not been paid a dime or given any incentive to say kind things about that company. I will say everyone who has shot my .45 colt big boy or my .22 have owned one of their own within a few months.
I am going to talk about one of my favorite guns in my collection. It is a Mossberg model 44 US trainer .22 caliber. Mine was made as close as I can figure in June of 1943. It has a bull barrel with Lyman peep sights that are original. I found it in a pawn shop several years ago and after some haggling got it for 55 dollars. I already had a Mossberg Model 35a and figured that the 44 US would shoot as good or better.
I had wanted a Model 44 US for a very long time. I fell in love with it when I was 11 years old and went to Boy Scout camp for the first time. At that time the rifle and shotgun merit badge course was taught by an active duty Soldier on loan from Ft Bragg. We used the model 44. He was very strict about range safety but he let us have fun. It was at that camp that I became fascinated with how a firearm worked and the things that would cause them to malfunction.
All of my kids learned to shoot first with the model 44 and then with my 35a (I scoped it). They have all been given a Henry of their own with one exception, my middle son wanted my Marlin Model 60 that my parents had given me as a boy. A range trip with one or more of my kids consist of several guns being taken. They love the AKs and ARs as well as the bigger stuff like the 1903 or the 1919 (Yes I have one) but when it comes down to who can out shoot the other the .22s come out. Tic Tac Toe at 100 yards, looser has to clean. More often than not I loose but I don’t mind. I still love the smell of Hoppes 9.

The pistol in the in the photo is my 1953 Colt Detective Special.  38 special with original mother of pearl grips.  It is in near mint condition.

Category: Guns

37 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
2/17 Air Cav

Depending upon where one is in the country, one might be better received if he said he was just released from prison than that he is a gun enthusiast. Where I live, I honestly know of no one who does not have a gun in his home. And that may explain the paucity of burglaries and the near-total absence of stranger-on-stranger shootings. As for the .22 Henry, the only thing that concerned me when I bought one for my then-young son was loading it. A careless person can find his forehead right over the business end. In fact,I don’t think I ever let my son load it for that reason. As for safety, his training began with harmless plastic guns. ONE TIME–and only one time–when he was about six, he violated a safety rule with a toy gun and, as promised to him, I broke it into itsy-bitsy pieces as he watched. No more violations occurred.

Blaster

how cruel! We all, that read here often, know from all of the stories that THE GUN is to blame, how could you hurt your little boys feeling like that when it wasn’t even his fault?

-/sarc.off

Honestly, I train my children about guns from the time they’re able to walk. I have pictures of my son at 3yo shooting a rifle. I have never had problems with my boys and guns. And,,, they have never confused toys with the real thing. I guess it’s only anti-gun libtards that raise kids too dumb to know the difference;)

ArmyATC

I too taught all my children about guns and gun safety. They were all taken to the range at a young age and taught how to shoot. They cleaned the guns they used. They were taught gun safety and a respect for the power of a gun and the tragedy that can happen with the misuse of one. When I deemed they were ready, they were given a rifle of their own. Much to my long-suffering wife’s chagrin, it wasn’t unusual for someone to walk into my house and find a rifle, shotgun, or handgun broken down on the table while I was refinishing a stock or doing a trigger job. None of my children ever played with my guns, even when one was left out of the safe. A funny thing happened. All my children turned out okay. They are all responsible, respectable adults. They have never committed a crime with or without a gun. They are either in school or hold good jobs. I heard the garbage from other people about kids and guns. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll find your guns and hurt themselves or someone else?” No, my children didn’t have to find my guns. They knew where they were kept. But having raised my children properly, they never played with them. They were taught espect for other people and for firearms.

MustangCryppie

Man, I really like that revolver in the picture!

MustangCryppie

Details, details! Where did you get it? What company makes it? Caliber?

Enquiring minds want to know!

MustangCryppie

Sweet, very sweet.

Thanks for the info.

Jarhead

Not to all you gun collectors. My wife and I are rock hounds. By that I mean we collect rocks. We polish them, make jewelry (rather she does, for herself) out of them; most anything that comes with being in the lapidary field. For 16 years I made a living by diving the Tennessee River for freshwater mussel shells, with the white ones going to Japan for use in the cultured pearl industry. Now the colored ones and especially the LARGE white ones, many I kept for my own use even though they were the high dollar shell to gather and sell to the shell companies which exported them to Japan. Around the end of the year I hope to have completed some projects and get back to polishing again, especially the beautiful freshwater shells. If interested, someone remind me immediately after the beginning of the new year. Polished, the F. W shells are exquisite in their colors If you’d care to polish one yourself and possibly integrate them into a small knife handle or smaller gun handle, let me know.

Jarhead

Call me dumbass again. The first word of my post should have been “NOTE”

Ex-PH2

Yes, but it doesn’t show up in this thread.

2/17 Air Cav

Ex- Try looking at the post through red and green cellophane (i.e., one eye red and the other green.) I, too, couldn’t see that beauty until I did.

desert

What picture?

sapper3307

My old National Guard Armory had a box full of those beautiful .22 rifles. Unfortunately they were so old and deliberately forgotten about that they were not on any hand receipts. Eventually the whole box disappeared and our full timers denied they ever existed.

Perry Gaskill

I had one of the bolt-action Mossbergs when I was a kid. It was a heavy beast designed, I’m guessing, as a trainer to be close in weight and balance to an M-1 Garand. It was very accurate. Around the same time, my friend had a much-admired Ruger 10/22 semi-auto which had an M-1 carbine form factor but smaller. The 10/22’s big brother was similar but chambered for .44 Magnum, and had a good reputation for hunting wild pig in brush.

Alberich

One of my coworkers doesn’t want lots of guns, exactly. His ideal number is the number he has already…plus one more.

Ex-PH2

I admit I was rather jealous when my brother got a set of Roy Rogers cap pistols with a holster belt for his 4th birthday. But he did let me play with it. The smell of gunpowder from those paper strips of caps was intoxicating.

Some day, I will revisit my childhood. That’s all I have to say on that right now.

3/17 Air Cav

EX……..Revisiting ones childhood is a blast. My cap pistol of choice back in the day was a Fanner 50 by Mattel. At present I have twin stallion 38’s by Nichols with the holsters. Now if I could just find some of my old buddy’s to play Cowboys and Indians I would be set! Smile

11B-Mailclerk

Look up “Single Action Shooting Society”. Lots of us get together and play cowboy on any given weekend.

Warning: this sport is addictive, and can lead to frequent acquisitions.

MCPO NYC USN Ret.

Great article!

I am squarely in your court E4U.

“My weapons collection also serves as a reminder, to those in government who believe they preside over me, that I am a free man with a right to bear arms”.

Dave Hardin

And there we have it……another one of you Gun Nutz corrupting the yootz of America. Have fun while you can with all your asshattery because their grandchildren will only see guns in a history book.

Weekend Warrior in Texas

I think Dave may be pulling your leg.
My first firearm incident came when I was 4 years old, and I got a plastic Winchester lever action carbine for Christmas. Two days later, I used it to defend myself against an attack by the local harpy named Becky. She attacked me, and I butt-stroked her breaking my pride & joy into three equal length pieces. I tried taping it back together, but it just was not the same. Normally, I would have been in a world of shit using such violent actions toward a girl, but my parents knew Becky. My Dad just chuckled, and said something about it being too bad. My older brother got a wooden stocked musket that shot cork balls, and he said it would not have broken on Becky’s head. Anyway, that was the beginning of a life of being a gun nut for me. I love that Winchester, and since then I have bought a few more, and none of them have butt-stroked any psycho females that I know of.

AZRobert

I too am a Firearms nut (the Good kind) and lucky to have a sweet Wife that loves the 1911 (not the A1) and found her one that was made in 1917 that she loves. She also likes to collect old Colt 1903&1908’s and I like Walther, Sigs and Rugers.

Last count we had over a 100 plus rifles and pistols but do to glowbull climate change we lost them all in a boating mishap out in the AZ desert during a sand storm/monsoon….what a shame and we do miss the all………

A Proud Infidel®™

Yeah, I know the feeling,… A flash flood, YEAH, that’s it, it came RIGHT through my house and whisked my gun safes away, ditto my ammo cases!!!

A Proud Infidel®™

Teaching kids about firearms and the Outdoors? Yeah, that came full circle with my now-17 year old nephew last weekend. I taught him about guns took him to the range every chance I got and last weekend he harvested his first deer with a 12 gauge slug! I saw the pics and it was a young 6-pointer that looked like it will be good eatin’ as well! Nowadays you give that kid the offer and he’ll go out in the woods like Ted Nugent!

AW1Ed

Taught both sons, and my nephew after my wife’s sister and her husband split.
Time well spent.

Pssst, E4U, Dave Hard-on is pulling your leg, methinks.

Dave Hardin

See, thats why I never get to play with the other kids.

AW1Ed

Love you man, but this one’s for you.

Dave Hardin

I like clouds in my coffee and underworld spies but I have never been with the wife of a close friend. Even I have standards.

Semper Fi Brother.

A Proud Infidel®™

Yep, same here, I took him with me to the range every chance I got after my sister and her now-ex split up. As for Dave-O, well we just CANNOT have nice things sometimes, CAN WE?

GDContractor

I wish I had a gun. After I figured out how to put a cast on my arm the other day, the curtain rod and m65 field jacket keep whispering to me softly “Who you looking at? Are you looking at me?”

Thunderstixx

I was taught about guns when I was a kid and had a shotgun, Remington 11-48 .410 5 shot semi auto before I got a BB Gun.
(You’ll put your eye out !!!”
I still own a few firearms and I picked up a Mossberg 100AT bolt action .30-06 with a scope for a really good price.
I love the feel of her, I still sit and just look at the beauty of her all the time.
Kind of like owning a big Harley, you just sit and look at it and that ias just as much fun as riding it.
Both are beautiful works of art and skilled artists.Unbelievably, I heard on Cam and Co yesterday that Europe as a whole wants to ban all semi automatic guns after the terrorist attack on 11-13-15.
The high loss of life is proof that gun free zones are nothing but a free fire zone in a target rich environment.
If one or more people had a gun in the theatre, the death toll would have been a lot lower.
Why do libs want you defenseless in the face of mortal danger?
That is stupidity in the highest degree…

Ex-PH2

‘Why do libs want you defenseless in the face of mortal danger?
That is stupidity in the highest degree…’

I’m not sure if I’m correct in my response to your question, but my guess is that they do not want the responsibility of defending themselves. They want someone else to do it.

They are the kind of people who will stare at an incoming line of white water that grows bigger and bigger, instead of running like hell to safety.

There used to be constant warfare on the European continent and elsewhere. That essentially ended in 1945. They’ve had peace for far too long. None of them know what it’s like to face that any more. Two generations (maybe 3?) have no idea.

Peace and quiet, as someone once pointed out, don’t come without a price. I think it was Churchill.

19D2OR4 - Smitty

I agree about the Henry Youth. Fine rifle to learn on. I plan on getting one for my daughter once she is old enough (aka once I can convince her mother).