Now just like our Children, a good parent should love their children the same. So it should be with our guns. But deep down we all know that this is just a lot of wishful thinking.
As for me, there have been a small group of rifles that have held this title for a while.
The usual problems with them being that either thru massive stupidity or economic need. They have passed from my possession.
(Hey college, beer, girls /ex wives are a very expensive group of hobby’s to have, Let me tell you brother!)
But that is for small minds to ponder upon and I like to think that we all have been there at one time or another in our lives.
So let us move on to the subject at hand. I.E. The current holder of this title in my gun safe.
It was few years ago when the Son & Heir was still in High School. On a cool crisp day that was such a relief from the Blast furnace of the receding summer of Los Angeles.
So what to do but take the Boy on some serious Father Son bonding time. (No not that kind of bonding ! I swear that some of you guys are some really sick puppies out there!)
No instead we went to one of the area’s big guns shows. We is the land of the strange and wonderful of our Fellow gun lovers.
As we peruse the long lines of tables and the huge crowds. I hear this faint whisper calling me. Psst! Dave over here! So I meander over to this table and lo and behold. There she is.
Now I know that this is going to be a disappointment. In that no it was not a H&H Double Rifle for $25 or a Pre-64 Winchester Model 70 in 257 Roberts Super Grade. (Yeah I know there is no such critter!)
No its was just a plain Jane sporterized 1903 Springfield Rifle. In f course 30-06. But there was something that just caught my eye about it.
In that it had a bulky no name sporterized stock with 1950’s inlaid rosewood diamonds on the foregrip, That and some halfway decent scope mounts on it.
But the recoil stock was so hard you could use it to break asphalt with it. As to the barrel, well does the term like a dirt road mean anything to you? But something kept tugging at me and so I asked to take a look at it.
This is kind of what I saw at the show.
So like anybody who has been around guns for a while. I checked to make sure that there was not a round in the chamber. It is at this point that my eyes opened up.
In that somebody had really spent some time squaring away the lugs on the bolt. As it was extremely stiff to open up the action.
So it was very obvious that all the lugs had a very large contact area with the receiver.
Fortunately the Gods smiled on me as he was a very reasonable chap. So we quickly came to what I thought was a very reasonable price. (The princely sum of $350 USD. Which is not bad if I say myself.)
Then it was off the feed the bureaucracy. So that I may keep my property from their grubby paws & me from my potential cellmate named Bubba.
Now at this Time The Son & Heir is thinking that again I have reached the age of senility. “What another 03!?! What is it with you and them?” At which point I just told him that its a very long walk home. That and that he had left his cell phone in the car.
So after the usual hassles to gain control of my rifle. It was then introduced to the other members of the collection in the Guns safe. Where it was then promptly forgotten about.
Then fate intervened for once in my favor. As one day I stopped off at the local gun shops and talked to one of the new guy Gun smith.
Now this guy was an interest person. In that he had done a tour with the Airborne Infantry in Afghanistan. Then gotten out and had gone to the Gun School at Trinidad. Needless to say he did great work on some of my sick guns.
Anyways I shooting the breeze with him. When he ups and asks me a question. Would I like to buy a blank rifle barrel from him? Oh says I? What caliber is it? Says he 6mm. Huh & how much!? says I
Well there comes a time. When you can see that somebody is hurting and you want to help them out. Especially a man like this, Who is a real stand up guy. ( a very rare and growing breed by the way) He wants $350 but will take $300 if he has to.
Okay but I will only pay you $350. Since only a fool pisses off his gunsmith. right? So off to the bank I go.
Now I heard this term a very long time ago in Mr. Reagan’s Army. That of the Good Idea Fairy.
So if one is very lucky that Good Idea Fairy will sneak up on you & smack you in the back of the head.
If you are wise you will then listen very hard to what is being told you. This time the fairy said this to me. Hey remember that 03 that you bought a while ago?
Why do you not put this barrel on it and chamber it for 243 Win? Since you gave your other 243 to the Son &Heir for graduating from HS?
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! That could be a great idea now that you mention it.
So off we go to the Gun shop and see what kind of mischief I can get into. Well lo and behold there is my good buddy the Junior Gunsmith. So I tell him of my idea and what did he think of it.
Amazingly he can not punch any serious holes in the idea. So I gave him his commission and off he went. Now frankly I was seriously thought that I was going to have to spend some serious cash on this project.
But it just goes to show that sometimes not all good deeds go unpunished. As it seems that the kid on his lunch time and so I was charged a very modest fee for the chambering and mounting of the barrel to the receiver.
Then a few paychecks later. I had a Timney trigger and a new recoil pad was added on for around $200. I also had a nice BSA Scope slapped on and bore sighted.
So far I guess that I was in for about a grand more or less.
as with a bit of nervousness that I took it to the range.
Now I am not going to try and BS you about how I had to use a ruler. In order to see if I had put a series of 5 rounds thru the same hole at 1000 yds.
That’s not my pattern for sure!
As seriously I do not think that many folks can do that. But I will say that it did give me some really good patterns at a 100 yards. say a quarter could easily cover a group of 5 shots. Which for this old duffer is pretty good. When he is on the bench rest.
Needless to say the Son & Heir did a lot better with it. Like above this paragraph.
But then he is a lot younger and in a hell of a lot better shape than I am. He is also always trying to talk me out of this rifle . But it is going to be a while before that happens.