- Joined
- Jul 2, 2011
- Messages
- 27,550
- Likes
- 27,364
at 72 and feeling every year, i've come to the conclusion i've dreaded since the day i first got interested in firearms. i'm slowing down, don't get to the range much any more. been a member of harvard for i think 18 years, maybe more. have met a ton of super good people there from all walks of life. health prevents me from helping around the club but i try to do a small bit. i'll pick up people's garbage and sweep brass after them. it really boggles my mind how how some show up with expensive guns, dress nice with all the current range toys. then they leave their shit behind when they leave. empty ammo boxes, spent brass, cigarette butts around their benches, half empty water bottles. it's crazy, right? and then we got folks like me and i'm sure most of you, the ones i call range rats, dressed in jeans with holes in the knees (before it was a fashion statement) drive a beat pick up, you know the guy, right? the guys who pick up after everyone else. but this isn't about that crap, i just wanted to reminisce about my shooting years. i know (lol), just click off the post if you're not interested.
i was 18 and in the hospital. my roommate and me lived there so long that summer we had our mail forwarded to us there. for me, last week of june until the end of august, it was my home. so my bed buddy, next bed over , his name was bob, can't remember his last name, had his wife bring in the gun magazines of the day. guns magazine, shooting times, g&a. american handgunner was just getting going at this time and of course his american riflemans. he'd toss them to me when i was looking to kill time. not knowing about guns, no one in my family kept guns or hunted. i really liked the writings of skeeter skelton, elmer keith, bill jordan and they could tell some tales. and of course all the gun writers of the day. most are dead now, most recently mike venturino. that's why i like hickok45 so much, he reminds me of the old timey writers.
i read these magazines cover to cover and pounded bob with questions about guns. f***ing guns 24/7. the day i got out of the hospital, i went down to get a fid card. it was a short 7 day wait, not like the months it takes today to get a ltc. as soon as i went to pick it up, i bought my first rifle and still remember it. i wish it was a more intelligent decision but...i got a m1 carbine made by plainfield machine. and the store, bernie gould's in medford. the 30 carbine ammo was cheap and plentiful at the time with tons of surplus stuff around. that didn't do it for me so i then answered an ad up on my clubs board and got a really nice, clean, shiney bored o3a3 springfield in of course 30-06. i still remember i paid 95 bucks for it, haggling the guy down from $115. he took pity on me i was pleading so hard.
that was the beginning. i decided i wasn't much of a rifleman so i concentrated on handguns. over the years some really nice and near great guns passed through my hands. like a fool i traded them away when i realized they weren't being shot anymore. stupid, i know, now. new guy didn't know any better then.
at 19 i got my ltc. i don't know how they are issued today, maybe the same. i could get the ltc but couldn't buy a handgun until i was 21...from a retail store...but i could buy from a private sale. am i remembering that right? ammo, no handgun calibers sold to under 21 yo customers, unless that handgun caliber ammo was for a rifle. usually, if the sales guy knew you, he wouldn't bust your balls. but...if not you had to bring the rifle to prove you owned one. yeah, i dunno either.
so over the last 55 years i shot a lot of competition. loved competitive shooting, like a lot of you. i shot ihmsa, 22 gallery and joined the greater boston pistol league, ipsc and ata trap as well as nssa skeet...to refresh my batteries during the trapshooting off season. i did shoot several years of the greater lowell trap league as well. i thought shooting sports were pissa, you could be successful without watching what you ate and how many reps you're going to do next time at the gym. not that i was successful, i won some big shoots every so often to keep my interest going. and i got to travel a good bit of the country shooting competitively. i know a lot of you did, and some still do the same thing i did. the guys from new england use to hook up at whichever city we were at and have a good time. but remembering we had to shoot the next morning so keeping the eye on the prize. good memories, and i know some of you here and you all are in those memories.
reloading, started a year after i bought my first gun. i've done inventory in my reloading room and would venture there's tens of thousands of dollars in equipment i've amassed over the years. i still have on my bench my first ever press, a rcbs rockchucker jr. still works like a champ, still using it. the other press i still have active is an original hornady projector progressive. been rebuilt a dozen times, still going strong. i'm sure i'd be using dillon but when i started, mike dillon was only selling direct, not retail like now. i needed to see the press before i bought, you couldn't test drive the dillon so i went another route. anyway, dies for every caliber, even ones i don't shoot. i'd reload for friends if they bought the start up...dies, shell holder, primers, etc, etc, etc. i just loved to reload, it's very therapeutic to me. looking at the primers stocked, i'd never be able to shoot them all in the time i have left. and powders, most stockpiled in 8# containers. and of course projectiles, lead and jacketed. over bought during the shortage around covid. admit it, you all did also.
i don't regret any move i made. enjoyed the hobby/sport of guns and reloading very much...thanks bob. i could go on cause i hear the cries of "more gc, tell us more." thanks for stayin' with me until the end if you did just that. yeah, i know, ole gc likes to ramble. but if you fools are gonna stay and read, i'll keep rambling. but my eyes are getting misty![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
i might stumble into you at the range, i do got a bit left in the tank.
i was 18 and in the hospital. my roommate and me lived there so long that summer we had our mail forwarded to us there. for me, last week of june until the end of august, it was my home. so my bed buddy, next bed over , his name was bob, can't remember his last name, had his wife bring in the gun magazines of the day. guns magazine, shooting times, g&a. american handgunner was just getting going at this time and of course his american riflemans. he'd toss them to me when i was looking to kill time. not knowing about guns, no one in my family kept guns or hunted. i really liked the writings of skeeter skelton, elmer keith, bill jordan and they could tell some tales. and of course all the gun writers of the day. most are dead now, most recently mike venturino. that's why i like hickok45 so much, he reminds me of the old timey writers.
i read these magazines cover to cover and pounded bob with questions about guns. f***ing guns 24/7. the day i got out of the hospital, i went down to get a fid card. it was a short 7 day wait, not like the months it takes today to get a ltc. as soon as i went to pick it up, i bought my first rifle and still remember it. i wish it was a more intelligent decision but...i got a m1 carbine made by plainfield machine. and the store, bernie gould's in medford. the 30 carbine ammo was cheap and plentiful at the time with tons of surplus stuff around. that didn't do it for me so i then answered an ad up on my clubs board and got a really nice, clean, shiney bored o3a3 springfield in of course 30-06. i still remember i paid 95 bucks for it, haggling the guy down from $115. he took pity on me i was pleading so hard.
that was the beginning. i decided i wasn't much of a rifleman so i concentrated on handguns. over the years some really nice and near great guns passed through my hands. like a fool i traded them away when i realized they weren't being shot anymore. stupid, i know, now. new guy didn't know any better then.
at 19 i got my ltc. i don't know how they are issued today, maybe the same. i could get the ltc but couldn't buy a handgun until i was 21...from a retail store...but i could buy from a private sale. am i remembering that right? ammo, no handgun calibers sold to under 21 yo customers, unless that handgun caliber ammo was for a rifle. usually, if the sales guy knew you, he wouldn't bust your balls. but...if not you had to bring the rifle to prove you owned one. yeah, i dunno either.
so over the last 55 years i shot a lot of competition. loved competitive shooting, like a lot of you. i shot ihmsa, 22 gallery and joined the greater boston pistol league, ipsc and ata trap as well as nssa skeet...to refresh my batteries during the trapshooting off season. i did shoot several years of the greater lowell trap league as well. i thought shooting sports were pissa, you could be successful without watching what you ate and how many reps you're going to do next time at the gym. not that i was successful, i won some big shoots every so often to keep my interest going. and i got to travel a good bit of the country shooting competitively. i know a lot of you did, and some still do the same thing i did. the guys from new england use to hook up at whichever city we were at and have a good time. but remembering we had to shoot the next morning so keeping the eye on the prize. good memories, and i know some of you here and you all are in those memories.
reloading, started a year after i bought my first gun. i've done inventory in my reloading room and would venture there's tens of thousands of dollars in equipment i've amassed over the years. i still have on my bench my first ever press, a rcbs rockchucker jr. still works like a champ, still using it. the other press i still have active is an original hornady projector progressive. been rebuilt a dozen times, still going strong. i'm sure i'd be using dillon but when i started, mike dillon was only selling direct, not retail like now. i needed to see the press before i bought, you couldn't test drive the dillon so i went another route. anyway, dies for every caliber, even ones i don't shoot. i'd reload for friends if they bought the start up...dies, shell holder, primers, etc, etc, etc. i just loved to reload, it's very therapeutic to me. looking at the primers stocked, i'd never be able to shoot them all in the time i have left. and powders, most stockpiled in 8# containers. and of course projectiles, lead and jacketed. over bought during the shortage around covid. admit it, you all did also.
i don't regret any move i made. enjoyed the hobby/sport of guns and reloading very much...thanks bob. i could go on cause i hear the cries of "more gc, tell us more." thanks for stayin' with me until the end if you did just that. yeah, i know, ole gc likes to ramble. but if you fools are gonna stay and read, i'll keep rambling. but my eyes are getting misty
i might stumble into you at the range, i do got a bit left in the tank.
![[cheers]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/018.gif "Cheers [cheers]")
