Guns of our Fathers: Passing down the .22LR "Pea Shooter"

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 3/10/20 | M Burchett

[w1n1]

Ever since I was a little boy, I can remember spending many days with my grandpa. His name was Ray. It was actually Walter Ray, but he simply went by Ray. I would spend summers with him at the beach fishing, digging clams and an occasional trip shooting. I can still remember the smell of his den. It always had the aroma of Hoppe’s #9, the gun-cleaning solvent. He had a desk set up to reload, and his rifles were stacked in a gun cabinet. It was in this room I learned many things. I learned to assemble cartridges, how to clean a rifle and the endless love of a grandfather to his grandson.

As he aged, his memory failed and his attention to detail waivered. Once when we went shooting, I was just 8 or 9 years old, and his rifle almost knocked me down. It was a Winchester 94 in 30.30. He couldn’t believe it did that to me.
There was no recoil pad, just the steel plate on the butt to rest against my shoulder. I tried again and the results were the same. He took it in disbelief, shouldered it and let it bark. He never thought of that rifle acting like that.

We put it away and went back to the .22LR I always enjoyed. I can remember him pulling the bullets and weighing the powder. Low and behold, the ammo had been loaded with enough powder for the .308. It was a wonder we didn’t get hurt. Time went by and he always told me that when I got my hunting license I would receive his hunting rifle. I loved this rifle. It was just like my dad's rifle. I didn’t understand the nostalgia of this rifle for quite a while. All I knew was it had a silly name. My dad's had a cool name. We called it "Black Widow." It had a super dark stock, almost black, and it had a reputation of filling the freezer. My rifle to be was called "The Pea Shooter." Not quite as manly but I couldn't wait. Read the rest of 22Lr peashooter.

[real saxophonist]

My granddad had a pecan orchard right on the Flint River in middle Georgia. Anyone could go there and harvest all the squirrels they wanted for 25 cents per squirrel.

I don't know if he made more money from squirrel hunting, or the pecan crop.

(/ intentional thread drift)

[rrrod]

My father gave me a single shot 22 rifle when I was about 8. Wish I had kept it.

[trebb]

I forget the model of the old Marlin tube-fed semi .22 that I had...it had so much use the cocking flange broke and Dad silver-soldered it back together so it could be cocked.

[Seruzawa]

“We put it away and went back to the .22LR I always enjoyed. I can remember him pulling the bullets and weighing the powder. Low and behold, the ammo had been loaded with enough powder for the .308.”

I don’t think you can get that much powder in a 22LR.

The AM Journal strikes again.

[Think free or die]

My dad hunted and fished all his life. When he came to America after WWII, the first thing he bought for himself was a rifle. He’d missed being allowed to have one. When he passed, all of his guns came to me, since my brother doesn’t want them. My husband was looking over the last batch of them yesterday after I brought them back from a visit to my mother. One was a Sears rifle from 1950. I think that was his first rifle in America. We’ll label them all so that our sons know where they came from. When my husband went deer hunting in the fall of 2018, he took my dad’s Husqvarna for luck. He bagged a deer in the first hour of opening day with a single shot to the heart. I like to think Dad was watching over him that day.

[real saxophonist]

The AM Journal strikes again.

Low and behold!

[Axenolith]

It was the 3030 they were talking about at that point...

[Axenolith]

I got my 2 best old school .22’s for free. A Remington Sure Shot that appears to never miss, and a 1927 breakdown arcade gun that’s a St. John Browning design bottom eject autoloader. I plan on having that one worked over shortly by the local smith. Have a 1907 Winchester pump action back at the parents.

I’ve got a few other .22s including a way trick Olympic 10-22 and a 1922 High Standard pistol in .22 short, the only other guns that are as fun and cheap to shoot are my air rifles.

[wardaddy]

Remington model 33

My grandfathers with a little tube scope

Still have it

[Charles Martel]

I’d give anything to have my first rifle - a single shot .22. I went off to college without it and years later I found that it had been given away.

That's just wrong - but it has happened to countless shooters. One of my hobbies is restoring crusty old single-shot .22 rifles that gather dust in the used gun rack at the gun shop. Winchester Model 67s are a particular favorite.

[9422WMR]

OMG, my grandmother gave me a .410 with the exact same stamping as your Black Prince shotgun. I’ve not seen that Gun in decades and miss it to this day. My first squirrel gun at 7 years old!!

[CommerceComet]

My favorite gun is an early 40’s Winchester Model 67 single shot .22 that my grandfather bought to teach his daughters how to shoot. I bought a years ago from my aunt. With the peep sight and 27” barrel, it’s crazy accurate. When we have family outings, this is the rifle that everyone wants to shoot.

[Hazwaste]

Dad handed down his only firearms to me a few years before he passed away, one of which is a Wards Western Field Model 93m-390a single-shot bolt-action 22LR rifle, which his Dad gave him around 1940.

I learned how to safely handle “real” rifles (already had a BB gun) with that .22 as a boy, and it was a tack driver. The bolt handle is too fragile now to shoot, so it sits in my safe.

Sometimes I take it out and recall our trips into the field to kill Nazi beer can soldiers or paper targets.

[USS Alaska]

My first was a single shot 22 but in 1967 {I was married and had 2 kids} I bought a Remington 582 bolt action which both of my kids and all of my grand kids used to learn how to shoot.

Today, the youngest is going off to college but still loves to shoot the old 22.

I keep it in the den loaded with number 12 bird shot for plinking little rascals.

That rifle will still be in service when I'm in the ground.

I can't begin to estimate the number of rounds that have been fired and the hundreds of hours of pleasure that it has brought to my family.

[Hiddigeigei]

Ah, nostalgia! My first long gun was an Iver Johnson single barrel 410 (now long gone) my father gave me when I was about eight. My brother was collared and scolded by a priest for shooting squirrels in a graveyard with his bolt-action Remington .22, but allowed to keep the squirrel he had shot. My brother and I found a 45-70 trapdoor Springfield with a ramrod bayonet and an Allen & Thurber .36 caliber pepper-box in the attic. We made caps from match tips and powder from the formula we found in the 11ed, Britannica for the pepper-pot, and shot it (I think we used 000 buck). Both firearms now long gone, but I still have the Colt .38 cal, Police Special my mother gave my father as a wedding present in 1922.

[cloudmountain]

Cool.

[Tijeras_Slim]

[MileHi]

One of my hobbies is restoring crusty old single-shot .22 rifles...

How do you finish the metal?

[Charles Martel]

Usually Brownell’s Oxpho-blue; the cream version of that seems to be easy to work with. Also, I have a buddy who does gunsmithing work and has a hot-bluing setup. Sometimes I bead-blast the steel parts and drop them off with him; he dunks them along with whatever paying job he is working on. I keep him supplied with .32 Long Colt reloads for his old Marlin.

[MileHi]

Thanks. I need something that works better than the Birchwood Casey, but hot blue is more trouble than I want.