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.

[Da Coyote]

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.

Sigh.....

[DIRTYSECRET]

Remington Nylon 66. Really nice.

[Jeff Chandler]

I still have my first .22 rifle, a Sears branded Winchester 141 repeater.

[cloudmountain]

My husband taught me to shoot. I used a Beretta...and it fit my hand perfectly.
My target? Osama bin Laden't beard. I got pretty good for a while there.

[SgtHooper]

Yup! And mine has the original cracked stock! But I still cherish that rifle!

[Regulator]

Ruger 10/22LR, 10 shots, semi-auto.

Every kid's first rifle.

[bantam]

Glenfield model 60 my Dad bought me was my first non BB gun!
Still a tack driver to this day, roughly 43 years later!

An all around great rifle! Poison to squirrels!!

[Carriage Hill]

I still have my Mossberg 144LS .22cal LR, with a Weaver Scope, given to me in 1958 by Dad, bought at Sears for $39.95, to shoot NRA competition at BSA Summer Camp, in Illinois and Wisconsin.

It’s in pristine condition, and Dad, a highly-decorated WWII Battle of The Bulge Vet, used it to shoot groundhog, from his office window, until he passed last year, at 94.

[real saxophonist]

Soldier of Fortune magazine used to have tear-out targets in the back. People like Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi...

Different one each month.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Remington Nylon 66.

Excellent rifle!

[CMSMC]

Bought a Mannlicher stocked 10-22 when I came back from Vietnam in 67. I’ve probably put 20k rounds through it and it’s still going strong. Have promised it to a grandson. Ruger recently started making it again. Found another one on line and picked it up. That one can go to the other grandson. Great gun.

[LIConFem]

Bought my Model 60 in ‘81. Haven’t shot it in years, but I did recently take it down and replace some springs and such. Also just started hand loading .22lr, using brand new primed brass, Vitavhouri 3n37 and cast bullets from a mold from Old West Bullet Moulds, coated with Hi-Tek Supercoat. Can’t wait to give ‘em a try.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Remington Nylon 66. Really nice.

I second that. I still have mine....with the original Weaver V-22a scope. Light, accurate, easy to break down and clean with a 19 round tubular magazine. Ah...that's some fun.

[BBQToadRibs]

My Dad gave me a single shot .22 as my first rifle. Our land was infested with ground squirrels and I was given the go-ahead on no limit hunting. This is where he re-re-reinforced the basics of gun safety, such as know what’s behind your target. Like our house. I think I was 11.

[SkyDancer]

Hard to clean. Need a gunsmith to take it apart.

[SkyDancer]

My gramps still has a .22 from Sears, auto-loader with a Ted Williams scope.

[yarddog]

When Daddy died, my older Brother got his old Remington 513 targetmaster. That is one great .22 rifle. I can recall back in the 1950s, Daddy would tap a nail into a tree then get back around 30 feet and drive it in with that Remington.

I don’t remember his ever missing.

[real saxophonist]

The blog mentions 'Black Widow'. Well, I had the 'Black Prince'. My dad's, and his dad's. Squirrel gun.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Same here. My grandpa gave me his .22 pea shooter which I had learned on. We used to sit on the hill above his farm pond shooting snapping turtles.

It was an unbelievably simple no-name rifle made in 1906. It had the skinniest bolt you ever saw and the ejector clip was worn so it often wouldn’t extract the spent cartridge. I sharpened the extractor clip many times, but it was never reliable. I blind-drilled and tapped the barrel to add a scope (which probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do). I tried my hand at re-bluing it (with a cold-bluing chemical), but that didn’t turn out real well. It went with me to college where I also bought a modern Marlin single-shot bolt action rifle that was a lot more reliable, but not as much fun as shooting that bit of history.

I left the rifles with Dad in Pennsylvania when I graduated from college and moved west. When Dad downsized the old homestead in retirement, he sold my two guns at a garage sale without even telling me he was doing it. That really hurt. He also sold the Nazi ceremonial dagger he had given me (he had gotten from a friend) and that really hurt, too. I still can’t believe he did that 35 years ago!