Posted on 01/21/2006 9:24:23 AM PST by neverdem
A famous ad that most boy baby boomers will recall from Boys' Life, the old scouting magazine of the '50s, showed a happy lad, carrot-topped and freckly like any number of Peck's Bad Boys, his teeth haphazardly arrayed within his wide, gleeful mouth under eyes wide as pie platters as he exclaimed on Christmas morn, "Gee, Dad . . . A Winchester!"
All gone, all gone, all gone. The gun as family totem, the implied trust between generations, the implicit idea that marksmanship followed by hunting were a way of life to be pursued through the decades, the sense of tradition, respect, self-discipline and bright confidence that Winchester and the American kinship group would march forward to a happy tomorrow -- gone if not with the wind, then with the tide of inner-city and nutcase killings that have led America's once-proud and heavily bourgeois gun culture into the wilderness of marginalization.
And now Winchester is gone too, or at least the most interesting parts of it. The traditional company whose symbol was a fringed rider flying across the plains on a pinto, gripping his trusty Model '73, is finally biting the dust. The entity -- now technically U.S. Repeating Arms, which produces the rifles and shotguns as a licensee of the Olin Corp., which still owns Winchester ammunition -- announced Monday it was closing the plant in New Haven where the rifles and shotguns have been fabricated for a century and a half. Some Winchesters will continue to be built overseas, but three guns -- the classic lever-action rifle of western fame, the bolt-action hunting rifle (called the Model 70) and the Model 1300 pump-action shotgun -- will no longer be manufactured.
That lever-gun -- the quintessential cowboy rifle, the mechanism that "won the West" and maybe helped lose it...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Peggy Noonan: Not a Bad Time to Take Stock
A Gay Easter? Gay-rights groups make covert plans to crash the annual White House Easter egg roll.
Recipients of the Soulforce email were asked to be "discreet" and not to post the information on websites because the "success of this action depends on keeping it under the radar of the media and the administration!!!"
From time to time, Ill ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Indeed, the very reason why I have a collection of lever guns.
Mine are blued clones of the Winchester 1892 in .45LC. Light easy handling and fine shooters. Available in .38/.357 mag, .44 mag and .454 Casull at very reasonable prices http://www.legacysports.com/product/index.htm
For a longer reach, a Marlin 1985 Cowboy in the venerable but still effective and versatile .45-70 gov. Sweeeeet!
http://www.marlinfirearms.com/Firearms/Cowboy/1895Cowboy.aspx
And, of course, the Marlin 336 available in a variey of finish and reasonable prices. Mine is a vintage 1954 with a ladder tang sight in .30-30 just waiting for the new Hornady 'LeveRevolution' polymer tipped rounds for longer flatter trajectory.
Early American Homeland Defense Rifles
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the Washington Compost. But, the writer is Stephen Hunter, author of the Bob (The Nailer) Lee Swagger books.
Very sad. Looks like those who have them will own collectors items in a few years. (including us)
I don't read fiction unless it's MSM. 8^)
An old Connecticut institution closing.
Don't know if the .22 long model handles .22 short. The .22 mag won't.
My Dad was a factory worker. Does that count as bougeois? His main hunting buddy was also a factory worker, although he later became a supervisor. (Big Whoop, I worked there too so I know that's not biggie). Their other buddy was a mechanic for the railroad(although his son is 2 star Army general). They were my introduction to the "gun culture". Were they bougeois? Am I?
But, AFAIK, Henry's don't come in thuty-thuty.
My daughter's debate teacher must be spinning in her grave to hear of the demise of Winchester 30-30s. She was infamous for bragging about that rifle, and her dog Wishbone.
I do think there are other manufactures. Browning make pick up the design, if not the Winchester name, which is owned by Olin. The right to use the name expires soon, and that fact is part of what is driving this move by US Repeating Arms. Browning, and US Repeating Arms, maker of the Winchster line, are both owned by Herstal, which also owns FN, whose US branch, FN Manufacturing, makes the M-16, M-240 and M-249 for the US Armed forces. So the 30-30 lever action may not be dead, but it probably won't be called a Winchester. That alone is sorta sad, but not as sad as losing the line entirely.
Well, I guess the 30-30 lever gun that won the west isn't dead, but it will be made in Portugal and Japan. I hope the city fathers of New Haven and the leaders of Connecticut are proud of themselves. Considering that they are likely a bunch of gun grabbers anyway, secretly they probably are.
If you have a dog as a pet, not a working dog, that's bougeois.
I forgot where I came across it for certain. I think it was a recent show on PBS about dogs. Once folks had an existance that started providing more than the bare necessities, and they could start behaving as consumers.
Thanks for the pic!
Ouch, that would probably be a destructive device today, and you'd have to pay a tax just to purchase one. I'll bet those old boys wouldn't have paid the tax, but they would have given the gun to the tax collector, bullets first.
Well, I haven't had a hunting dog in decades, while my wife and daughters have had "pet" dogs. However I'll note that the Australian Shepard mix was hell on squirrels, and a good burglar alarm, while the Char Pei/Catahoula mix would rip the throat out of anyone who tried to harm my wife or daughter. Does that count as working?
I find it difficult to take this, so I'm not. It will all be O.K. tomorrow. I just won't open my OUCH! eyes until tomorrow...starting now. O.K., now.
OUCH!
This is not easy, but it is worth it.
Thanks for the ping. Very informative thread. BTTT!
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