I should probably thank my parents for depriving me so heartlessly of that toy. I carried the sting of that humiliation around with me for years right up to the day I walked into my local firearms shop and saw a man laying out about 50 different rifles and shotguns on the counter.
He was telling the clerk that he was getting a divorce and had to sell everything fast. I scanned the counter and there it was; an Springfield Armory National Match M1A.
I picked it up and asked the guy "What's he offering you for this?"
"Four hundred dollars" was the rather morose reply.
I said: "I'll give you $500.00 for it right now."
He looked at me and said "Sold."
That was about 15 years ago and I still have that piece. It's the most accurate rifle in my collection. I can hit things with that at distances I won't even try with my bolt actions.
Now the shopkeeper wasn't all that happy with me, but I've been doing business with him since I was twelve. He grumbled a bit, but eventually he got over it.
BTW I've still got my Crossman 760. My son and I shoot it in the backyard when we're not messing around with his paintball or Airsoft guns.
Great pellet guns those Crossmans. I've had mine since I was 13. It did have to go back to the factory once, but they repaired it without the least hassle.
Take care,
L
You would not believe this but my dad took my Crossman away from me for 6 months because he killed a rabbit with it. We saw the bunny about 230 feet from the back porch in the snow behind the garden fence. So my dad figures he is going to scare the rabbit by flipping the snow up in front of the rabbit with BB shot. We had a 4x scope. He takes a few shots at 6 pumps power and flips the snow up in front of the rabbit. The rabbit takes a few hops then turns around and comes back. So my dad say, "Watch this, I'm going to put this next shot right in front of the rabbits nose." He pumps the rifle up to 12 pumps, takes the shot, the rabbit shoots straight into the air 6 feet and does three back flips to the ground.
Now my mom is watching this through binoculars and she freaks. "Bert you killed it. You murdered it. It was a thing of beauty a few seconds ago and you murdered it." Mom goes running crying to the bedroom. I look at my dad and I say, "Dad I think you might have killed it." He looks at me and he says, "There's no way that rabbit is dead. It's a BB gun. Maybe it's just knocked out". So he walks out the 230 feet to the rabbit which is lying in the snow. There is no blood. So he doesn't want the neighbors to see this thing. He stuffs the rabbit in his coat and brings it back to the house and lays it in the snow hoping it's going to wake up.
The rabbit doesn't wake up so he skins it. There is a hole in one side and out the other side of the rabbit. He opens the rabbit up and the blood spills out of the chest cavity. There is a hole dead center right through the heart. He takes the Crossman 760 and locks it in the closet and tells me I'm not playing with that rifle again till I grow up.
I said, "Why you punishing me? your the one illegally killing rabbits in our backyard!"