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A couple old rimfires

John A.

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Recently, I had a chance to get an old gun. It was an old Springfield/Savage model 87A. The thing I liked the most about it, you could lock the bolt closed and use it as a single shot, or use it in semi.

After some internal debate, I ended up threading the barrel on it so I could attach a muzzle device if I wanted and made a steel thread protector while I was at it.

Being a tube fed mag, does take some of the fun out of it having to take off the suppressor during reloads, but I usually only load up the mag before going squirrel hunting anyway and I've never blown through all 15 bullets in a hunting trip.

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After seeing how well it does, my youngest son asked if it was possible to also thread an old marlin model 60 too. That was his first little gun and what he learned to shoot on.

So, of course I used that as an excuse for a hands on learning experience for him and let him thread his own barrel on the lathe.

I helped him take it apart and was there to help through the process and admit that I took over the last few passes to get the right major diameter when turning it down so he didn't go too deep on the final pass, but otherwise, he did the work and threaded it himself.

Ordinarily, I would have had him do more threads, but the location of the front screw for the front sight ramp, would have been in conflict so I only had him turn it back 7/16", which truthfully is enough to screw something onto the barrel.

After threading the barrel, he was feeling really comfortable with how it was going on the lathe, he wanted to make a "tactical bolt handle". After I looked at it for a minute and figured out what he had in mind, I got a piece of scrap aluminum and let him make some cuts in it and counterbore it. After he finished, epoxied it in place onto the original handle.

So, now he's feeling more like John Moses Browning Jr and very happy with how his work ended up enhancing the gun LOL

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After he was done, he went squirrel hunting and got a few and he was proud as a peacock of how well it worked. I may have created a monster though because now he's wanting to use the lathe for all kinds of projects, but he's having fun with it, learning stuff, using his hands to create things. So, I'm grateful for being able to take that opportunity to do that with him. Maybe one day he'll look back on that time with fond memories.
 
Good job sir!

I am so very lucky to have that same feeling of pride in my kids, John.

One of the greatest things about having children is to find out that they are following you, even where you never asked them to go.

I was amazed when my eldest daughter (now age 42 & a programmer at the IRS) brought me a circuit board she was doing capacitor exchanges on with a soldering iron. How many people would attempt to fix a television nowadays? Let alone solder on the motherboard? But she had seen me do such things and she knew it could be done. She needed advice on matching components.

….And when my youngest daughter (now a 39 year old schoolteacher) called for advice on changing her brake fluid, because she was in the middle of putting new pads and rotors on her Buick.

I took her some plastic fittings that she needed, because she was repairing the icemaker on her refrigerator.

Whenever I see my children tackle things with their own hands, that I never imagined they would’ve attempted, I am always very happy, and grateful that God took care of this where I did not really try.

How many fathers teach their daughters to do board-level electronic work, or rebuild the brakes on a car? I never did. These are just things they learned were possible, by watching me.

It’s a blessing I never looked for.
 
Boy you got me digging deep into the old school, just bone stock but when I pull this one out you can hear the squirrels running for their lives!
 
And this one a Marlin 989M2. I bought this at the age of 12 at $69 or so new with $ from mowing lawns and made several trips to pay her off. The day I picked her up I bought a .30 carbine sling, threw her over my back and road my bike the 3 Miles with no issues. That's what happens when you live in the heartland, MericaIMG_20211031_163016173.jpg
 
Yeah, it wasn't uncommon to see a bunch of us kids in the neighborhood with 22's and shotguns slung over our shoulders walking down the road or railroad tracks on our way squirrel or rabbit hunting.

Nobody gave it a second thought at the time, because, well, we weren't living in Russia.
 
It was a different time.

I would take my gun & bicycle and head out into the desert to shoot whatever the heck I wanted. No licenses, no seasons, no legalities at all, as here was nobody out there to bother me.

I had no idea what season it was or who owned the land I was on, but it really didn’t matter. As soon as you got off the only (dirt) road for miles, it was the wilderness. The open desert. Out there if there was a car coming you could hear them from miles away.
 
It was a different time.

I would take my gun & bicycle and head out into the desert to shoot whatever the heck I wanted. No licenses, no seasons, no legalities at all, as here was nobody out there to bother me.

I had no idea what season it was or who owned the land I was on, but it really didn’t matter. As soon as you got off the only (dirt) road for miles, it was the wilderness. The open desert. Out there if there was a car coming you could hear them from miles away.
:good:
 
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