With the heat wave and high 90's temps back down in the 80's, I deceided it was time for some range hours. I packed up a handgun and a rifle and headed out.
Now being retired, I've one of the few advantages to being old enough to put up with arthritus and other pains in the butt of age. Durring the week the shooting range is deserted, exept for other retired old farts like me.
Being alone, I took my time setting up some targets, and loading some magazines. I had brought out my old ruger standard model. Dad had tought me to shoot on his old woodsman, and when I was in my senior year at high school and it was time for me to have a .22 pistol of my own, dad and I had broused the local gun shop. I had looked at the Colt woodsman, but the post war models had been squarred off, and up sized. They were no longer the slim trim little pistol like dad's. Niether were they on a budjet of a high school kid delivering papers in the morning and mowing lawns in the afternoon. Instead the gunshop owner had shown us a new gun they were carrying, a ruger .22 auto styled like a Luger in outline, and best of all were 39.95. It felt good in the hand, dad said it looked like a well made gun, so it went home with me. Now, almost 50 years later, its a bit worn looking, silvery in spots, but still shoots well.
On days like this, I have a laid back way of shooting. I'll shoot the 3 magazines I have loaded, then I take a break, smoke my pipe, and whittle a little bit. The pistol range is down in a little hollow with a stand of pine trees in back of it with picnic tables set out. I'll have a seat and shave off paper thin slivers of wood, and when my pipe gets low, go back and shoot some more. Today I had an old Opinel number 8 I got back in 1982, and it was shaving really thin curls. In my other pocket was the old Hen and Rooster. My trips to the range don't have as much to do with shooting as just mental recharging.
So I shot, whittled, shot some more, whittled some more. I relected a bit on the old comment they don't make them like they used to. Here I was shooting a gun designed by Strum and Ruger in 1947, and whittling with a knife designed by Joseph Opinel in 1890, with the locking ring added in 1911. Both were doing what they were designed to do, many years after newer items were available. I shot another two magazines, and whittled some with the old stockman. It cut as well as the Opinel. I don't know how many hundreds of years the slip joint design has been around.
I shot off another couple of mags and I had the berm almost cleaned. I have this game I play, to pit me against myself. I set out pieces of broken clay birds on the 25 yard berm, and I shoot the pieces, breaking them smaller smaller, untill the berm is clean. I tell myself I can't leave till all the little red pieces of clay birds are gone. I used to be better at this, not taking as much ammo to hit all the small bits. Old eyes betray me, and I find sometimes I have to just leave a few little bits there on the berm. That when I have to use the rifle. Another old gun from my youth, the Marlin .22 lever action. About as old as the Opinel in origin, dating in design from the 1880's. The one I have is only about half a century old.
I finish off the last of the bits of clay bird with the .22 carbine, the Marlin being equipted with a Williams foolproof peep sign give me a much needed hand. I reflect as I shoot, that in spite of being dated, old fashioned, even viewed as obsolite by some young cutting edge guys with thier plastic framed black pistols and black rifles, the hundred year old designed lever action rifle, like the slip joint, still gets the job done.
I can only wonder if thats why the traditional slip joints are still being made and sold. In spite of the numbers of manufactures of spring clipped locking one hand opening knives, the old traditional is still a viable item in the market place. Sure Camillus and Schrade have fallen by the wayside, but Case, Queen/Shatt and Morgan are going strong as ever.
Maybe there will always be a place for things that really work, in spite of there being newer, slicker, designs around.
Now being retired, I've one of the few advantages to being old enough to put up with arthritus and other pains in the butt of age. Durring the week the shooting range is deserted, exept for other retired old farts like me.
Being alone, I took my time setting up some targets, and loading some magazines. I had brought out my old ruger standard model. Dad had tought me to shoot on his old woodsman, and when I was in my senior year at high school and it was time for me to have a .22 pistol of my own, dad and I had broused the local gun shop. I had looked at the Colt woodsman, but the post war models had been squarred off, and up sized. They were no longer the slim trim little pistol like dad's. Niether were they on a budjet of a high school kid delivering papers in the morning and mowing lawns in the afternoon. Instead the gunshop owner had shown us a new gun they were carrying, a ruger .22 auto styled like a Luger in outline, and best of all were 39.95. It felt good in the hand, dad said it looked like a well made gun, so it went home with me. Now, almost 50 years later, its a bit worn looking, silvery in spots, but still shoots well.
On days like this, I have a laid back way of shooting. I'll shoot the 3 magazines I have loaded, then I take a break, smoke my pipe, and whittle a little bit. The pistol range is down in a little hollow with a stand of pine trees in back of it with picnic tables set out. I'll have a seat and shave off paper thin slivers of wood, and when my pipe gets low, go back and shoot some more. Today I had an old Opinel number 8 I got back in 1982, and it was shaving really thin curls. In my other pocket was the old Hen and Rooster. My trips to the range don't have as much to do with shooting as just mental recharging.
So I shot, whittled, shot some more, whittled some more. I relected a bit on the old comment they don't make them like they used to. Here I was shooting a gun designed by Strum and Ruger in 1947, and whittling with a knife designed by Joseph Opinel in 1890, with the locking ring added in 1911. Both were doing what they were designed to do, many years after newer items were available. I shot another two magazines, and whittled some with the old stockman. It cut as well as the Opinel. I don't know how many hundreds of years the slip joint design has been around.
I shot off another couple of mags and I had the berm almost cleaned. I have this game I play, to pit me against myself. I set out pieces of broken clay birds on the 25 yard berm, and I shoot the pieces, breaking them smaller smaller, untill the berm is clean. I tell myself I can't leave till all the little red pieces of clay birds are gone. I used to be better at this, not taking as much ammo to hit all the small bits. Old eyes betray me, and I find sometimes I have to just leave a few little bits there on the berm. That when I have to use the rifle. Another old gun from my youth, the Marlin .22 lever action. About as old as the Opinel in origin, dating in design from the 1880's. The one I have is only about half a century old.
I finish off the last of the bits of clay bird with the .22 carbine, the Marlin being equipted with a Williams foolproof peep sign give me a much needed hand. I reflect as I shoot, that in spite of being dated, old fashioned, even viewed as obsolite by some young cutting edge guys with thier plastic framed black pistols and black rifles, the hundred year old designed lever action rifle, like the slip joint, still gets the job done.
I can only wonder if thats why the traditional slip joints are still being made and sold. In spite of the numbers of manufactures of spring clipped locking one hand opening knives, the old traditional is still a viable item in the market place. Sure Camillus and Schrade have fallen by the wayside, but Case, Queen/Shatt and Morgan are going strong as ever.
Maybe there will always be a place for things that really work, in spite of there being newer, slicker, designs around.
