I don't know where to properly post this, so maybe here will do....

Many of us have been lucky enough to receive one or more guns from our fathers or forefathers. Some of us elect to keep them unfired after receiving them, for whatever reason(s).

Some of us honour our forerunners by carefully using those rifles occasionally just as their original owner(s) did, and remembering what we can about those lives of those owners who trod the roads and fields before us, carrying those guns.

Thus we keep the family "gestalt" together and remember how our family came to be here in American history, grew together, and still continues to value the basic family responsibilities and devotions of life to one-another.

Something a lot of us forget. It is good to physically preserve the old guns, and it is good to care for them. It is good to continue to use them as the ones who left them behind would, if yet they could.

BUT, I suspect we need to go farther than that.

When we pass the old guns on, what will be the tie that goes with them?..what will keep them safe from the pawn shop, the gun-show traders, the whims of wanting to trade them away for the instant gratifications of tommorow's new lusts?

Their family history is what will tie them to their new recipients, IF IT IS KNOWN. It is up to us to write that history down and to make certain it is passed on to those who will inherit the guns.

To that end I humbly suggest that each of you with such a gun take a few minutes SOON to write down what you know of your guns which you want your families to keep after you are walking the as yet unseen fields in the far West, beyond your sun which has set.

When you got that gun, how you came to select it, any hardships you underwent in obtaining it, where you used it, and so on are all part of its history. A good hunting camp,or match competition story in which it is involved will make that history more interesting to future generations.

How many of you have fondled an old gun and said "If only it could talk...." It can, it just needs a bit of help from us.

P.S.: The same goes for your mom's or grand-ma's gun or, yes, your own gun, if you are its first owner in the family....

Well said, Alberta. An old gun without a story is of much less value, at least to those for whom the story has special meaning.

I have done exactly as you suggest with all of my "special" guns. My progeny can do with them as they wish once I have "metriculated", but I want them to know what it is they have so that to the extent the history of the piece is important to them, they will at least have that knowledge.

I was able to buy a Remington Model 25 in 25-20 a year or two ago from an estate, but the person who sold it to me knew nothing of its history. If only that old gun could talk! Due to the location of the estate, I suspect that it could have been sold new by the gun shop my wife's grandfather owned, but I'll never know.

What an excellent idea. Along with the many guns I have that were passed down to me that I know the stories of is a damascus barreled side by side underlever 12 ga. All I know of it's history is that it was hanging on my grandfather's wall from as far back as I can remember. Sure wish that one could talk.

I have an old Stevens side by side left to me by my father. It is sealed in a walnut box with a glass cover and an inscribed brass plate inside that tells about the history of said gun.

I did this mostly as I consider it unsafe to fire but will be passed on as a wall hanger.

I have 2 of my dads guns, 10-22 and a model 94 30-30. He bought em both brand new in the 80's. In 90 he passed on, I remember when he first used his 30-30 for hunting. I was around 10 or so. Its still looks and cycles brand new, I took a good size fork horn this year. I aint ever gonna get rid of it, someday my sons will use it also and when they ask whos gun is this I'll say its your grandpas.

I was lucky enough to get my step mother in laws elk rifle, before she passed she told me all about the rifle, when her first husband bought it for her, the number of elk shot etc. It came in an old canvas case along wih all 5 boxes of ammo. The only rounds bought or used in the rifle. Old Winchester silver tips, one and a half boxes of empty fired cases and three and a half boxes of unfired silvertips. Never had a scope mounted, stock original iron sights. The rifle was made the same year I was born. Not sure why it went to me, but am very thankful. I have shot the rifle, everything they are expected to be. A 1955 Winchester model 70 in 300H&H. I bought an old cut down stock, bedded it and put on a recoil pad to get LOP back, I will hunt the rifle when the opertunity presents itself. Just can't see the need for it hunting whitetails. It will stay in the family along with all of my history.

I know this is slightly off the mark from the original post but here it is anyway. I personally have no children but I do have a nephew. Not only is he going to inherit both of my grandfathers M-99 300 Savages, he will also inherit my dads rifles and my added collection and part of my estate. I am planning on setting him down this Christmas and play a little show & tell with his future gifts. One of the stipulations I am placing on his future inheritance is he must become a life long NRA member. I am currently paying for his annual membership while he is attending Texas A&M. After his graduation he will have to maintain his membership for the rest of his life. It will be in the will.

how about
one my dad built
meant to be MY first rifle
that then became my granddads (mother's dad)
then an uncles
then mine?
and i wonder why i don't like SMLEs

I'm lucky enough to have my Grandfathers M94 Marlin 25-20 that was passed to him from his uncle. Built in 1906, it wasn't in great shape, but a barrel liner and a receiver sight made it usable again. Cast gas checked bullets really work well on small game and it feels great carrying it around the woods.

My granddads shotgun was a rem 11-48 16 gauge semi-auto.I never got to hunt with it when he was alive.He was in the hospital with cancer after he had a stroke,he was telling my father how he wanted his affairs handled after he was gone.The shotgun was to be my father's.Sometime later in hunting season I asked him if I could use it.He flat told me that he had to wait till his father died to use it that I would have to do the same.So I wait.My pop has quad by-pass,a stroke after an operation on his foot and from vietnam some agent orange toumors in his chest.I think he doesnt want me to get it.He takes a licking and keeps on ticking.Trouth be told I do not wish to get it for a long while.Good Luck

i have a wnchester SL10 in .401 i inherited from my uncle. it was purchased new by him at flinthrops in west allis, wisc. and has a long history of deer hunting up in the minoqua area on my uncle's cranberry marsh. i shot my first deer with it during the second season i hunted and hasen't been shot since....41yrs ago!. except for some wear on the bolt block rod, the guard and the hump at the back of the reciever, it looks pretty much as it did when new and hope to pass it on to my grandson for his first deer season. IIRC, the two boxes of ammo i have for it were $20.50 each, special order from winchester, 41 years ago! there are 6 empty cases and one case missing(the deer i shot)in one of the two boxes,the six empties were all my dad would allow me to shoot for practice because of thier price back then.

I was lucky enough to get my dad's pre war 16 gage A5 and my Granddads light 12 A5. I kept the 12 gage and gave the 16 gage to my oldest son. My youngest son got the 12 gage A5 that I bought when I was in my 20's. Its funny, both the 12 gages were made in 1956. I don't know where Grandpa got his, I got mine at a pawn shop in Provo Ut. Dad bought his used from a brother in law. They all kill a pheasant and a grouse or two every year. DW

I about forgot, and this will keep it on topic for a medium caliber. I inherited my uncles 1888 calvary carbine in 8x57. Grandpas M70 got away, my cousin has it and won't part with it. DW

My great-great-grandfather and his first cousin hopped a freight train 100 miles north to St Louis to join Teddy in the war on Koobah! They forgot to read the fine print and spent the next three years in the Philippines fighting Moros. I have both their Krags. Those rifles can't talk, but I do have the stories that got passed down. These are the two absolutely most valuable centerfire rifles in the world!! They had harvested deer for nearly sixty years in SE Missouri before moving to Idaho. They have both taken Elk and Mule Deer here.
There are still not any flies on the old 30-40.

Rich

I have an old Ithaca SxS 12 gauge that my dad bought when he got out of army, WWII army that is. I also have a pre 36 Chief Special S&W that he sometimes carried as a back up when he was a BN, then BNDD and finally DEA, (after all the name changes from 1951 until his retirement in 1972) as an agent. Last is a 1948 manufactured S&W K-22 that he gave to my mother after they were married in 1950. He traded a bring back P-38 Walther for it. I will pass these on to my daughters.

I say HUNT with them.
You might want to use it on a fair weather, easy on the gun type of hunt....

But it deserves to be in the field.

I was lucky enough to inherit my grandpa's 20 gage A5. He had bought new in the 1950's and used it only a few times a year bird hunting. I keep it in my gun safe and have'nt shot it yet. It's in mint condition and i plan on leaveing it like that. When i kick the bucket it'll be my son's so i hope he to will passed it down

I hear alot of "I've got Granpa Jones' Winchester", or "My uncle gave me his Marlin", but I'm not hearing alot of "I wrote down the story of this gun for my kids and grandkids".

Like Alberta says at the beginning, don't tell us, tell your kids.

My aunt recently gave me my uncle's 1951 Smith & Wesson K-22. This just happened to be the first gun that I and many of my relatives ever fired (we are all babyboomers). The gun came with a receipt where my uncle sold it to my other uncle in 1967. I shot the gun in 1965 on Thanksgiving Day, as did many of my family.

I gave the gun to my sister, who inherited the family homestead and asked her that the gun remain with the house forever. There is plenty of room to shoot it anytime of the day down there.

I have inherited over a dozen rifles, shotguns and pistols belonging to my dad and grandfather. I shoot them regularly. If I left them in the gun safe to look at or to just pass down to my children, both of them would flip over in their graves. I enjoy shooting them and remembering all of the great times we had together. I have even taken the liberty of having some of them refinished. Many of you will flip out at that, but I refinished some of my dad's before he died and he was thrilled at how beautiful they looked. Why have a gun to just sit in a gun safe to look at once in a while? Might as well turn them over to a museum.

I have my grandfather's Stevens 30-30 and his Iver Johnson Champion 12 ga. He bought "Iver" new at the hardware store the year he got married........... 1929.

Idon't know about you folks,but I kind of like hearing your stories about your "family" guns.

I find it nice to know that the "Mammy" state hasn't yet clear-cut all the family trees in the U.S. and turned them all into grist for the bureaucrat computer-paper mills.

I don't want to hear somewhere down the road a chorus of "newly-wogged" "Americans" sayin"

"Yassuh, Missus Clinton-ma'am, Ah dun done wha's you'n Missy Pelosi done tol' me. Ah gots rid uv all dem bad-evil guns ma daddy n'gran'daddy dun lef' me. Hain't no need fer dem no mo' now's we gots the new Social Stability and Community Support De Po-lice Acts, the "gotta-use" community kitchins, 'n the chillun's Bad-Parent Reportin' programs. No-sah, ma-am, we's dos whut we's tole......"

I am fortunate to have been given my grandfathers 95 winchester in 06. It was built in 1922 and he carried it all over Wyoming as rancher until movin back to Missouri. It is battle and saddle scarred but still functions. It could use a little work and I may refinish it. It was already done once. I also have a picture over my desk of my grandfather in 1928 with the rifle and a muley buck. The mount is about just up the road about twenty miles at my cousins

And both my kids know this storycuz they were there when grand-pa told me to kiss off for a long time.

You folks are lucky, and I'm glad most if not all here, appreciate what has been passed onto you. I grew up in a predominately anti-gun home. I'm glad I didnt listen to that crap.

When my Dad passed away in 1994 he left me the only two firearms that he ever owned. One was a Winchester model 12 pump-action 12 gauge shotgun and the other was a Remington model 760 pump-action rifle chambered in .300 Savage.
I use the shotgun for small game hunting and the rifle for dear hunting each and every year.

I still have a winchester 44-40 that belong to the older brother of my grandfather.

That rifle was used in our last civil war (1904). The army fought mostly with mausers and the revolutionaries with winchesters that were smuggled into the country from Brazil.

My gun has 13 knike marks in the stock..

I hunted my first pigs and capybaras with it many years ago and when I was a boy it was my gun when playing "indians against cowboys" with my neighbourhood friends

L

My family were not hunters on either side. Still I got a couple of dandies. A Winchester Model 62 pump action .22 from my father's side, and an old trapdoor Springfield .45-70 from my maternal grandfather. Sometimes being the oldest child pays off. My grandfather bought the Springfield out in Ca. as an investment ( had to be dirt cheap or he wouldn't have thought of it as an investment ). Then he was drafted in WW2 and lost all interest in guns.

Back in '69, my dad and I built custom rifles based on the 98 Mauser; a 300WM for dad, and a 7mmRemMag for me. Just a few years later, I remember thinking that it would cost several hundred more dollars to build that same rifle in the mid 70's. Today, it would cost several thousand dollars to build the same rifle. When I wound up with Dad's rifle, I had the Varithane finish removed, checkering recut, added a hand rubbed oil finish, new bedding, the chamber recut, new rust blue, topped with a new Leupold 3.5-10 with the Boone and Crockett reticle. Since my dad passed away two years ago, the rifle has become priceless, and will always stay in the family.

I still have my first BGR. I inherited it from my Great-grandfather (a frenchman) througt my Grandfather. Nobody know where this rifle was bougth, in Europe or in the first years of the XX century here, in Argentina. It is an Original Sporting DWM rifle in 7x57 Mauser. It is a very scarce rifle. Some sources said only 1000 were made. I have seen similar ones but not identical as Plezier Mauser of the Boers. There is one EXACTLY like mine but with doble triggers (mine has sigle tr.)in a web page www.collectiblefirearms.com
The pictures of that page shows the commercial proof marks and so on. The one in mine are identical. It have also the rifling twist 222,5 cm (roughly 8,7 ") marked in the barrel under the chamber. My rifle is still in its original rust blue. I put a Hendsoldt Diasta D 4x32, a steel tube scope from the `60. The bore is rather dark but has strong rifling. And can make 1,5 "/100 meters with good factory or handloads! I have also a few boxes of UMC factory loads with 175 grs round nose bullets with the biggest amount of lead exposed. A trully "blue nose" bullets. I don´t use it, of course. One of the boxes have handwritten with a pencil "chasse"...It is a communication from my Greatgrandfather, I suppouse...
I kill my first corzuela parda (broquett deer) in 1972 in Córdoba with this rifle. Also my son kill his first big game, a Red Deer, at 14 years old.
Sometimes I pick up the rifle and go outdoors....

PH

Ah! and also from my Greatgrandfather I have a Gastinne-Renette shotgun. A sideplate 12 bore 65mm chamber, 27 1/2 " barrels, 1/2 and Full choques. The only marks under the barrel chambers in the flats are LEOPOLD BERNARD - CANNONIER A PARIS
And in the upper parts GASTINNE- RENETTE A PARIS
It is a truly modern gun: Steel barrels and automatic ejectors. Nice uppland game gun.

PH

my dad was a quali hunter and used a browning a-5 for all the years i can remember. after he died in 2000, i gave the gun to my son, who now uses it for doves, etc. my fil gave me a win model 42 (410), which i also gave to my son. he uses it for squirrel hunting. for me, i see no sense in keeping a gun i won't usually use, so i give them to kids/grandkids. the guns i use today will also go to my kids/grandkids once i get to a point that i no longer hunt.

I received my dad's Pre-64 Model 70 in 30-06 and my brother his model 12 12 gauge with a 32 inch barrel.

The Model 12 was reblued at least once by him and was still worn to a patina. He was an excellent shot with a shotgun and I knew that if a flock of mallards was coming into the decoys that my father would always be shooting the lead mallard and it didn't have a chance. He once shot 31 pheasants in a row without a miss. He would routinely shoot 96-100 at the trap line. I miss him.

Does anyone else feel like a group hig?

My dad had a single shot 12 ga and a sears bolt action 12 ga. And a double barrel 16ga with hammers.