Gary's Gun Notes #139

Recently on my forum we were discussing the merits of having a lot of guns. We mentioned how things were back in 1965, and for you young guys, yes we had guns back in 1965, not as many as today, but we had them. One fellow recently mentioned that a friend of his actually had 2 deer rifles, count ‘em folks, two. He couldn’t understand why anyone would have 2 rifles and they were the same caliber even. Things were different back then, and not just the prices of guns nor the prices of ammunition nor the wages we were paid back then. Things have pretty much stayed even thru the years. In 1965 I was into my second year in radio as a disc jockey. I was making about $75 a week and my Dad couldn’t understand why I made so much money sitting on my butt playing records and yapping all day. Yep, back then $75 was a decent weeks pay, especially for a 20 year old rock & roll super stud....well, he thought he was.

The Remington Model 700 ADL, which was the plain jane rifle of the line up, came in all the standard calibers and back then there weren’t many standard calibers. They were 222, 223, 22-250, 243 and 308. It also came in 2 magnum calibers, 264 Win. Mag and 7mm Rem. mag. That’s it. The 6mm had been introduced, then dropped. It was to be renamed and put back out again but for reasons unknown to me it never was really popular. If they had called it the 243 Magnum, it probably would have done better, but who knows. Anyway those were the calibers. The gun retailed for $129. 95 but could be had for $99 just about anywhere. I bought a 22-250 for $99 that year for groundhogs. I had to do a lot of paperwork too. They handed me a form, I signed it to attest that I was over 18 and that was it. The big gun control bill was still 3 years away. Now the Remington 700 BDL was the deluxe model and it sold for $20 more. You could also get the African model which came in 375 H&H or 458 Win. Mag for $325 but a rock & roll super stud had no use for those calibers plus they were over a months pay.

Winchester had their Model 70 out in the standard grade and the Magnum grade. For some reason the Winchester was considered by many to be the white collar worker’s rifle while Remington was the blue collar worker’s rifle. The Winchester was $20 more than the Remington (so obviously it was the rich man’s gun). The Magnum Model 70 was sky high at $165.

In rimfire rifles we had our choice of names like Browning, Colt, High Standard, Ithaca, Marlin, Mossberg, Remington, Ruger (yes Ruger had their 10-22 back in 1965), Savage, Stevens, Weatherby, H&R, and Winchester, and most of these companies had 6 or 8 models out. I was working at a radio station in downtown Nashville on Church street and a Woolworth was nearby. I would hang out there sometimes in the mornings. My air shift started at 2PM and went to 8PM. I would stop by there to see if they had anything new. Real gun shops were few and far between back then. There were a couple in Nashville but on opposite ends of town and nowhere near where I worked. I bought my first 22 rifle at Woolworths, a Marlin 99M1. It was $39.95 if I remember right. I had been drooling over a Savage Anschutz 22 rifle, but it was almost $70, nearly a weeks pay, so I went with the Marlin. I was to try to wear the little Marlin carbine out over the next 10 or so years but when it left my hands (probably on a trade) it was still as accurate as the day it was shipped from Marlin.

Now when it came to handguns, there were 3 or 4 categories. There were handguns under $60 and handguns over $60. There were target and service handguns and there were single action handguns. You will notice none were listed as hunting handguns. Al Goerg was doing a lot of hunting with his handguns then but it was pretty much considered a novelty, nothing any sane man would try. I had bought his book Pioneering Handgun Hunting a year before and was beginning to think strongly about hunting with handguns, but the bug hadn’t bit me yet.

In the revolvers under $60, High Standard and H&R ruled the roost with about a dozen models each, most in the upper $40 range to the mid $50s. In the revolvers over $60 most would have never even been considered for handgun hunting. Guns like the Colt Detective Special at $70, the other Colt small frame revolvers in the same price range, the S&W model 10s and model 12s, both more police guns than anything else with their fixed sights. These ran again in the $70 to $75 range. Where were the hunting handguns you say? Well, not in a hunting handguns category. They were listed in the target category. This included the Colt Python at $125, most of the large frame S&Ws, including the Model 29 in 44 Magnum and at $140 as was the brand new Model 57 in the new 41 Magnum caliber, and the Model 27 in 357 Magnum at $120. The rimfire S&Ws were in this same target category also. High Standard had the most guns in the target category with almost a dozen 22 rimfire pistols. Most ran from $70 up to a bit over $100 for the real high priced pistols. One must also remember target shooting, with handgun and rifle was extremely popular back then. Every weekend men would put their best suit and hat on and the women would dress like they were going to church and hit the target ranges. A real target shooter wouldn’t be caught dead without a tie on and one of the Indiana Jones type fedoras. You just weren’t cool if you came to a target match not dresses properly. That just wasn’t cool at all. It was not at all unusual to see hunting articles in Outdoor Life, or Field & Stream where the hunter was duck hunting in a duck blind and was wearing a tie and dress shirt under his hunting coat.

In the single action category were the Colt SAAs at around $125 and the Rugers, from the Bearcat at $40, to the Single Six at $65, to the Blackhawks at about $85 to the Super Blackhawk at $115. Ruger’s Hawkeye in 256 Winchester was priced at about $85 and listed way in the back of the magazines as miscellaneous guns, along with the Remington XP-100 at $95, and the Universal Enforcer at $115. But nowhere did they mention these guns as hunting revolvers, just miscellaneous handguns..

In the service and sport category, we had the Browning Hi Power at $90, several Browning rimfire pistols, the Colt Government Model at $90 and the Commander at $10 less. We also had a couple of Colt rimfire pistols back then but only a couple at a bit over $50 each. Al;so in that same category we had several Hi Standard 22 rimfires all priced well under $60 and the Ruger standard model 22 pistol at $40.

Also as in the rifles above there were plenty of foreign handguns around, but most were in the military styles, such as the P-38s, lots of Lugers, lots of Star pistols, along with Llamas, and war issue Walthers. Also we didn’t have the specialty gun magazines back then that premiered a new gun every month in living color on the front cover. When the gun magazines did an article, for the most part, it was a target handgun or maybe a police revolver. In the field of guns back then there was still an extremely large amount of old military guns being sold thru the NRA and thru magazines. Remember back in 1965, we could order handguns, rifles, shotguns and ammo all thru the mail, no FFL or dealer required. Just sign the paper saying you were over 18 and send in your money. Personal checks were fine too. U.S. military issue 1911s were going for $17.50 thru the NRA. Military issue M-1 Garands were about $30, M-1 carbines about $25 and so on. But again remember back then the average man who had worked for 15 years made about $200 a week, most well under that. So a 1911 at $17.50 was a lot of money just for a handgun. I bought a 4 year old 1961 Chevy Impala in 1965 and my car payment was about $20 a month, my insurance was another $5 a month, so there went almost half my weeks pay. I simply couldn’t afford to blow almost half a weeks pay on some old military gun.

Things sure have changed in the last 50 years. Now we all probably make close to the same amount, in 2014 dollars as we did in 1965 dollars, but somehow our mind set is totally different. If we see a rifle for $2500, we sell the guns we have or do whatever we need to to be able to buy that gun. Credit cards have spoiled us big time. The average person doesn’t think twice about putting a $2000 rifle or shotgun on his credit card. It just comes natural. I have a friend in Phoenix who owns a fairly large business. He builds big expensive houses for the wealthy. His gofer who runs errands for him runs up to Flag once or twice a month to see what we have new in the showcase. If there is something new he pays for it with the boss’s credit card and we ship the gun down to a dealer in Phoenix. The gofer told me his boss had waited almost a year for a new Lamborghini 4 wheel drive vehicle to arrive in the states. When it arrived there were 4 of them. The rich dude sent the gofer to the dealer to look at them and pick out the nicest. He paid for it with a credit card.

This is just an example of where our minds are these days. I have been to the Safari Club Shows in Las Vegas in a booth with our custom guns. I have bought guns that I just had to have right then. I didn’t need them. Two of them were double rifles that I never took to Africa with me. I hunt with handguns, so I needed those 2 double rifle like I need a third testicle.

So I am as guilty of the “gots to have it” illness as any other, but to be honest with you, if it weren’t for that illness, we would probably not be in business today. So, all in all, I am thankful; for the changing times. And yes, I have duplicates of many of my guns. I got on a 28 gauge over/under kick a while back and bought 5 of them and I haven’t yet figured out how to shoot but one at a time. I really love the CZ 22 rimfire rifles and bought several of those in 22 LR and 22 Magnum, but like the shotguns, I haven’t figured how to shoot but one at a time. So if you suffer from the same illness as I do, don’t criticize yourself too much. We only live once and if it doesn’t take money out of the family budget or food out of your children’s mouths, live a little. Guns are like money in the bank these days. Maybe even better.

Things these days are still in a rut with the shortages still here, some are easing up, but most are still here. We got a batch of powder this past week and I thought things were getting better until I looked at the invoice. It was dated November 2013, it took 8 months for us to get that powder and there were well over 140 lbs of it still back ordered. The situation with the 22 rimfire ammo is still stagnant, with a brick or two coming in every 10 days or so. Even parceling it out a box or 2 at a time, it is gone within 3 or 4 hours. We haven’t had 22 magnum ammo in 5 or 6 months. Many brands of bullets are back ordered. On that invoice of powder were about 60 boxes of Nosler bullets, all back ordered. I will tell you what I tell all the folks that come into the gun shop (and I am not over there much at all, maybe 3 or 4 times a day, for 10 to 15 minutes each time) but if you really need ammo, powder, bullets or primers and you see them but at a higher price than you expect, if you really need them, buy them. We have no idea how long this shortage will last. The people in the know say by the end of the year things will start to ease up, but who knows. We have hunting season coming up in a month or two, so if you need it and you really enjoy hunting or shooting, buy it. As John Taffin always says, 6 months from now you won’t miss that extra buck or two. Life is too short, don’t waste it waiting for prices to go down. They may not.

Our next Handgun Hunting Challenge is now 2 months away, with Oct 2-5 being the dates. I already have 37 people signed up and room for about 15 more. if you want to join us, consider this my personal invitation to you to join us at the Wilderness Hunting Lodge in Monterey Tennessee in 2 months. you won’t regret it. Call 931-839-2091 today to sign up and join us.