The Husband is a fine husband, I believe I’ve mentioned this before. I’ve been drooling over cowboy guns lately, something to which he, as a fine husband, has paid close attention.
Last weekend we stopped into the local high end gun shop to see what they had lying about. The Henry rifles are gorgeous but almost uniformly HEAVY, and I’m not looking for a .22, we already have a plinker. Plus, I can just see all that pretty gold color rubbing off over time.
The Italian company Uberti is making Winchester replicas these days, and while they are gorgeous to behold, they’re sodding EXPENSIVE, and also just kind of…well, irritating. Frickin’ WINCHESTER should be making Winchester replicas, not some continental upstarts. Silly, I know.
I learned to shoot on lever action rifles, so the sentimental factor was extremely high, and these slick, pretty guns just didn’t have what I wanted.
Anyway, the Suncoast Gun Show was kind enough to hold their regional show right here in town on my birthday last Saturday, so the Husband and I deposited the children with Nana and set out. I was just there joy-looking, but the Husband had an AGENDA.
And there it was, about mid-way through the endless aisles of overpriced H&Ks… Its stock glowed a healthy natural wood color among all the over-used cherry grains and tactical black plastics. It had the marks of a well-used rifle, slight scuffing above the lever and around the cartridge port, and inside a bit of crud that will need a gunsmith’s attention. But it was GORGEOUS. And precisely what I wanted, even without the octagonal barrel.
So meet my 1979 Marlin Glenfield 30A lever-action 30/30 rifle. Once she comes back from her spa day with the gunsmith, we’ll take her to the range and give her a proper name.
on 
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Ooooh… purdy.
We still need to get together to go shooting some time. I’d like to see this one in action too!
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Pretty!! Do we get closeups? I clicked the damn picture twice (because I’m an idiot) trying to get a bigger image.
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Sure. Eine minuten, bitte.
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
There you go.
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Nice. I was wondering if the carving was just that fishscale pattern you see a lot of, or if it was something else. I like it. The wood’s really warm and pretty too.
(I killed a deer with a Honda, once. You can have my kill stamp.)
on Nov 20th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I hate that fishscale stuff, and it’s really uncomfortable on the hands.
No thankee.
on Nov 22nd, 2007 at 3:33 pm
On the day I was born in late 1959, my father bought a brand new Winchester Model 94 30/30. He kept it in the box until I turned 12, the year he taught me how to shoot ‘big guns’. The next year, I killed my first deer with that rifle. I lost the box over the years but I still treasure that rifle and keep it cleaned and oiled. Happy shooting!