Old thread...
My Dad passed away last year. He had an aneurysm in his aorta which blew up. Mom went in for surgery for the same thing and that's a whole other story. I was worried it was hereditary, but my doctor pulled up a CAT scan I had done and I looked perfect. Both of them were heavy smokers which probably did it.
Anyway, being a collector, he had some 110 rifles and 75 pistols which my two brothers and I had to divide up. It took a few days as each rifle that came up we would tell some story about it. My collection has pretty much quadrupled from this.
He also had, I'm guessing some 100,000 cartridge cases as well and hundreds of cast bullets and their molds as well as normal jacketed stuff. I probably won't be buying much for some time.
Some of my highlights:
- M1 Carbine - all original 1943 build from Inland. Even eats cast bullets for breakfast.
- M1903 Springfield (a brother grabbed the Garand :frown: ) This isn't a 03A3, but a WWI model whose sights are near impossible for me to see
- Remington model 8 and 81 - these are full recoil operated rifles, I've happily found that M1903 Springfield stripper clips are fully compatable with these The 8 is in .35 Remington and the 81 is in .300 Savage
- Walther P-38 - appears to be a bastardized mix of war and post war parts
- Numerious Colt revolvers - I gave each of my 2 sons one in .38 Special as they can find ammo for these. My remaining ones are all in long forgotten calibers that I can reload anyway.
- Martini-Henry in .577-.450 - very fun to shoot and reloadable for me.
- Japanese Arisaka in 6.5. I should have grabbed the 7.7 he had as it was one my Grandfather brought back from Tinian during the war. Dad had beautifully refinished this one. It had a bayonet with a wooden scabbard which seemed to match everything
- plus a bunch more...
Most of his stuff was WWII era or earlier. He did have a very nice heavy barrel AR-15 all scoped out. It sorta looks like an A1 with the triangular foregrips, but everything's in wood. Very elegent.