Notes from the gun shop...

I swapped days with another employee and worked Wednesday. I thought it was pretty slow today with a couple of "rushes" and some interesting items.

While we did do several transfers not one wasn't immediately approved. I consider that an improvement over the extreme delays we have been seeing. This is my second work day since the "improvements" were mentioned.

I was surprised to see that not only had one of the blued Ruger flattop .44 Special Blackhawks but a stainless gun as well! I'm a bit confused though. While the regular catalog blued gun exhibits the same fit and finish as my Lipsey's special guns, the stainless gun falls short. The stock/grip fit is relatively horrible with some near hits for matching the stocks and grip frame but some big misses too. The stainless gun simply doesn't come up to the blue guns in stock fit. Yet, the stainless gun is substantially more expensive. The boss man, who marks new guns up the same percentage (and a rather moderate amount at that) has a price about $70 higher on the stainless gun. Not worth it in my opinion...

A neat gun came into the shop and the boss man's possession yesterday. A locally used Winchester Model 1873 rifle in .32 WCF (Winchester Center Fire), aka .32-20, with a beautiful bore, blue turning to brown but still a beautiful blue where protected, color case still visible on hammer and lever, and beautiful bright toggle links (yes, we got to open it up and look inside). Built in 1894 according to Madis, this gun still had the dust cover as well. The boss man is considering getting it lettered but it has no special order features that I could see.

Of course, every old gun that comes in the shop comes with a story. Apparently, this gun was one of a "pair", the other gun being a .44 WCF marked "One of One Thousand"! Unfortunately this gun was taken by the original owner's son out west where he was working on threshing machines. It was never returned.

One of our regular visitors came in and in discussing a transaction and future trip to Africa mentioned, again, that he had nobody to whom to leave his "stuff". That stuff includes firearms (of course) but also three farms, houses, and numerous antiques. He was getting pretty emotional about it. I understand how he feels and I've talked about this before. Where your stuff goes after you've departed this world is worth your time to plan.

And finally, an observation on handgun cartridges. While I had several folks come in to look at 9mms and .40 S&Ws, I sold THREE .38 Specials! People actually put their money down on the old standard.