Paco Kelly's Leverguns.com

Mike Armstrong

As far as I've seen--and I've looked at a lot of guns in the 75 years since I started lookin' at the age of seven--nobody but Remington ever called the WRF "Special"! Even tho it was, compared to the previous .22 RFs!

Mike Armstrong

My dad had a Remington Model 12S ".22 Special" that he shot all thru the depression to keep his "Grannie Grimes" household in protein in the Black Hills. I never did figure out exactly what relation she was to us, but she sure kept his family together for the years between when h...

Mike Armstrong

The first two bucks I ever killed were with a Winchester Model 37 .410 single shot loaded with Remington "Foster" slugs. Both were little Columbian Blacktail meat bucks with forked horns and went at abuut 85 # with the blood and guts out. I shot each at about 20 yards. One just fell dead r...

Mike Armstrong

I'm with TraderVic--the Savage 220 is the best single shot in any guage. My .410 has an added Savage 219 .22 Hornet barrel that I found in a "barrel of barrels" in an old gunshop in northern Maine. Outside was near cherry; bore was a mess. Once I found out that it would drop onto the recei...

Mike Armstrong

When I see a gun described as "good bore; strong rifling" or "some bore darkness; will probably clean to excellent," or even "shiny bore," I run away from the deal and the seller ever after. Most such sellers won't even talk to you about a refund when the bore ultimatel...

Mike Armstrong

I used to hunt chukars along the Snake River gorge in WA State....bumper sticker version is "Chukar hunters= huge thighs and tiny brains!" Some of those places I wished I had worn a parachute! I love .410s and hunt quail and doves with one. But for WILD chukars in their adopted habitats, y...

Mike Armstrong

Thanks, that IS good to know!

Mike Armstrong

Your Dad was a pretty good educator--his article still has plenty 0f value!

Mike Armstrong

Have the same 6" New Frontier with both cylinders and a blued Colt-marked screwdriver, but no box or papers. Same condition, too; only bluing wear is at the muzzle from drawing out of a leather holster. Shoots great, except that it doesn't like the non-lead .22 WMRs that we are now required to ...

Mike Armstrong

Shasta, are there still any Kokanees in Whiskeytown? Last time I was up there before the drought got bad the feeder stream by the main campground was bright red with spawners and you had to watch your step because of all the bear stuff around it. Wonder of any of the little guys made it through the ...

Mike Armstrong

I recently looked at a Henry .410 lever action. Looked nice, worked nice (just like any decent lever action!), but had the ergonomics of a steel fence post. Guess I'll stick to my Win 37, Savage 220, Wingmaster, and T-C G2 .410s. (At least the T-C has an "underlever"....).

Mike Armstrong

Win40-82, if your Model 37 has "WINCHESTER" in bold letters stamped on the base of the receiver, it was made between 1936 and 1948; if not, it was made between 1949 and 1963. None of them has serial number, so that's about the best you can do to date them. My first gun was a .410 Model 37 ...

Mike Armstrong

That Shooting Master .44 combo is just plain delicious. I've seen and handled a few Shooting Master .38s and a factory .45 ACP;, but that one must be nearly unique!

Mike Armstrong

It's a very good and versatile round. I had one that was a rebored Savage 219 single shot that had a REALLY wrecked .22 Hornet barrel originally but cleaned up perfectly to .35-30 and was very accurate with handloads using everything from 125 to 180 gr. bullets. In those days you could find a bucket...

Mike Armstrong

Beautiful! I've always found the original 38-40s made by American mfrs. significantly more accurate than the same models in .44-40, and I've had about all the action types that were made, save rare ones like that '88. Even the pumps were more accurate in .38-40, Remingtons and Colts both. The only ....

Mike Armstrong

Grizz, I'm no linguist; most of my "facts" are heresay. I do know that Nahua, also called Nahuatl (pronounced "Nah-WOT") is a member of a HUGE language family that is usually called "Uto-Aztecan," and was originally present from about the Arctic Circle to near Panama. T...

Mike Armstrong

Just lovely! I think that Colorado museum '85 carbine has a factory 14" barrel and lived behind bar for much of its life, according to Campbell's first volume on the Winchester Single Shot. I was raised on the old myth that a .25-35 wouldn't kill deer reliably, but the next ranch had a lady who...

Mike Armstrong

I have a Mexican friend who speaks Nahua, the Mexican language spoken by the Mexica, the people we call Aztecs and still spoken by about a million people from Mexico to San Salvador. Atlatl is derived from their language. Unfortunately (or maybe not) it has several sounds that are VERY common in Nah...

Mike Armstrong

My Marine favorite uncle always told us to beware of little dogs and little Marines....I've experienced both and he was so right! Their bites tend to be even worse than their barks.

Mike Armstrong

I remember a shot of an Iranian soldier following too close behind a buddy's RPG-7 in an assault on an Iraqi position in their "war before all the other Iraq wars". Ugly. Hard to figure out who to sympathize with in that war.... Not so hard in this one, but I agree that the ordinary people...

Mike Armstrong

Dang, that cottingtail makes my mouth water! And the kid won't break his back teeth on a birdshot either!

Mike Armstrong

The most info on the 425 I've seen is on the "Savage Collectors" forum of www.24hourcampfire.com. I think the guy that was collecting serial numbers of 425s is on that forum. Decent guys there, too.

Mike Armstrong

Mike Armstrong

When I was a kiddie wandering around "the other Californias" and Sonora MX, there were lots of .38 Supers around, mainly carried by LEAs private and public. And guys who had .38 Spls (mainly S&W Model 10s) seemed to try .38 Supers in their revolvers and used them if they fit. The only ...

Mike Armstrong

Thanks! I wonder if any of Paco's ".22 bullet improvement tools" might be adapted for this purpose. I'll look at 'em. 11 grains of lead (27.5%) really doesn't seem like that much, but I remember that smallbores are pretty touchy about bullet weight/twist! Also MIGHT make some of those clas...

Mike Armstrong

thanks for the replies. Rifles aren't the problem for the most part. The majority of them aren't gonna get stretched or busted by any regular LR, and many of them will chamber LRS with a little elbow grease. But all of them are a different twist than LRs and some may not be accurate with 37-40 gr. b...

Mike Armstrong

I'm gonna experiment with taking "quiet" LRs which are subsonic and cutting off the bullets to various lengths til I get one that's 29 gr, hoping to get a nice little wadcutter that won't break my "Baby" and will still motivate her slide. Hoping that my powder scale will be accur...

Mike Armstrong

I have several firearms chambered for .22 Long ammo ( a Win Lo Wall 1885 single shot, a Win 1890 pump, and a Vicenzo Bernardelli "Baby" .22 automatic pistol). I've been having problems finding .22 Long ammo in recent years--it seems that the manufacturers run it about as rarely as they run...

Mike Armstrong

Buegrass, Nugrass, Anything by Tony Rice. "Musica Andina" from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador--used to love the group "Andes Manta."

Don't much like instruments with wires stickin' out of 'em!

Mike Armstrong

If it was chambered for .45 Colt (not ACP) in Argentina, then there's a whole story there that I never heard about, but would really like to! For example, why would the Argentines chamber for a cartridge that they never, to my knowledge, used as a service cartridge? Or did they use it and I just nev...

Mike Armstrong

Provincial Police of Santa Fe Province. The term "reformado" usually means "modified," which I presume refers to the rebarreling to .45 ACP. I've seen ArgentineBallester-Molina .45 auto pistols that were also issued to this LEA (basically an Argentine modification of the Spanish ...

Mike Armstrong

I have a 28 ga. Red Label that I like for upland hunting, but use it only when I'm not going to be a lot of hiking. Almost all Rugers are what the Brits call "heavy for guage" because they are "a bit overbuilt". They last, but will you? For long hunts I use my old Beretta 685 20 ...

Mike Armstrong

As I understand it, the story when these were first imported was that some police agency converted '92s that they already had to fire the .45 ACP Colt and Ballester-Molina sidearms they were adopting. I've always wondered how they got a '92 to feed a rimless ctg. reliably...does yours? What are the ...

Mike Armstrong

Well, I didn't get to try my strategy to weasel the price down....the guy listed the gun on Gunbroker at a price that puts it beyond my means. No mention of the floppy lever in his "description" I see. I'll keep lookin' and this thread at least educated me about floppy Marlin levers! THANK...

Mike Armstrong

thanks, guys! I'm lookin' at it tomorrow and will try to get the guy to come down a bit on price because of this major gunsmithing bill in the making! Probably won't work but you can't blame a guy for tryin' (specially if he's of the Scottish persuasion....).

Mike Armstrong

I have the opportunity to buy a 1960's vintage "Golden 39A" in excellent shape except for one big "flaw"--the lever is loose in all conditions of the action: action closed with hammer at full cock, half cock, and fired position, and action open. Lever is floppiest (is that a word...

Mike Armstrong

Scott, did you eat that nopal cactus you shot the neat cloverleaf in? (My momma said you should always eat what you shoot....unless it's a beer can). Great shooting and a great post--learned a lot. Now all I need to do is find a .327 I can afford. Or even one I can't afford. Scarce as hen's teeth ri...

Mike Armstrong

Collector, I'm very glad you posted and shared the pix, questions, and answers here! And a 26" .30-30 should be a real pleasure to shoot, not to mention a reliable killer of anything that needs killin'!

Mike Armstrong

The most 99 experts I've found yet are on www.24hourcampfire.com's "Savage Collectors" forum. Pretty civil lot, too. So try them if you don't get answers here. I'm not much use for that--I love 99s but only know how to kill stuff with them....

Mike Armstrong

Speaking of "heads up," there's a late-model 1890 WRF for sale on Joe Salter's website today. It is item #41723 on the "Arrived Today" list. What caught my eye was the alleged great bore condition. Salter is expensive but honest as far as I know, at least the couple of deals I've...

Mike Armstrong

First time I went hunting alone with my then-new Winchester Model 37 single shot .410 in 1952 at the age of 8, I approached a stand of brush that was perfect quail and bunny habitat and got ready to shoot if anything scooted or buzzed out of it. Cocked the hammer in anticipation of shooting without ...

Mike Armstrong

Got one of these from a neighbor for cleaning out their chicken house (about 1953). It was brown patina mostly but with no pitting or active rust, but the bad news was that the bore was almost blocked with stuff. Took it to my favorite gunsmith (I'm sure kids weren't his favorite customers....) and ...

Mike Armstrong

I'd try to find a contemporary (same serial number range) blued 1903 and compare the printed markings on the two. Not easy to find one but it would give you a pretty clear idea if your nickeled one has been buffed before refinishing. The close-up pic you supplied certainly doesn't look like it to me...

Mike Armstrong

I'm with Rexster--prefer Ruger DAs to everything else in the price range. But "carry" guns and "hunting" guns are different beasts to me--one gun won't do both really well. So when I was hunting whitetails and pigs with a handgun, I started with a Ruger Bisley .357 on the Super B...

Mike Armstrong

I love me some Colt New Services, including the military ones: US 1917 and 1909, and Brit .455s. While many are in lousy cosmetic shape outside and with eroded, ringed, or otherwise neglected bores, I've never found one that wouldn't cycle, lock up, and touch off a round, as long as it had a firing ...

Mike Armstrong

I have smooth Osage Orange inserts in the Ruger rubber grips on my 6" blue half-lug GP-100 .357. They have worn not at all since I bought them from a member of www.rugerforums.com back in 1990. They are actually almost orange! I used this gun as my tree stand "deer rifle" for about 20...

Mike Armstrong

I had a Mark VI made in 1918 that had an Irish Republic "harp" acceptance mark on it and was in near mint (probably unissued) condition. Got it in an odd deal from a gunshop in Oakland CA back in the mid-1960s when I was a student. Was hanging around the shop and the proprietor was cussing...

Mike Armstrong

I don't really consider the elegance or beauty of revolvers much. I note those factors, but they don't stimulate me to actually own such guns--if I own one of those it's because it WORKS for me. So I'm with Sarge on the Colt "New Service" because of its durability and reliability--I once o...

Mike Armstrong

I still have a bunch of letters from Ken Waters about my various single shot rifle projects. He knew a lot about them and was very kind to write so much to a "kid." I miss letters--they were worth waiting for and taking the time to write. We are drowning in the stuff that goes with "c...

Mike Armstrong

If I'm in the flats, I carry an S&W 651 stainless 4" .22 WMR "Kit Gun." If I'm in a place where there are lions (just about any mountains in CA), I carry a Ruger Police Security Six .357 w/a 2 3/4" bbl. Easy to carry and stands up to full-blast Magnums just fine. These are st...

Mike Armstrong

I don't go to the "Articles" section often enough. Went there today and found Paco Kelly's article on an Uberti SAA he found--in .22 WRF, of all things! Where I came from that ctg. was always called by its Remington designation ".22 Special," which sounds more powerful than just ...

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