Let's see your coolest old gun

[Shrapnel]

Some first generation 7 1/2 inch:

45 Colt

38-40

44-40

Bisley 38-40

[GunnyMack]

Not old but here are a couple interesting shootin irons of mine.
Ruger SINGLE SIX converted to 44 special. New 5 shot cylinder, 4" barrel, large spur hammer. Was my fishin vest gun when I lived in CO.

What I (we) think started life as a Zoli shotgun. This was a box of parts when I got it. Had to fit everything, I made the wood, English walnut. 23" barrels, cyc & cyc. I actually regulated it for slugs.
It's known as 'the Redheaded Stepchild'

[Lefty Dude]

My Belgium 1860 Colt. Made in 1959, an exact copy of the original 1860 Colt. New, in the box and unfired condition. Made before the Italian Copy's by Uberti & Pietta.

[hfcable]

Not old but here are a couple interesting shootin irons of mine.
Ruger SINGLE SIX converted to 44 special. New 5 shot cylinder, 4" barrel, large spur hammer. Was my fishin vest gun when I lived in CO.

What I (we) think started life as a Zoli shotgun. This was a box of parts when I got it. Had to fit everything, I made the wood, English walnut. 23" barrels, cyc & cyc. I actually regulated it for slugs.
It's known as 'the Redheaded Stepchild'

both of those are amazing....the tiny 44 special....i could use that !

and you did an amazing job on that shotgun !

[GunnyMack]

Thanks! I really took a shine to stock making, but could never checker- astigisims be darned!
The Redheaded Stepchild was a great learning experience, much of what I learned in that course I apply everyday!

I went to gunsmith school at TSJC, one of my class mates was John Gallager who has gone on to making a name for himself for single actions. He was making new cyclinders for black hawks. We got to BS-ing about what he was going to try next. This was when Ruger first came out with the 32 single six, I said I'll buy the gun if we make a 44 spec out of it.had some issues to work out, it's a 5 shot due to frame size. Handy little thing!

[wolfdog]

You folks got some nice stuff!

[marlinman93]

Couldn't stop myself from posting this one also!



Found this a long time ago in a local gun store that was going out of business. It is an 1881 Marlin in .40-60 Marlin built around 1882. It belonged to a judge John Harriman of Saginaw, Mi. and he belonged to a schuetzen rifle club along with a young gunsmith named Emil Flues. He gave Flues the gun to modify in the late 1800's and Flues restocked it in presentation grade walnut stocks, with 22 LPI checkering. He also engraved the screw heads, and added a Ballard small Swiss buttplate. Flues stamped the gun on barrel and inside buttplate with his rollstamp, "E Flues Bay City, Mi.". The sights are a Ballard midrange vernier rear and globe front.
When I found this old gun it was in a barrel of junk guns at discounted prices. I was excited to get it, but puzzled by the name on the barrel. I contacted Gary Quinnlin in Pa. and asked if he knew who "E Flues" was. Gary is extremely knowledgeable on old guns, and pointed me towards the Bay City Historical Society, and Michigan Historical Society. There I discovered that E Flues was Emil Flues, and that he later went on to be chief designer at Ithaca Gun Co. in New York! I also found a biography written on Flues by his nephew, and contacted the nephew. He asked for numbers stamped on the barrel, hidden under the forearm. After giving him the number Flues stamped, he looked up the gun, and told me who his uncle built it for, and that it was the only lever action repeater his uncle had ever customized! The rest were fine single shot schuetzen rifles, or hand built custom side by side shotguns!
Accompanying the gun above are a Marlin 1881 loading tool designed by John Browning, and a Marlin powder measure designed by Wilkinson. Plus a handful of .40-60M cartridges.

[KirkD]

What a find!!!

[fordwannabe]

Bill in Oregon, I am unaware of when this law went into effect, but when I moved here in 1985 it was so. I thought the fella's was pullin my leg when they told me I couldnt use a semi during deer season. Thankfully I was able to scrounge up one or two leverguns from under the bed.wink wink

[perry owens]

This civilian Snider carbine by John Rigby came to me from Argentina. The name engraved on the trigger guard was J.C.A.Yockney and after a lot of research I found out that John Charles Augustus Yockney was a Brit who went to Argentina in 1871 to help run the railways. He was the Station Master at a place called Domselaar, near Beunos Aries. In the 1870s the Argentine government bought up all the guns it could find, including this one, for use in the Conquest of the Desert campaign to subdue the native indians


I posted some info about it on a UK gun forum and got a reply from one of Yockney's descendants who lived here in the UK. Thinking he might like a piece of family history to hang on the wall I offered it to him for what it cost me but he told me his wife wouldn't allow guns in the house.
Brass is cheap and easy to form from Magtech 24 gauge shotshells so we often take it to the range and play at being old man Yockney, picking off fare dodgers and train robbers.

Perry Owens

[gamekeeper]

A Snider squibbed in the jungle, somebody laughed and fled, OK wrong continent but still a lovely old weapon...

[Camel73]

I love the stories....
Great histories that tell a tale are fascinating to me. Not sure of the story behind this one though.

Not sure if this fits here but this might be the closest thing to a handgun I'll ever own...
I found this little guy for peanuts not long ago. Pretty sure they didn't know what they had, and I didn't either till I looked it up. I just thought it was cool lookin and it was cheap so it became mine



1851 (Edit .44... not .36) old frontier navy revolver.
Ya, it's a replica. And ya, it was made 1967. And again ya, it was made in Japan... but it's all metal and it's a cool old piece of history that now belongs to the family collective.