#2 You'll forgive my reposting the post from the "Shotgun Picture Thread".
My .22/20ga. Stevens. I've had at least three but this one's the keeper. .22WMR didn't work out for me and the .410 was a little small on some occasions.
This was a great gun for me. I started carrying a Blue Streak air-pump on my trap-lines and popped a few critters not to be cataloged here. Got to be confident in a 1 shot head-shot first. But damn, that's a lot of pumping! Never quiet, that.
Then, I carried our family's Marlin 39 (still have that... again) but it was long and kind of too nice for me beating around and also was finicky with shot rounds.
Later, this came along. A tad heavy for just-in-case but being .22 and 20 ga reaped huge rewards. I was getting something like 3-8 dollars for winter rabbit pelts and more for non-typicals. Someone had caused the release of these beasty, English, Watership Downs monsters that had gone feral and were a real money maker when taken down Minneapolis.
Too, this gave me dog-food and trap baits along with other side benefits.
This was when gas was what... 60-80 cents a gallon? Augmenting muskrat and beaver with those rabbits and other mustelidae was huge. There was also a prize-cattle/goose/boutique melon farmer would pay a fine bounty on-site, cash in hand, day of death and I still got the rabbits - more to me if he kept one or two from time to time for his dogs. One of my lines was about a quarter mile from a corner of his holdings.
My cousin even used it at least one year for his deer tag. We found out later that he might have been breaking the law with the .22 on top.
I can't for the life of me remember where I got the sweet little *Sears* 4x scope. Maybe off of the Marlin? It's not a Ted Williams nor J C Higgins store brand but rather a beautifully marked Sears U.S.A. scope. Weaver perhaps. I can tell you though, sure doesn't let a lot of light in under a Minnesota, low-winter-sun.
After mounting it, I kind of wished that I had the button-select barrel version but this was still fine if I was careful.
Somewhere, I have a pile of *slings* I used to make by eye-splicing ropes laying around the place. Learned immediately to
NOT use hemp.
This carried real nice on a half-inch cotton rope sling with pretty eye-splices and copper bands on each end. Stretched somethin' fierce the first time it got wet though.
I keep thinking one day to give the old gal a significant restoration just because of the significance to me.... Maybe.
Anyhow, here she is and in her day, she was a getter!
Todd.