If you had a time machine…?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Elkins45

Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
6,834
Location
Northern KY
Another thread got me to thinking about what I would do (at least in terms of firearms) if I had access to a time machine. Assuming I only got one trip I would round up as much cash as I could then go back to 1985, where I would buy as many ARs and AKs as I could afford, then fill out Form 1s to register them as transferable machine guns. If the time machine wouldn’t allow me to wait around for ATF to send me my stamps then I would go back further and buy up crates of new Colt SAA revolvers.

If you had one trip in a time machine what firearm related thing would you do?

<<Emphasis added by staff.>>
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Tough choice that one.....

Part of me would want to go back and sit down with ole Tom Jefferson and tell him that the party he was about to found would morph into an anti American communist monster...and he may not want to go there....(politics...I know. That's all I'll comment on it)

Another part of me loves the idea of sitting with John Browning in his shop...my gosh the knowledge you would gain!

The idea of going back to buy class 3 in mass has its appeal also...but I think I'd rather talk to those who put that Amendment into the FOPA...change their mind...which would make buying full auto moot..

Go back and tell General Short to have his fighters in the air by 0645.....or tell Halsey to have his carrier air groups over Pearl at the same time.....or northwest of the islands....

Tell the Rangers there were no guns on top of the point...so no need to climb that cliff....

Tell Truman to let MacArthur actually fight the war in 52....

The choices.....
 
Better to bring John Browning here to the future and show him polymer, MIM and stampings, investment castings, AR gas impingment, the AK-47 and let him loose for a while before sending him home (don't want to deprive him of his family for long).

He'd be tickled pink that his trigger system for the Rem Model 8, Rem Model 11 and a modified lockup for the 1911 are still used today.
 
My mission would be completely self serving, purely to avoid Timeline Paradoxes and Mass Extinction Events cause by my sneezing in the Past.:D

As such, I will simply get a small loan in today’s dollars. Traveling back to when Singers, Rands and Signals were cheap and easy. Pistols don’t take up much room in the craft. And these would be worth the looking for.


Or perhaps the trip is done with a transporter like in StarTerk. Then I would be looking for the most value I could carry on my person.
Real Purdys, H&R doubles and anything engraved, at period prices. A killing would be made!


Maybe it could be done in my favorite Hy-Tek (see what I did there?;)) conveyance, Wormhole-Mirror, like in StarGate!
Then it would be a three week excursion for all types! Crates of International Harvesters! Boxes of Singers! .30 Carbine IBMs! I would get German High Powers, and 1903s. French revolvers and Belgian pocket pistols.
Ah, Handloading!
Think of the price break on a train car of lead at 1968 prices!
And I’ve heard primers last a good long time. I’ll take one million, please! Again at the In-The-Past price.

Then, just back the truck up to the Wormhole-mirror and start unloading into the Future!:)

It would be fun just to be back there talking with the humans that time about the stuff they find interesting!




But no Bio-Thought-embodiment-travel. I want to go and bring things back, like shopping.
I don’t want to go in person and hoard all these things, after getting the means to procure them, into storage for 55-58 years. Then Think-Travel back to the Present and find a IHOP where there should be a warehouse of classic firearms!:eek:

I am such a nerd though. I don’t know that I’d want to come back…:p
I know my kids would though.;)
 
My mission would be completely self serving, purely to avoid Timeline Paradoxes and Mass Extinction Events cause by my sneezing in the Past.:D

As such, I will simply get a small loan in today’s dollars. Traveling back to when Singers, Rands and Signals were cheap and easy. Pistols don’t take up much room in the craft. And these would be worth the looking for.


Or perhaps the trip is done with a transporter like in StarTerk. Then I would be looking for the most value I could carry on my person.
Real Purdys, H&R doubles and anything engraved, at period prices. A killing would be made!


Maybe it could be done in my favorite Hy-Tek (see what I did there?;)) conveyance, Wormhole-Mirror, like in StarGate!
Then it would be a three week excursion for all types! Crates of International Harvesters! Boxes of Singers! .30 Carbine IBMs! I would get German High Powers, and 1903s. French revolvers and Belgian pocket pistols.
Ah, Handloading!
Think of the price break on a train car of lead at 1968 prices!
And I’ve heard primers last a good long time. I’ll take one million, please! Again at the In-The-Past price.

Then, just back the truck up to the Wormhole-mirror and start unloading into the Future!:)

It would be fun just to be back there talking with the humans that time about the stuff they find interesting!




But no Bio-Thought-embodiment-travel. I want to go and bring things back, like shopping.
I don’t want to go in person and hoard all these things, after getting the means to procure them, into storage for 55-58 years. Then Think-Travel back to the Present and find a IHOP where there should be a warehouse of classic firearms!:eek:

I am such a nerd though. I don’t know that I’d want to come back…:p
I know my kids would though.;)

The transport part is easy. Once I had the guns I would simply store them all in my dad’s cattle barn. We still own that property today but he stopped raising cows before 1985 and it’s full of junk. A couple of crates of machine guns would hardly be noticed.
 
Remember, if you are time traveling to purchase interesting and appreciating guns (art, stocks, etc.), to sort your money for dates prior to your ETA.

When Woodrow Wilson Smith (aka Captain Aaron J. Sheffield, aka Lazarus Long) traveled into his own past, he checked his actual arrival date and had to bury much of his money as anachronistic.
 
Given a time machine, the thing to do might be to go to some "interesting" areas and collect up "interesting" things--and in 1968. When AK-47s were about US$15-20 all over Africa, or around $25-30 in South America. Mind, RPG grenades would be middling cheap, too . . .

Note that the "sources" there are not going to greasy eyeball your cash too closely, either.

Then submit all their paperwork during the 1968 Amnesty.

And, they all ought be "legal" when you return to the Present. Done.

Mind going back to 2009 and buying original issue Bitcoin might be pretty slick.

And either of those would probably be biologically safer than say, going to 1920 and buying ups some of Bannerman's inventory and figuring out where to stash it. You would need all of your vaccinations up to speed to go to 1920. And, you'd risk "leaving behind" a bunch of modern versions of influenza, rhinoviruses and the like--which could catch you up on your return.
 
The "Grandfather" hypothesis - the polite version (we know about the crude version) - means that going back somehow might indirectly prevent your grandparents or parents from ever meeting.

Go back to the times After you were "in the oven", and Then buy ammo plus guns, just in case.
After 1954, I would >> first << buy lots of Non-corrosive ammo for all of these---

After 30,000 rds. of the correct ammo is acquired (do we need to review the ammo problems these days? ;)) begin a search for a couple of nice Garands, M1-A1s, a pair of 100% German Lugers, and going forward, to the 80s, several imported AKMs.

Ray Bradbury: Short Stories “A Sound of Thunder” Summary and Analysis | GradeSaver
Go back in time 60 million years -- but if you do, please follow all of the instructions.:oops:
 
Last edited:
I'd like to go back for all the oddities. Lorcin, automags,etc. Y'know, all those really weird, one off arms. Like a calico, Muskgrave, bunch of those weird Spanish clones. Those real oddballs.
 
I would return to Montana on June 24,1876 and tell the Lt. Colonel that there are thousands of warriors from several tribes down by that river; do not split your forces, do not get spotted, do not approach and send for reinforcement - lots of reinforcement.
Then back into the machine and onto Pennsylvania on June 30, 1863 and tell the General that he needs to take the surrounding high ground and that a frontal attack across a fenced, open field against the center line will not have the outcome he intends.
Then “Back to the Future” to see if they listened.
 
I would return to Montana on June 24,1876 and tell the Lt. Colonel that there are thousands of warriors from several tribes down by that river; do not split your forces, do not get spotted, do not approach and send for reinforcement - lots of reinforcement.
Then back into the machine and onto Pennsylvania on June 30, 1863 and tell the General that he needs to take the surrounding high ground and that a frontal attack across a fenced, open field against the center line will not have the outcome he intends.
Then “Back to the Future” to see if they listened.


I bet the Lt. Colonel wouldn't have listened.
 
I would go back to the Constitutional Convention,,,
Make sure they improved on the wording of the 2nd Amendment.

Aarond

.

This would solve an awful lot of problems and make some of the other things mentioned much less effective.
 
I’d sit quietly as an apprentice in John Brownings workshop, doing my best to take in as much as I could before I left.

Stay safe.
I don't think you would have learned very much from John Browning, him and Ed did everything themselves and kept it to themselves. Jo0hn was the thinker, Ed was the do-err

One didn't work much without the other, so you would have ended up with some mundane job.

DM
 
If I had a time machine, I would find a genie and use my wish for “infinite wishes”. :)

But yeah approved form 1’s would be nice, DIAS, lightning links, etc could still be made today if you had the form 1 for it approved before May 19, 1986.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top