Anybody ever lost a gun?

What Are You Looking For?

Item one: I am outside, looking in the grass, walking back and forth, trying desperately to find my favorite ballpoint pen. I am eleven or twelve years old.

Dad: "What are you looking for?"
Me: "My Parker pen."
Dad: "What does it look like?"
Me: "It's black with a silver top and it has an arrow for a clip."
Dad: "So you're looking for a long black and silver thing. What if it's not lying flat? What if it's on it's end? What would it look like?"
Me: "Uh, kind of a small silver dot . . ."

And so, indeed, it did. When I started looking for the other things it might look like, I found it in under ten minutes. It had fallen point-down, and all that was visible was the top of the button.


Item two: I am searching through the house from one end to the other, trying to find something (I no longer recall what, so we'll pretend it was a model boat), and my dad sees me going over the same area multiple times.

Dad: "What are you looking for?"
Me: "My blue boat. I can't find it anywhere."
Dad: "Have you looked everywhere?"
Me: "I've looked everywhere it can be."
Dad: "Well, if you've looked everywhere it can be, and it isn't there, then try looking where it can't be.

Sure enough, it was where I would have sworn it couldn't have been.

So.

There are these two questions:

1) What are you looking for? What does it look like? What does it look like when it doesn't look like that?

2) Have you looked everywhere -- including where it can't be?

textpatriate did you check your freezer?

Did Grandpa give you the rifle:
a) right before you moved?
b) while you were in the process of moving and boxing stuff up for the move?
c) after you were moved out of the old place?

If a or b could you have left it at the old place, like in the attic out of reach of the kids and clutter? If so then it could still be there. A guy I work with tells the story of buying his current house and several years later he gets a knock on the door from a previous owner. Said previous owner said he left something down in the basement hidden away and asked if he could go look for it, or could my co-worker go look if he gave him directions to find it. Co-worker said sure come in and let's go see if the stuff is still there. Low and behold down in the basement stuffed up in the ceiling between the first floor floor joists was a shoe box wrapped in a towel, and in the box was some old "blue movies" from back when movies were still on film.

If your answer is b or c could you have given it to a friend or relative for safe keeping so it wouldn't get lost or damaged during the move?

If your answer is c would you have placed it somewhere deliberately out of reach of the kids?

If your answer is a then I'm going to guess that it was left standing in the corner behind an open door, perhaps the current residents of that place still have it.

Do you have any fishing rods or ski gear or long garden tools that it could be standing up in and hiding in between? Do you have any golf gear, and if so could it be hiding inside a golf bag either in the club portion or stuffed in the sweater and raingear long zipper side pocket? And I sure hope if it was in an old golf bag that someone didn't donate your golf bag to some thrift store or sell it for $5 at a rummage sale.

I think it might be time to start pulling drawers out of stuff and looking in odd corners and peeking up inside light fixtures and flourescent light boxes and other assorted hidey-holes and dust bunny bins and spiderweb corners.

We are vicariously hunting for this with you. Post a pic of it's hiding place once you find it. Hopefully something one of us wrote will trigger the magic memory leading you to it.

edit to add:
I Googled up some images so we all know what we're vicariously looking for:
http://www.okiegunsmithshop.com/RemModel_12.jpg

This pic shows a little screw on the side indicating it might be a take-down model, meaning it can hide in one or two smaller places, like the back of a sock drawer.
http://www.stevecobbguns.com/pictures/REM 12 OCTBL LONG.JPG

Relative size, small rifle, easy to hide:
http://lh3.google.com/_ocJ4kTkWSHE/Rg8L2k3ikLI/AAAAAAAAAC4/k0VlarrA_r4/s800/P1010015.JPG

I misplaced a pistol years ago, accepted the loss and moved on. The reason I say misplaced that is exactly what happened I put it in a box that was not marked and during a move it was...well misplaced.

When I found it I was really happy, I always felt that I'd be receiving a call or a letter and say this is registered to you and why don't you come down to the station and talk about it

My wife was given a Jennings J22 by her father when she went off to college. I knew it existed because it was mentioned once and I offered to take her to the range and shoot.

When she graduated after 8 years of school (and I was dating her) she moved away. When she moved in with me 5 years later and we got married, some boxes of stuff got a low priority for unpacking and got shoved in the attic.

One day we are going through old boxes of clutter to donate to Goodwill and I open up a box of misc. stuff and find that new-in-original-blue-box Jennings, with the recept, still loaded with the original 6 rounds her dad had put in it when he gave it to her 17 years ago- at least it wasn't chambered.

"Oh yeah, that's my gun," she says. "I wondered what had happened to it."

I never personally lost a gun. I have lost many things to the "car roof" syndrome.
While stationed at Fort Polk in the '80s our entire battalion was placed on line in the woods after a FTX and we walked the training area from sunup to sunset looking for an M16 that one of scouts had lost.
I had heard rumors later that it wasn't lost, just stashed for later pickup by the guy.

Every so often, some blithering genius would lose one out of a helicopter...

does it count if they are lost at sea when my boat tragically went down?

Congrats!

Catherine

lost a 6.35 in one improvised hiding, and this for about 6 months..

My cousin almost lost one of his 11-87s, he was using it for duck hunting and got called back into work, in the scramble to get all his decoys and everything together he left the shotgun laying up against a stone wall. He works some crazy hours and all that so it was some time until he realized what had happened, I want to say it was like 4 weeks. He drove back and there it was still sitting there. It was pretty rusted up on the outside but still functional so he cleaned it up and sent it out to get camo dipped, looking at it you'd never know it had spent some decent time in the elements.

I pulled a spin180 once.

I left my Keltec p11 in the fridge. Keltec's must like the cold.

Had just goten back from the range and was on my way to the garage to clean the guns, and decided to get some lunch before I got my hands dirty. After eating I could'nt find it anywhere. I tore the house and garage apart looking, and finally decided I would find it if I stopped looking.

A few hours later my girlfriend hands me a chilled p11 with a funny look

Yes --- to my ex-wife. Sorry, bad joke.................

I have "misplaced" for a half-day once before (later recovered). I felt horrible. But it taught me that it can happen, and you have to be diligent. And also that if it does and you don't recover... you'll have to just let it go. As bad as it is. I had reached that point with my misplacement episode.


Glad you found yours!

Last year I misplaced a Kimber CDP. I freaked I called the police and reported it stolen the whole 9 yards, later that day I found it under a frisbee and sweatshirt. OOPS

I have never misplaced one, but I have lost two of them to family members.
As a boy, my first gun was a bolt action .22 single that later recieved a scope. I went away to Arizona for a few months. When I returned, my father had removed the bolt and given it to my 5 year old little brother to use as a toy. I had no ideal until I saw him draggin it accross the stone driveway by the stock with the barrel cutting a path in the rocks. It was destroyed. He had even broken the glass out of the scope and filled the inside with dirt and stones. I was truly shocked that my father would do that. He took immaculate care of his guns and taught me to do the same.

The 2nd gun never really became mine, but I feel the loss just the same. It was my grandfathers bolt action 375 h&h magnum bolt action rifle with a nice peice of glass on top. After he passed my mother asked me If I wanted any of his belongings. I was the only gun collector in the family and that is the only thing of his that I requested. She told me that my uncles had first choice in the generational pecking order. One of my uncles laid claim to the beautiful like new rifle. I was pretty darn dissappointed. Especially since I knew that he only wanted it because of its dollar value. I am sure it went straight for sale.