MacTech
Member
Dad handed down his old Winchester 1892 in .44-40 to me a few months ago, and it's been a while since I took it to the range, so today, I took my 11 year old nephew, Logan to the range with me, he's been wanting to shoot the old '92 for the longest time.....
He first fell in love with the gun about three years ago, and every range trip he wanted me to bring the old 92, but I didn't have any ammo for it, a few months back I found a couple boxes of ammo (a partial box of Western, and a full box of 200 grain Bullseye red box) so today we went to the range with the '92, and my Marlin 39a, to put a few rounds down range.
Once we set up, I let him have first choice as to who would shoot first, he wanted to try it, a little hesitant about recoil at first, but I reassured him that these were light "cowboy" loads, he put in two cartridges, and shouldered the gun, tucked in hard, and pulled the trigger.....
"That's it? That's all the recoil it has? That's *nothing*.....
"I LOVE this gun! It's so smooth and easy to shoot, it's so much fun!"
He had a huge grin the whole time, we would alternate taking five round groups, he really clicked with this gun, getting a nice smooth motion of working the action, shouldering, firing and follow through, but after 25 rounds between us, he suggested we should save the other 25 rounds for another time, he's really taken shot control and conserving ammo to heart, we then switched to the Marlin 39a lever to finish off a partial sleeve of the "improved" Remington Goldens I was trying to use up, he had just as much fun with that gun as well, but I could tell that he was resisting the urge to finish off the remaining 25 rounds of .44-40
Funny thing is, I actually felt worse finishing off that sleeve of .22 than I did .44-40, because I can still get .44-40 at my local toy store (and I also have reloading dies, primers and propellant, just need to find bullets for reloads) yet they're all out of all .22 rounds except shot shells and noise blanks (yes I have a sufficient stash of .22 set aside, but I'm not dipping into that until I can replace what I shoot affordably), that's the reason I got the Diana 34 and Daisy Avanti 499 air guns, so I can still put in trigger time without depleting my other ammo stores
Looks like I may need to start stocking .44-40 now, as Logan has a new favorite gun.....
He first fell in love with the gun about three years ago, and every range trip he wanted me to bring the old 92, but I didn't have any ammo for it, a few months back I found a couple boxes of ammo (a partial box of Western, and a full box of 200 grain Bullseye red box) so today we went to the range with the '92, and my Marlin 39a, to put a few rounds down range.
Once we set up, I let him have first choice as to who would shoot first, he wanted to try it, a little hesitant about recoil at first, but I reassured him that these were light "cowboy" loads, he put in two cartridges, and shouldered the gun, tucked in hard, and pulled the trigger.....
"That's it? That's all the recoil it has? That's *nothing*.....
"I LOVE this gun! It's so smooth and easy to shoot, it's so much fun!"
He had a huge grin the whole time, we would alternate taking five round groups, he really clicked with this gun, getting a nice smooth motion of working the action, shouldering, firing and follow through, but after 25 rounds between us, he suggested we should save the other 25 rounds for another time, he's really taken shot control and conserving ammo to heart, we then switched to the Marlin 39a lever to finish off a partial sleeve of the "improved" Remington Goldens I was trying to use up, he had just as much fun with that gun as well, but I could tell that he was resisting the urge to finish off the remaining 25 rounds of .44-40
Funny thing is, I actually felt worse finishing off that sleeve of .22 than I did .44-40, because I can still get .44-40 at my local toy store (and I also have reloading dies, primers and propellant, just need to find bullets for reloads) yet they're all out of all .22 rounds except shot shells and noise blanks (yes I have a sufficient stash of .22 set aside, but I'm not dipping into that until I can replace what I shoot affordably), that's the reason I got the Diana 34 and Daisy Avanti 499 air guns, so I can still put in trigger time without depleting my other ammo stores
Looks like I may need to start stocking .44-40 now, as Logan has a new favorite gun.....
