I did not read the entire thread, just the first couple pages, so if this thread detoured from that I guess I responded to soon….but here goes.
Funny how folks place so much emotion into this gun or that. Revolvers are beautiful/artsy/refined…semi’s are functional/tool like/cheap…except their 1911/old berettas/old Walthers.
Maybe I’m the guy who is “soulless”, but they are all just guns to me. Sure, I like some better than others for one reason or another. Some are more reliable, some fit better, some are more fun to use, etc, but in the end, they are all just pieces of metal/wood/plastic and they all sling bullets to some degree.
I think, at least I hope, that for most of you, it’s not the gun itself, but maybe some memory that you have that makes this or that more special. Maybe grandpa taught you how to shoot on it, or maybe it was the first gun you bought as an adult. Maybe it was the gun your father carried, or the one your mother kept in her purse.
I get the feelings…I’m actually starting writing my memoirs, not because my life is/was special, but because I want my grandkids to know me better than they’ll be able to understand me by the time I take my dirt nap and head home. Guns will be in the memories, but only as props during special times with family, friends, and service mates.
Tom Gresham recently shared on a Gun Talk episode about an epiphany he had in the last few years about hunting. He realized it wasn’t the game he killed (or didn’t kill) that made his hunts special…it was the event, the people, the places, the struggle, the success, and the failure that made the memories he created.
I don’t know…maybe I’m all wrong…certainly wouldn’t be a first time.
YMMV.