View attachment 1081330
My first rifle was a Rem 514, single-shot that apparently had a relatively short barrel life. It was passed-down by my brother, who bought it as a teen-ager. Dry-firing had "peened" the breech-end of the barrel, and shooting too many Shorts ringed the chamber, so it failed to eject Long Rifle cases. I had paid a gunsmith to install a cheap scope and it was very accurate, but a pocket knife was the only thing that could extract fired cases. I traded it in on a Savage Semi-Auto and shot that so much, that it wouldn't group better than 10 inches at 40 yards, but for a while, it was still good enough to kill rats in a nearby town's open-pit dump. Finally, I saved enough to buy a Marlin 39A Mountie and that was the best-shooting rifle for several years, then it too fell by the wayside and wouldn't group to my satisfaction.
These days, I have a few .22 rimfires and they all shoot well, but I don't shoot them much. One of the best things I did with them was to help train a grandson and granddaughter to shoot very well. They both have had honors in shooting ability and the grandson was an awarded Army sniper overseas.