1885 Low Wall--built 1912, 'customized' about 1924, IIRC--
IOW, a shooter with no historical value, it's been butchered already. It has the set trigger option, and a couple of others. It's been at my rifle-builder's shop for the last nine years while we sort out how to rebuild it into a good .22LR target version Low Wall from the turn-of-the century work. I also have an old Stevens action and barrel there, in .22LR, that we'll build into a 'fancy marksmanship' rifle of the same era.
FWIW, my maternal Grandfather was a hunter and a 'state rifle champion' about a hundred years ago.
We know that his true character was that of a gunnie--how else can you explain a farmer selling a farm near Redwood Falls, MN, with 160 acres of wonderful soil, in order to buy a farm near Warroad Minnesota with 160 acres of rocky pasture and woods to raise dairy cattle?
The family did not get launched well with that career decision a hundred years ago.
I have some pictures of him with his Stevens fancy rifles--the ones that got burnt up in the first of two home fires.
But the four children did become good hunters and shooters; two of the boys, who remained in the Warroad area during the Thirties, fed their families off the .22s and some fishing; the other boy went on to shoot at Camp Perry in 1935 forward for awhile (and I still have that 52B Sporter, in its original configuration), and the only daughter carried me in a knapsack on her back duckhunting when I was ten months old in the fall of 1945. The shotgun she used--a WesternField (Browning?) 20 ga pump--did get sold in the late 60s, however--to my regret.
But not before I shot a goose with it in 1959--while wearing my pajamas, after waking up late and discovering the goose in our yard getting gravel. No, I didn't pot it; I scared it first to get it off the ground--barely.
So, now, my suburbanized oldest daughter is not a hunter, nor really a shooter--but not anti-gun either. The question is, will she like the Winchester 52B, or the SA 1911 package I built up twenty years ago, or the J-frames now?
Not to mention that Low Wall, if I ever get it built.
We shall see.
Jim H.