bill bet you was a crack shot .i too love the little 22 it would be hard for me to pick my favorite 22...at the moment i shoot a remington auto rifle model 550 and secound i shoot a marlin auto of some model...but i shoot my ruger bearcat the most it goes with me on the farm a lot...yep 22 s are special to me too... charlie

Of course we used to shoot longs when we didn't have the extra dime to buy a box of LRs. I don't know if the ammo companies still make them. I think they shot the same bullet as the short, but delivered it a little quicker.

As a gun collector I have gone through several phases. First I collected only muskets, then Civil War carbines (most stolen), a few '73's and then I hit on 22's and I must have bought a dozen. One of my faves is that little Win. model 67 single shot. You load it and have to cock the striker. Pretty bad safety; using it makes the gun less safe! But a kick to shoot and it shoots fine! The safety is - don't pull back the striker. I've got a minty 9422 and have only shot it a few times. I like the 39A best when shooting a lever .22.

Shooting rats at the dump with a .22 just may have been my favorite big game hunting of all time. Prairie dogs too. My grandson loves to shoot and is 'into' airsoft. I am looking forward to handing him a .22. Doing so allows one to kind of relive one's youth.

Of all the late model Winchester .22s. The 9422 was the best and off the highest quality. I have two, a .22 and a.22 magnum. The .22 is NIB, and I shoot the magnum. Got them both when an Ames Discount store in Southbridge, Mass went out of business. 1975--$100 each. My only complaint with the gun is the loading tube is a little undersize for the "holding" tube. It is easy to turn and get unlocked and slip out. I have had to retrace my farm walk more than once to find the darn thing. Still a nice gun and becoming more valuable as the years since discontinuance go by. Charlie, remember when .22 long rifle shells were less than .$50 per box and you could buy shotgun shells by the each? Time goes too fast....

I do.... am I showing my age? :whistle:

Shooting bats with .22 birdshot out of a 510 bolt action Remington. Now, that was fun!

Did you ever hit one? I went through a box of .410 shells using a little single barrel shotgun at bats. I think i hit 3 in 25 shots. I am actually a fairly good shot but those bats were realy good at dodging!

i too remember the box of 22 s for 49 cents..bought many a box and plugged everything from a pebble toa minnow in the creek..never could strika a match togood withone but was death on birds withone... charlie

When I was fifteen I used up a whole box of 20's at bats in the early evening. never touched one of them. I decided that it was a pretty wasteful endeavor and never did it again.

The day I turned 16 I bought a Ruger Bearcat. Cost was $36. It shoot where it was aimed and I learned to shoot a pistol with that little gun. I sold it and bought another that shot around corners. I hesitate to buy a new one, since they cost something like $575.

I found an NRA special Model 34 Remington at a pawn shop about 15 years ago. It had Lyman peep sights and extra fine wood. The little rifle was well used, but I love it and it is a great shooter. Has a tubular magazine, which I like. I found a regular one a few years ago and it is a grand little rifle too.

While sneaking up on 70 my bulbs are still hanging in there, so I usually avoid scoped .22's. Put a dot scope on my ancient Weatherby XXII and it's okay, but I can't warm to it.

I shot a zillion weapons of all kinds in the military, even 20mm canons from an A-4 Skyhawk, but I still get excited when I slip a magazine into a .22.

LOL, that's funny! Did they "hear" it coming? We need more bats.

I knew a fellow who used to hunt bob white quail with a .22 rifle, shooting solids. He did pretty well at it too. We also shot cans thrown into the air. It's easy to hit a paint can, but tough to bag a frozen juice can. If you practice you can do it tho. My friend could hit a pebble... a biggish one.

In the Army for a while, during the VN War, they trained guys to shoot BB guns at BB's tossed into the air. They were trying to develop instinctive shooting. Some guys could hit a BB with a BB! I never underwent the training and I've always thought that the Marines trained shooters better than did the Army. I was in both services.

Today I shoot my 1911 and Hi Power at the 200 yd gong and hit it pretty regular. I enjoy long range pistol shooting. My shooting buddy and I have M1 Garands. We give the 500 yd gong fits.

It is kind of like the Zin of Shooting. You clear your brain of all problems and concentrate on the sights, the wind, the range, your spot weld, breathing and trigger control. Shooting is good for you. I love it.

In my earliesd days in Vermont at the deer camp with my Dad, Uncle Jack and Hubert Simons (the owner of the camp) they were tossing soda cans up over the meadow in front of the camp and shooting a .22 rifle at them, hitting most of them. I think I was twelve or so and said I'd like to try. They passed me the rifle and a .22 Long. A can was tossed out over the meadow, I took careful aim, touched the trigger and the can went spinning wildly off its original course. Well the men seemed pretty shocked and asked me to try it again, knowing full well that I could never repeat the shot. I was passed another bullet and I tucked it in the chamber, closed the bolt and yelled "Throw it!" The can sailed out over the field and once again I took careful aim, touched the trigger just as I had done the first time and the can (amazingly) went twirling straight up then straight down. The men were dumbfounded.... How could this boy repeat that difficult shot a second time...? A while later my Dad levelled with me. They were passing me .22 Longs all the while they were using .22 birdshot :D

I still have an article that tells about the BB to BB training for the special forces in Viet Nam and the article goes on to say that another form of practice was th shoot an aspirin tossed perpendicular to the BB-gun shooter much like a clay target at station 4 on a skeet range and the shooters averaged 80% or better. The premise was that the center of any target, whether stationary of moving, is exactly the same size... infinitesimally small.

Our score on Bats was about 1 bat per box, but we figured out how to decoy them by throwing a handful of gravel in the air - the bats thought it was a swarm of bugs, and would fly towards the gravel

Now that you mention it I do recall hearing tales of guys shooting aspirin with a BB. I joined the Army Reserve in 1980 and became a drill sergeant. Most of my fellow soldiers were VN Vets, many ex-Marines. I was too. Eventually my commission came thru and I retired as a major. But some of those old soldiers had fought hard in VN and some had medals up the ying yang. Those guys were pretty crusty and I enjoyed soldiering with them. They talked about shooting aspirin. They also talked about shooting gooners with their .45s when they were being overrun. They stood back to back reaching behind them to see if the other guy was still standing and banged away. That old 1911 would knock an enemy soldier down flat. The Marines are bringing it back I believe. What's with that 9 anyway?

That's interesting. I love watching bats fly. I can only imagine what it'd be like to try to shoot one. I never tried, but if given he opportunity, of course, I would have.

I went through the "Quik Kill" program in Army Basic Training at Fort Bragg in 1967. It was an amazing block of instruction considering it was a one day course. I had shot aerial targets with a rifle for years before I went into the Army, so I figured I would be the star of the show. How wrong I was. Guys whom I assumed had never shot a gun before Basic Training were hitting the same thrown targets that I was. We started with 2 1/2" aluminum discs and quickly progressed to quarter sized discs. I never did well on dime sized discs, but some did moderately well at them. No one shot any aspirin sized targets. I think Lucky McDaniel describes such success in his book. The "Quik Kill" program was developed from Lucky McDaniel's methods. Small aerial targets shot with a rifle by mortals are thrown relatively straight up in a defined area. I have never seen it done with random crossing throws. I would like to see that done, however. The "Quik Kill" guns are Daisys with relatively massive stocks, no sights, and US markings. No commercial Daisy was ever an exact duplicate of the "Quik Kill" gun, which is rare on the resale market, although they do occasionally appear. They were selling for hundreds of dollars the last time I saw one offered for sale.

My this has wandered from the Winchester Model 1897!!

I'll post the article tonight.

I think bats have a different image today. However, I understand that some guys still ground swat ducks and pheasants. I just bought a Model 121 Remington .22 shotgun. I'll let you know what it's good for. I still have a box or two of ammunition. I always wondered how well they shot with single projectile ammunition. On the 97 subject, I have a 97 Trap Gun that shoots to one side. Does anyone know how shotgun barrels are bent to correct point of aim?

I used to squirrel hunt with an old timer who could take a sling shot and hit a soda can throw up in the air. I've seen him kill a squirrel with it too shooting ball bearings.

He was murder with his old Winchester target grade bolt action rifle. He never came into camp with a squirrel that wasn't shot somewhere in the head.

I hunted with him the last time about ten years ago. I need to call and see if he's still at it, kinda lost track of him after I moved so far north. He's over 85 now at least, was a WW2 veteran that came into it right at the end of the war.


Destry

There is a video out there right now that shows a slingshot master. It is worth looking at. It is a You Tube video.

Messing around in some drawers in my gunroom. Found these. Might take you back. I don't know how long I've had these boxes of old .22's, maybe forever. http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...lets003JPG.jpg

Where are you going to store your firecrackers? Why in your box of .22 shorts, of course. The logic of a 12 year old. Here is a picture of a few more old boxes of .22's. There is a box of longs in there.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...lets005JPG.jpg

You got that right! I think it is mostly my fault, but sometimes this is like sitting around the campfire BSing. I am sorry for breakiing the rules. But I have had fun! I will try to be better in the future.

And Bill, thanks for the personal recollections about the Quick Kill program. It is an interesting concept. Plinky Topperwin was famous for shooting wooden blocks tossed into the air. I wonder if the Army had read about her and decided to adopt the program. Other guys did it as well, including Ad Topperwin. (sp?) I believe he broke most of 10,000 once.

steve i remember that what kids gave as christmas presents them big old firecrackers..or cherry bombs...if i recall right if you could not afford a box of them fire crackers they were 2 for a nickle...now adays a man would go to jail for saleing these things... boy i sure did like lighting them things.... ps nice old 22 boxes.... i wish i had stuck some them firecrackers in something... charlie

Charlie, I was nearly expelled from college for putting a cherry bomb in the men's room of the men's dorm with a cigarette stuck on the fuse. I placed it on top of the wall between the toilets and walked out. When that thing went off it must have deafened the guys in there! I recall sitting in my dorm room down the hall waiting for the explosion. Somehow my participation in the event got to the dean and I was in hot water. Luckily my grades were okay, or I would have been an enlisted Marine and probably not writing this.

I had a pal in the service who was raised in Cassville, MO. He said he'd buy a gross of cherry bombs each 4th of July. When they got to .25 each he couldn't afford them. He discovered he could buy dynamite for 19 cents a stick. Now in those days, prior to 1968, you could go down to the local hardware store and buy a case of dynamite. It came with fuse and blasting caps. No license or age requirement. If you wanted dynamite you just bought it. Farmers blew stumps with it.

This guy would cut the sticks into quarters and use the bits like cherry bombs. He fished with them, dropping a piece into a stream, which killed the alligator gar and carp. This fellow had lots of stories of what he did with his dynamite. You can't have fun like that anymore. Too bad. It all stopped when idiots began blowing up draft offices.

Funny to get on line and read the replies to this thread for today. Just this morning I was sorting out a big leather bag full of loose cartridges I got out of an estate. The best ones in there were 17 rounds of 40-82, some other interesting stuff.

I also moved all my various .22 .32 S&W and .38 S&W ammo into a separate drawer so I could make room for some other stuff I thought worked better in that spot. Yeah, when I kick off the estate sale people are going have a field day.....


Destry

"DuPont Spinners"
 

Reminds me of my Granddad's farm near Mt. Vernon- we could buy DuPont graded dynamite at the local hardware, kept downstairs in big wooden boxes and the red sticks were packed in sawdust and the cover kept on the box-- We'd use waterproofed fuse and strap a stick to a cinder block, light it and drop it from the boat into the farm pond- and "haul bass" away- we had a 14 foot wooden lapped design fishing boat with a Mercury 5 hp. outboard- we'd get away from the center of the pond- a "depth charge" like in the WW2 movies about submarines- and then the stunned catfish would start emerging- nowadays, the PETA and SPCA would be all over that like ugly on a ape!:bigbye:

That sounds like it was fun!

Yep, today you'd be thrown in prison for life.

Dupont black powder used to be so cheap that we'd buy a pound of it, punch a hole in the cap, knot a length of fuse and pass it through the hole, and replace the cap. We'd lite it and run off a bit. It didn't go BLAM but sort of WHOOOSH. We had an old M4 tank in the park. We'd place a can of BP on the seat in the turret and run of to watch the puff of white smoke that boiled out after the muffled explosion.

Then I joined the Marine Corps and got to blow up other stuff!:rotf: