One of the nice thing about many hardware store guns is that they were looked upon as tools and built to last, esthetics and weight were secondary. I've had several such guns with enormously thick barrels, these suckers were built to take the toughest loads of the day in stride (of course all these guns weighed from 7.5 to over 8.5 lbs). I shot them all, typically using Winchester AA Low recoil/noise loads or Featherlites and never had problems.
Steve

Approach life like you do a yellow light - RUN IT! (Gail T.)