doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Headed back out again.

My Dad’s rifles were his pride and joy:







The 7mm is a first year, with the stainless barrel. The carving of the deer in the stock is artful-I’m pretty sure the Japanese artisan had never actually seen a North American whitetail deer. Carvings in gun stocks are not to my taste, but, Dad wanted it. The checkering lady at Ahlman’s can convert the impressed checkering to cut checkering, but Dad didn’t see the need. The engraving cut in the steel and the aluminum floor plate is as nice as it gets. The barrel is finished in black chrome. The guns are laying on my Dad’s field coat, 1951 vintage, that the boy uses to this day.

The 30-06 is the gun he usually used until I bought him the Ruger. He took several deer with it in New Jersey, in 1962, after he fought like hell with the local CLEO, who didn’t think there was any reason a 31 year old, Marine Corp sniping instructor with 7th rifle corps needed a deer rifle for the two years he had left at that duty station. Dad’s CO begged to differ. Dad got his rifle and a new attitude about Easterners. Dad had one scope, a Bausch and Lomb Balvar, that he switched between the guns. No adjustments on the scope itself, they are on the mounts. Ahlman’s, for many years did a lot of work converting the 742 Remingtons to pump guns, after they got rusty chambers, and tore themselves apart trying to eject a spent cartridge. Dad’s chamber, of course, is clean.

I imagine either gun would suffice to kill deer out west. Still, it is sad my Dad never got a shot at that pronghorn he built the rifle to take. The autoloader seems to be more pleasant to actually shoot. Dad never shot the 7mm more than once or twice, but, he didn’t need to. He had a grasp of ballistics that no one I have ever met has had. He would ask “What weight bullet, how fast” and have the damn gun on target, first round, in the bull with the second round. He made it look easy.

Best,
Ted