A sobering thought, June 6 has come and gone.....

C

cslinger

New member
Now understand I am a hobbiest shooter. No illusions or desires about plugging "the bad guy" so to speak. Dare I say my guns are my toys (albeit locked, secured and used responsibly).

That being said do you ever stop and think of the gravitas our M1s, Carbines, Mausers, SMLEs, Mosin's etc. come with. These were arms used by and to kill little more than teens and young men. Hell a lot of good men on all sides died at the barrels of these "plinkers". Sure there were also a fair number of evil bastards but just as many if not more poor SOBs just fighting for king and country.

I think it makes sense for all of us to take a second to realize this. God willing these arms will live the rest of their days killing nothing more then the occasional soda can or watermelon.

Just remember our/my toys come with a great responsibility and we need to all be ambassadors of gun safety and custodians of history.

Shoot safe,
Chris
 
Maybe you aren't listening?

Only half joking. I've got an Enfield that has enough wear to make me think it saw some pretty heavy use. Combat or not I can't say. But, heavy use just the same.
 
Most of my milsurps are in good enough condition to lead me to think they never saw action, but some are pretty well used.

I'm certain some of the Mosin rifles got carried across Europe, and for sure the Russian capture K98 dated 1940 wasn't liberated out of a barracks rack. The Israeli K98 probably saw some workaday use in 1948 or later. An Australian Enfield has some unit markings on the butt, they saw action in both North Africa and the SW Pacific. One of the Jungle Carbines has a 1944 date and if it didn't get to Burma it got to Indonesia and Malaya, there are 2 sets of initials carved under the butt plate, one set matching the name on the General Service Medal with SE Asia 1945-46 and Malaya clasps that came with it. Alas, no story, the carbine and medal came to me at third hand.
 
My Mosins were refurbished which I take as proof that they were ridden hard and put away wet after the war (forced matched). I scoff at 'numbers matching' pronouncements.
 
Shortly after he visited Normandy to see how things were going, George C. Marshall then went to Italy-the "forgotten" front. When he mentioned D-Day one soldier said:
"Which one?"
I like to think my M-1 Garands were at Omaha or Utah Beach or St. Mere-Eglise, but if they went ashore in North Africa, Sicily, Salerno or Anzio, that's fine too.
 
Every time I shoot my 91/30 I wonder what it saw in another life. It is marked 1942 or 43 I believe and has a counter bored barrel, furniture is worn and scuffed up. Was it used for training new recruits? Or was it carried across Europe in WW2? Either way it is a part of history and I'm happy to own and shoot it.
 
I have a 1911 made in 1913 I believe. It was carried in WW2 by an Army Doctor who used a very crude engraving tool to list his assignment in the Philippines to a Field Surgical Hospital which I think was there seeing after wounded during the Luzon Campaign. Has his service number engraved on it as well as his full name and rank. It's far from a perfect piece but I like it. He gave it to a friend before he died, his friend put it up for sale one day and my Father bought it and passed it on to me. I think it's too bad someone in the Doctor's family didn't want it. I have read some of the Doctor's life after his service.

To me, I feel that there is part of this man's life in this pistol and that he must have been worth knowing. The only way to keep from loosing that is to keep the pistol and the memory of him alive though I never knew him.

Just the way I feel about it.
 
I wonder about my 91/30 and M1 Garand all the time, my mosin nagant was made in 1939, so it most likely saw some sort of action during WWII. My M1 was made in 1953 I believe, so it probably saw some sort of action during the Korean War.

Being a private in the Army myself, I often wonder about my M1's former user... Were they like me in any way, did they have similar experiences in the military? It could have even been used by my grandfather who was in the USMC during the 1950's, but who knows, I never met him so I couldn't ask if he recalls the serial number, or even if he used the M1.
 
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