A Christmas Gift for Other Seasons

A Christmas Gift for Other Seasons

My older brother was 15 years old and I was 12 when we began lobbying my Mother about getting a .22 rifle and even used the horse barn where my brother kept his horse as an excuse because the rats were becoming a problem. My brother kept the feed in bins in the stall area and the rats were invading the feed so one of our neighbors recommended shooting them with .22 shotshells. This point was driven home when I got bit on the finger by a rat one day while feeding the horse. I ran screaming into the house with the rat attached and my Mother whacked it with a kitchen ladle and killed it. I was not seriously wounded but this event must have helped seal the deal for the .22 rifle. On Christmas morning there was a new Sears, Roebuck and company .22 bolt action repeating rifle with and eight shot magazine under the tree.

I had been spending my summers at my Grandmother's farm since I was nine years old and my brother occasionally stayed for a few weeks also, but he had to care for his horse and had his part-time job that helped pay for the horse so I was mostly on my own when it came to summers at the Farm. That summer we went together and I learned how to shoot the .22 with him. The rifle was extremely accurate, even with open sights, and it wasn't until years later that I scoped it and learned it's true potential. I think it is a Marlin made for Sears under contract as Sears brand so that might account for the accuracy. One of our favorite tricks was lighting stick matches stuck in an old fence post. If you hit it just right at the tip it will light, practice, you'll do it sooner or later!

The next fall I took a 4-H firearms course (at that time there was no Hunter Safety requirements so this was voluntary) that was held in the school garage range that the Junior ROTC kids used. Once I completed that course I was allowed to take the .22 to the Farm the next summer and I went through copious amounts of ammo and had some of the best times of my summer life. Both my brother and I had proven ourselves responsible gun handlers and we never misused our rifle. Those were definitely different times.

From then on for the next few fall small game seasons I hunted rabbits, squirrels and sometimes partridge with the Sears .22. I got real good at chasing rabbits with my cocker spaniel. The secret is that the rabbit often stops to see if the dog is still chasing him, that's when you shoot with the .22. With partridge it was often luck except that my spaniel had the knack of treeing them more times than not. "Pats" are sometimes curious if they don't see a person, only the dog, so they will fly up onto a branch and cluck at the dog,that's when ahead shot will bag abird. Squirrels, the same thing, the dog will tree them on one side and the squirrel will sneak around to the other side just trying to stay out of sight of the dog and that's when they are vulnerable. I hunted with the .22 until I finally got a Stevens pump shotgun.

Over the years I gained sole custody of that old Sears .22 rifle as my brother left home for the service and later got married. He never wanted it back for some reason, perhaps because it had always seemed like my rifle from the start, or perhaps he just wanted me to have it. I eventually stored it in my gun cabinet and it moved all over the country with me throughout my adult life. It often sat unused for years only getting a "look see" once in awhile to make sure it wasn't rusting.

A few years ago I decided to spruce up the old .22 and the project ended up involving a new handmade stock of maple that had been cut by my father in law and dried for many yearsto replace the old birch stock, anew trigger guard and bottom metal(replacing the plastic piece) and a redigned safety lever to replace the old sliding lever that always seemed to be backwards.I laminated the maple and made the stock full length and checkered it with 22 lpi wrap around pattern of my own design.Although the stock has minimal grain it still adds some class to the rifle. I also made provisions for a spare magazine in a well under the buttstock behind the pistol grip. The changes come together nicely and are functional besides.

I don't shoot it much anymore but it holds a special place in my memories of that Christmas past, so it has a place in my gun safe for as long as I'm around.

Chris