It's with a little sadness for saying goodbye to a few of my favorite weapons mixed with happiness at passing them on to my 2 sons to enjoy. I drove out 12 hours over some pre-Thanksgiving vacation time and handed down several of of my favorite shooters, along with some family heirlooms. I didn't have a large collection, or one worth a bunch of money, but was able to pass along about a dozen or so mixed rifles and pistols and even a shotgun.
This is the Smith & Wesson Model 29. Often called the "Dirty Harry" gun because this is what Clint Eastwood used in most of the Dirty Harry movies (except his was 6 inch barrel, this is 4 inch. It is incredibly accurate, can shoot both .44 special as well as .44 Magnum ammunition. It is a blast and very pleasant to shoot with the .44 specials. The magnum loads are pretty brutal, and generally won't want to shoot more than a cylinder or two of them at a time lol.
They will get the rest eventually when I die, but most of these I don't shoot much any more, having moved on to only a few of my new favorites in the limited times I get to shoot. I wish I had taken a photo with all of them together, or more photo's and video's with the boys, but I was just enjoying being in the moment with them as we spent time at both the indoor pistol range and the outdoor rifle range.
We shot a variety of everything from a pocket NAA .22 pistol, Ruger Mark IV target pistols, Walther .22 pistol, Sig 9mm pistol, S&W .44 special/Magnum, .45 cal Kimber, and .460 Rowland Kimber and Glock 21 mod. In rifles, we shot .35 cal pellet rifle, Ruger 10-22 .22 target rifles, Ruger Mini-30, Ruger 22-250, and even let them try their hand with the mighty .338 Lapua Magnum (which they both loved).
My oldest son shot his best ever group with 5 shots under a dime at 50 yards using the .35 cal FX Impact Pellet rifle. That is a tack driver and he was able to prove it first time shooting it! Their favorite pistol were the two .45 Kimbers, although they also liked the S&W .44 Magnum (more so with the specials). They both commented the Magnums made their hands numb after shooting a few rounds, lol.
Here is a video of my youngest son shooting the .44 Magnum for the first time. The largest he had shot before was the 9mm. If you look closely, you can see him kind of giggle after the shots. It was heartwarming to see both their smiles after shooting it. lol
It was a blessing to be able to share this experience with them and have the time together before I pass (hopefully not anytime soon, looking forward to our next range day) and also great to see some of my older safe queens get out to play again. I hadn't shot the mini-30 for over 20 years!
Nice arsenal to pass on..How do you decide which son gets what guns?
Heh, yes that was a tough decision, trying to make it what I felt was equal. I actually bought my younger son a new pistol to help make up for what I felt wasn't quite equal handoff. I felt a couple of them should go to the oldest son as part of traditional heirloom (at least in our family). A couple of the others I had actually also bought for him specifically before the ugly divorce, so those were easy. The youngest didn't get that privilege since he was just coming of age at divorce time. The others were split based on interest, or just trying to even it out.
Figured it might not be that easy.. Sounds like you even it out pretty good.. And best they get them now then reading about it in a will...