I have so many funny, (good) memories of owning a gunshop, trading guns and going to gunshows, and I imagine everyone else does too, so I thought I'd start a thread of funny stories. Some may also be not so funny.
Do you all remember when the Ruger Charger came out? It was a sort of a pistol, but pretty large, and definitely shot form a rest. Well, a guy I know, who has the self control of a 4 year old, had to have one, and I mean NOW! He scoured every gun shop around, but everyone would have had to order one, and golly, that could take 3 or 4 days!! Sooooo, the adventure begins:
First he bought a black 10/22 as a donor, and used the action for his "build". Next comes a laminated 10/22 stock bought from a gunshow, and to top it off, a stainless Midway heavy target barrel, bought from a friend. The first thing to do is cut the stock down and make a pistol-ish grip out of it, Now, my ole friend was not gifted with woodworking skills, poor guy, but he perservered. When he cut the forearm down and hacked off the butt stock, it was ready to be used as kindling. There are no words to describe it. I reckon it to the bank robber who cuts down the stock of a shotgun to make it more concealable, and uses a rough cut file to fashion a grip, and that's being complimentary.
With the stock finished, it's time to prepare the barrel. Now a full length Midway stainless heavy barrel is a thing of beauty with it's spiral outer finish it looks as good as it shoots. But it's much too long for a pistol, not to mention heavy, so it's time to cut it down. These are bull barrels roughly 1" at the muzzle and even thicker as it goes back toward the action. Out comes... wait for it...the hacksaw!. Now these are IIRC 20" barrels and I think the legal limit to cut them back was 16", but I'm not sure of the measurements, but he cut it to the legal limit. If anything his metal working skills are only exceeded in mediocrity by his woodworking skills. The muzzle and crown were horrendous. The barrel looked like it was cut with a chainsaw, and filing and sanding didn't seem to improve either the looks, or the function I would guess.
It's time to assemble the "pistol" and make final tweaks. The black action and trigger did not look good to him with the stainless barrel, so out comes the silver roof paint. He paints the action, trigger assy, and a weaver rail scope mount. You guessed it, he can't paint either. It was full of runs, (have you ever used silver roof paint, it's like water), and not being stirred properly, the finished parts had a sort of marbled look. It was a beaut! Now the action and barrel are the same color, sort of, the stock needs paint. He always had a thing for blue rifles, as he used to have a Marlin 2000 22 target rifle which had a blue stock, and he called it his "Smerf" rifle, so naturally the grip had to be painted blue. It looked much like the action when painted. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess it was a masterpiece. One final thing to do, it had to have open sights, ... don't ask me?
Taking a Truglow tube sight apart he got the orange tube out of the sight, and using a piece of metal he drilled a hole and glued the tube straight up in it and glued it to the front of the barrel, roughly 3/4" high. Next he removed the rear sight from a Heritage Rough Rider 22 pistol and glued it to the action, choosing, at this point, not to use the beautiful scope mount he had made.
Now for the coup de gras, it's time to bed the action in the grip....I honestly never knew Acraglass gel could run like that. I also didn't know it took a whole package to bed a pistol, maybe a cannon, whatever! Surprisingly his glue skill is far worse that either his metal or woodworking skill, if that's possible. One thing for sure, it'd be no trick to trace this gun back to him with all the Acraglass fingerprints on it!
Assembled and finished, this is the single worst "pistol" I have ever seen, there are no words to describe this monstrosity. It looked like a first grader made it in crafting class. Well, first graders have, generally, much more skill than this. I mean this thing needed to go straight into the trash, it looked that bad!
He was so proud of it, and now he had his Smerf Charger!
Now my pal is one of those inveterate traders, and moves things fairly quickly. So after a few months of enjoying his Smerf Charger, we were at a gunshow and he was looking at one of the, then new, short mag rifles, and the dealer [foolishly] asked if he had anytihng to trade? Silly me, I wasn't even thinking, when he went to his truck to see what he had with him. I continued looking around, totally unaware what was about to happen. When I saw the crowd forming from across the gun show, I just had to see what all the fuss was about. When I got close enought to see him holding the Smerf Charger out at arms length in the dealer's face, with an ear to ear proud grin on his face, I could have died. At which point, the dealer uttered the exact words that were running through my mind,.. "you're kidding, right"? The laughter that ensued, only made the situation go from bad to worse. When the dealer laughed, I think that was the last straw, and I knew, at that point, that my pal, all 6.4" 270 # of him, could lose his temper and end up in big trouble if we didn't leave NOW!
The ride home was a rant on dealers and how they rip people off on their guns, and he coudn't imagine the guy wouldn't trade for his prized Smerf gun! I haven't seen the Smerf Charger in several years, and I have no idea of it's whereabouts.
................................have i told you the one about my friend buddying up to a local doctor and volunteering to glass bed his new Cooper Custom Classic rifle?
................................or that you can completely lock up an Anschutz 2001 airgun by trying to acraglass it into it's stock?
