I
imported_Theautoguy
Guest
I went to the In-Laws house today to trim some storm damage and spend some time with my Father-in-Law. The quick back story is that he has ALS. (Lou Gahrigs Disease) It's a debilitating, degenerative muscular disease with no cure and leaves people with about a year or two left to live...he's had it for about 9 months now and he's almost in a wheel chair. We are very sad over this to say the least.
His hobby all of his life has been fire arms. He wanted my wife and me to have some of them and chose today to give us a few and tell us the history on those and the rest of his collection. He gave us a WWII US Army issue .45 caliber, a WWII German P38, a WWII British M4 rifle, a WWI German Luger, a 12 gauge Remington pump action shot gun and two .22 caliber Remington varmint rifles with scopes. He also gave us books for each weapon and cases. He knows so much about this stuff and I know nothing but plan on giving myself a crash course on a few of these so that we can go to the range in October while he can still pull a trigger...barely.
It's an honor to have these and they will never leave our family. The first thing I did was convert one of our less assuming closets into a reinforced locking closet until I can buy a gun safe. I need to head to a gun shop and get some trigger locks and a cleaning kit.
With this done, I must say I'm very excited to learn about these pieces of history and shoot them. I figure next Spring I'll see if I'm any good at trap shooting. I'm afraid that he won't be able to shoot with me by then but I want to try in the hope that he'll feel good that he's been able to pass his passion for this hobby onto someone he cares for.
I don't mean to rant on but it's been a long sad day for my wife and me. He is a great man who's lead too giving of a life to have it end this way. He's literally wasting away before our eyes. My wife and Sister-in-Law are there for their parents and I’m there for my wife but I’m left to greave on my own. I don’t want to add more stress on to my wife and the family. I suppose I may end up dumping out to friends every once in a while.
Anyway, has anyone ever shot these types of guns before? I grew up with .22 rifles but nothing like these other weapons. I think I may display the .45 and the Luger (which is 95 years old and stamped with Nazi markings.) in shadow boxes in my den.
His hobby all of his life has been fire arms. He wanted my wife and me to have some of them and chose today to give us a few and tell us the history on those and the rest of his collection. He gave us a WWII US Army issue .45 caliber, a WWII German P38, a WWII British M4 rifle, a WWI German Luger, a 12 gauge Remington pump action shot gun and two .22 caliber Remington varmint rifles with scopes. He also gave us books for each weapon and cases. He knows so much about this stuff and I know nothing but plan on giving myself a crash course on a few of these so that we can go to the range in October while he can still pull a trigger...barely.
It's an honor to have these and they will never leave our family. The first thing I did was convert one of our less assuming closets into a reinforced locking closet until I can buy a gun safe. I need to head to a gun shop and get some trigger locks and a cleaning kit.
With this done, I must say I'm very excited to learn about these pieces of history and shoot them. I figure next Spring I'll see if I'm any good at trap shooting. I'm afraid that he won't be able to shoot with me by then but I want to try in the hope that he'll feel good that he's been able to pass his passion for this hobby onto someone he cares for.
I don't mean to rant on but it's been a long sad day for my wife and me. He is a great man who's lead too giving of a life to have it end this way. He's literally wasting away before our eyes. My wife and Sister-in-Law are there for their parents and I’m there for my wife but I’m left to greave on my own. I don’t want to add more stress on to my wife and the family. I suppose I may end up dumping out to friends every once in a while.
Anyway, has anyone ever shot these types of guns before? I grew up with .22 rifles but nothing like these other weapons. I think I may display the .45 and the Luger (which is 95 years old and stamped with Nazi markings.) in shadow boxes in my den.
