What's your "Holy Grail" Firearm? - Page 3

Horse'nround · #21 08-29-2018, 11:13 AM

1 I have. A Beretta S680 silver peigeon 12ga Trap gun. Might just be buried with it.

The other is a SAKO VL63 Finnwolf in .308 as a lever action gun I have never seen a firearm machined to move so smoothly. Stupid me passed one up at a gun show 10-12 years ago. A stellar piece, haven't seen another one since.

Gatorade · #22 08-29-2018, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horse'nround

1 I have. A Beretta S680 silver peigeon 12ga Trap gun. Might just be buried with it.

The other is a SAKO VL63 Finnwolf in .308 as a lever action gun I have never seen a firearm machined to move so smoothly. Stupid me passed one up at a gun show 10-12 years ago. A stellar piece, haven't seen another one since.

OK I vote if you have actually acquired a grail gun and are posting in this thread, it should be mandatory to add pics of said grail acquisition! It's not like we are talking about any run of the mill guns here and if you actually have one in hand? Pics, pics it is your duty to supply pics!

DrHenley · #23 08-31-2018, 03:15 PM

Now that I think about it...

I actually do have some guns that at one point in my life were holy grails. I'll only do one per post and explain...

#1 An 09 Argentine Mauser

OK so many years ago, surplus Mausers were a dime a dozen. And I bought one that was supposed to be a 7 mm Mauser but it turned out to be a 8mm Mauser so I took it back. They didn't have a 7 mm Mauser but they had a 7.65 mm Mauser. So I "settled" for that. I did not know there was anything special about the gun at the time.

After a few years I gave it to my father, who had it rebarreled in 270 Winchester, but left the original stock on it with the forend cut down.

The Mauser was the family deer gun. My nieces, nephews, and brothers in law all killed deer with it. It got beat up and abused for decades but took it all like a champ.

Then I found out that the '09 Argentine Mauser was prized by custom gunmakers because the guns were considered the apex of the Mauser 98 development. So I decided I would get another one and have it customized.

I looked for decades, but never found another one. Every gun show I went to I looked at the Mausers to see if one was an '09 Argentine, but never found one.

When my father passed away, we all agreed that anything someone had given my parents would go back to the person who gave it to them. The '09 Argentine was MINE again!

I've been working on it for a few years now, and I just about have it where I want it. It has been rebarrelled to 6.5x47 Lapua. It is set up for two scopes. One, a 6-24x54 target scope with a 30mm tube by Nikko Stirling for long range deer hunting and target shooting, and the other a classic 3-9 Leupold for normal deer hunting (the one that was on it when it was the family deer rifle). It is set up for two different stocks - one is a Boyd heavy varmint thumbhole stock, and the other a Boyd featherweight thumbhole stock. It has a Timney trigger. The featherweight stock has a Parker Hale floorplate and trigger guard.

Here it is in both target, and hunting configurations:

And here is the Parker Hale bottom metal for the hunting configuration:

DrHenley · #24 08-31-2018, 03:54 PM

#2 Browning Highwall in 45-70.

I have collected a few Browning single shot rifles over the years, but one that has eluded me was a 45-70 in sporter configuration (rubber recoil pad instead of classic hard buttplate) with 28" octagon barrel.

I got OH so close a number of years back.

A guy had one that he wanted to trade Even S teven for my Browning Low Wall in 260 Remington. Both guns were fairly rare, so it was pretty much an even swap. I can't remember why, but I waited until I did the transfer before shipping mine to him (fortunately) I had him ship to a local gunshop, but asked the gunshop to have their gunsmith check it out before I filled out the paperwork on the transfer.

The gun arrived with the forend split. And to make matters worse, when the gunsmith checked it out, the gun would not fire. After talking with the guy, I decided to send it back and cancel the trade.

For years I looked for another one, but could not find one anywhere. Then a few years ago, I was in a gunshop in Mississippi and they had one. But I did not have the funds for it at the time, so I tried to scrape together the money for it. By the time I was ready to buy, it was sold.

Then I found one at Gander Mountain in Opelika Alabama, just few miles up the road from here. I had just bought my wife a new car, so I decided to see if I could get her to buy it for me for my birthday. And she did!