My favorite old gun is a 7.65 Mauser bolt-action rifle with iron sights. It came from my late Uncle Frank when I was 16 years old. When I asked him about the price, he said the charge would have to be what he had paid for the gun, and that was a whopping $18 cash. He had ordered the gun from an old Sears and Roebuck catalog. Over his years he had harvested several deer with it, but no longer needed it because of having gotten a new lever action 30/30 rifle.
So, with all the soda bottle money I had collected at two cents each, plus many small odd jobs, I had the cash to make the purchase. Therefore, I had my first ever deer gun, but no ammunition, so my dad offered to buy me a box. It had 20 rounds of outstanding ammunition along with words of wisdom from Dad: "Son do not waste those bullets because they cost good money." So I took his words as gospel, and needed only one shot to hit the bullseye at 100 yards. It was good enough for me as a starter gun. That fall on November 20, 1965, I harvested my very first deer with it, a nice 150-inch whitetail buck.
Over the next several years, I harvested 15 more deer with that one box of ammunition. It was always one shot, one deer, and no tracking needed. Most of the shots were 100 yards or less and I made every one count. At 67 years of age now, I still look forward to deer hunting. In fact in 2014, I harvested a fine eight-pointer while hunting with my three brothers in the Missouri Ozarks. When my dad was around we always hunted with him and at the age of 78 I saw him shoot a doe at 150 yards with his own 7.65 Mauser. The following year he was called to his happy hunting grounds.
So now, each time I open my gun safe and put my hands on those guns, I am reminded of so many wonderful memories of hunts with family and friends in the great outdoors!
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