My wife wasn't raised around guns. Her family never really had any, she remembers her father had a shotgun and that was about it. Boy was she wrong!
The other day, we were over at the in-law's house for dinner and her father brought out his collection. And kept bringing them, and bringing them, and bringing them. I've known the man for nearly a decade and only assumed he had a shotgun and something about a pistol. He had several shotguns, several rifles, and a few pistols. Both the Mrs. and I were a little on the surprised side.
His pistols were interesting - a Browning Nomad .22 and an old Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket .25 ACP
The Nomad was surprisingly crisp on the trigger. The grip was plastic and not the most comfortable, but I couldn't believe how absolutely sharp the trigger broke. Calling it a hair trigger assumes very, very fine hair was used in comparison. I hope some day he'll let me take it out for a spin.
I got a few pictures of it -
The last picture is the best although a bit depressing. It was purchased in 1968 for a whopping $63. However, that's not the depressing part, for that you'll need to look at the receipt closely - it wasn't purchased in a gun store with a 4473 being filled out, it was bought at an auto parts store!!!
The Colt Vest Pocket .25 ACP was really neat. According to this web site, the serial number places its manufacture date in 1919. It was a very, very diminutive firearm, just almost too small to fit in my gigantic hands. For its age, though, it was in beautiful condition. The blueing had a slight patina to it, but mechanically it was quite sound. I was surprised to see the rear grip safety as well as finding out that it had a magazine disconnect safety to boot.
A really nifty little pistol. I'm going to ask to take it to the range some day and test it out. I don't think I've ever actually fired a .25 ACP yet. The trigger on this one was a little stiff, but then again this wasn't a gun designed to be a high precision target pistol, it was literally meant to fit in your vest pocket. Not a bad little design for it, I admit!
The funny thing is that I took these pictures and put the camera back in my car before he came out with all the others. He had a nice, semi-auto 16 gauge shottie and a few bolt action .22s I wouldn't mind putting a few rounds through. I'll offer to clean and oil them for him, hopefully that'll work.
It was a big surprise, and I'm glad I got to look at these.
Surprisingly accurate for the way the sights are made.