Well, not exactly accidental, but not planned. I regularly see a friend of mine who is a former co-worker. We shared an interest in guns and have stayed in touch post retirement. He took an early out, retired several years ahead of me but gave up some of his annuity. I kept at it a couple of years beyond eligibility. But that was going on 11 years ago. Anyway, when we were working, this guy had plenty of money. Not married, bought a little, crummy house many years ago that was paid off long in the past. Didn't have any expensive habits except for one. Guns. He'd go to the gun show with hundreds of dollars in his pocket, nearly always come home with something. In fact, if he hadn't seen anything he liked, he'd go back in and buy something he didn't really fancy because he didn't want to go home empty-handed.
These days, my friend is gun poor. He has lots of guns but not much money. And we all know how money keeps getting less valuable. It takes more and more money to buy the same stuff. Now when he needs money, he lets go of a gun or two. Not long ago, we'd been talking about .357's. I went by his place recently and he hauled out a couple, asked me if I wanted them. They were:
The upper one is a Smith & Wesson Model 66-4. The lower one is a Smith & Wesson Model 60-9, both .357's. I wasn't all that keen on either of these and I'll say why. For a start, I like a .357 in the heavy N frame. Another reason, I took one look at those rubber grips on the 66 and thought, "Some dumb-bell changed the grips and threw away the original wooden stocks." Yet another reason, .357 Magnum is way too much cartridge for that Model 60. Yes, I know you can shoot .38 Special in it if you don't mind partially coking up your chambers. I told him price was a determining factor as to whether I was interested in buying them; he said you can have them for the same prices I paid in 1995. So we made a deal.
I was wrong about the grips on the 66. Those are Uncle Mike's and they are original to the gun. The 66 came in the original box with the label on the end, the S&W SKU number for this gun is 102712, which was a limited run for a distributor and the code for the grips is shown as SGT, which I believe stands for synthetic grip. So I felt lots better about the 66 after I discovered this information.
My friend may be low on money but in the past he spent it on something that he could (for the time being, anyway) cash in. Those people who spent their dough at the casino, or on liquor and racy women, well, they don't have anything to cash in. My wife read me an article out of the newspaper recently about how if an emergency costing $500 came up, nearly half of Americans couldn't cover it. Sad.
These days, my friend is gun poor. He has lots of guns but not much money. And we all know how money keeps getting less valuable. It takes more and more money to buy the same stuff. Now when he needs money, he lets go of a gun or two. Not long ago, we'd been talking about .357's. I went by his place recently and he hauled out a couple, asked me if I wanted them. They were:
The upper one is a Smith & Wesson Model 66-4. The lower one is a Smith & Wesson Model 60-9, both .357's. I wasn't all that keen on either of these and I'll say why. For a start, I like a .357 in the heavy N frame. Another reason, I took one look at those rubber grips on the 66 and thought, "Some dumb-bell changed the grips and threw away the original wooden stocks." Yet another reason, .357 Magnum is way too much cartridge for that Model 60. Yes, I know you can shoot .38 Special in it if you don't mind partially coking up your chambers. I told him price was a determining factor as to whether I was interested in buying them; he said you can have them for the same prices I paid in 1995. So we made a deal.
I was wrong about the grips on the 66. Those are Uncle Mike's and they are original to the gun. The 66 came in the original box with the label on the end, the S&W SKU number for this gun is 102712, which was a limited run for a distributor and the code for the grips is shown as SGT, which I believe stands for synthetic grip. So I felt lots better about the 66 after I discovered this information.
My friend may be low on money but in the past he spent it on something that he could (for the time being, anyway) cash in. Those people who spent their dough at the casino, or on liquor and racy women, well, they don't have anything to cash in. My wife read me an article out of the newspaper recently about how if an emergency costing $500 came up, nearly half of Americans couldn't cover it. Sad.