Wood and Steel

The unsung beauty of traditional firearms

by

Now that hunting season is over, it’s time to clean those guns and put them up until next year. When I put one in my gun safe, my eyes always fall on certain guns that spark fond memories. All of them are wood and steel firearms. I have nothing against synthetic stocks and polymer frames, but traditional guns are a work of art.

My first firearm was a Stevens single shot .410 shotgun that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1962 when I was just ten years old. I loved that gun and would fill an old WWII cartridge pouch with 3-inch #6s and go squirrel hunting with our two feists, Lady and Tramp. Killing my first squirrel in a hollow next to the house was one of my proudest moments.

Sometimes, Mom would get up before daylight to drive me to the edge of Dugdemona swamp and drop me off. After hunting all morning, I would walk about two miles home, partly on a wide pipeline. Jump shooting quail from the broom sage added some excitement to my morning, even though I don’t recall ever hitting one.

When we visited my Mississippi grandparents during hunting season, the .410 went with us. My grandparents had a dairy farm in Newton County and I would hunt squirrels along Turkey Creek.

One foggy morning, I surprised a muskrat in the creek and wanted to take it home to show everybody. I chased that thing down the creek, banging away at it, before finally killing it with what I think was the last shell I had.

About ten years later, when I was going to Louisiana Tech, I decided I needed a pistol and had my eye on a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Model 10 with a rather uncommon 5-inch barrel. I put the pistol on my Christmas list, but Mom and Pop were rather leery of handguns, so I wasn’t particularly hopeful.

It was a good Christmas morning, but, not surprisingly, there was no pistol under the tree for me. When we were cleaning up the gift wrapping, Mom asked if the pistol I got was the right one. Puzzled, I told her I didn’t get a pistol. “Shoot,” she muttered and hurried back to her bedroom. Mom came back with the Model 10 in an unwrapped box and handed it to me. “I forgot to put it out,” she said.

We lived in the country and could shoot anytime we wanted in the back yard. I shot that pistol so much that I soon bought a Lee Loader hand press so I could reload my own ammo and started casting my own bullets out of lead sinkers and wheel weights. I spent countless hours sitting at the kitchen table reloading while Mom made supper.

Even though my Smith & Wesson had fixed sights, the long 5-inch barrel was very accurate. I always carried it when hunting, hoping I would get a chance to use it on a deer with my handloads. Finally, one day I saw two does trotting towards me through the woods. Drawing my Model 10, I picked out the second one and killed it as it passed by about twenty yards away.

That .38 also played a role in one of the weirdest things I have seen in the outdoors. I carried it with me when yo-yoing on Dugdemona River to dispatch trash fish I caught and snakes.

I had a big grinnel (aka choupique) on one yo-yo and decided to shoot it with my pistol before trying to unhook it. I pulled the fish to the surface and fired at the back of its head just as it dove under water again. The line went limp and as I pulled the grinnel back to the surface, I could see something shiny between its teeth. It wasn’t until it broke the water that I realized it was the base of my jacketed hollow point.

I had hit the grinnel in the back of the head and apparently it clamped its jaws just as the bullet exited the roof of its mouth in a tumble. No one believed my story of how the grinnel caught my bullet in its teeth like Davy Crockett, but I swear it really happened.

I acquired another one of my favorite guns when I got married in 1976. When Carol asked me what I wanted for a wedding present, I told her I needed a new shotgun and really liked a 12-gauge Remington 870 pump I saw at J. C. Penney. To my surprise, she got it for me.

For forty-six years, I used that shotgun for deer, ducks, squirrels, doves and even sporting clays. Its 30-inch full choke barrel was particularly deadly on squirrels, and I once used it to kill two squirrels with one shot.

When my daughters, Laura and Amie, accompanied me on squirrel hunts, it was the Remington that I took. Laura showed an interest in hunting at age fifteen, so I took her squirrel hunting and let her carry the 870. It was her first hunt, but she fired eight times and killed seven squirrels. Three were taken from one tree with three shots.

This past Christmas, I gifted the shotgun to Laura. Hopefully, it will make many more memories for her.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.