Magnum Mania!

M1911A1 wrote:

Olivier wrote:
My favorite scene with Charles Bronson (alias Paul Kersey) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7HXRyoqB98

And besides, in french

Yes, dear compatriot. But in this scene I think everyone can understand the dialogue .

Here's my translation of the video:

Bronson: "Problem?"

Punk: "What?"

Bronson: "BANG BANG."

hehe, gotta love the Death Wish movies. They're so over the top, and who hasn't felt the desire - for a split second - to take matters into your own hands.


As to the original post about having guns. Spread across my immediate family, we have maybe 20 guns. No handguns though. They were all for hunting - rifles and shotguns. I don't hunt but my father's family did, so they're all from them. I don't think there's any ammo around.

In the collection are a number of 30.06, 30.30, and 22 caliber rifles. And for shotguns a number of 12 and 20 gauges, and a 410 or two.

A few shotguns I think must be from the early 1900s. Not collector items, but more like scary backwoods hillbilly guard the moonshine shotgun types.

None of these are used anymore but it sure was fun "playing" with them as a kid on my grandfathers farm. Mostly target shooting, and "studying" how a 30.06 will blow apart different objects, such as a milk gallon filled with water.

Olivier wrote:In my country it' s strictly forbidden to own guns. You can have only if you are a member of shooting range. But I own the old shotgun of my great-grand-father.

In Canada, you can own guns but they have to be locked up unless you are on a range. You need a licence and the guns need to be licenced as well. There are 2 seperate classes of licences as well, one limiting to hunting rifles and one to allow handgun posession. I have my eye on a lovely Colt 1911 at the moment.

I have a Colt Government Model .45 ACP that I bought new-in-the-box in 1991 when I was 16 (my father signed for it; I payed for it with money from my part-time job at the time).

My interest in the 1911-type guns stems directly from watching Magnum P.I. as a kid. I first started watching the show in 1984 when I was 9 and I always loved that gun of his, and was determined to have one eventually.

It was difficult, at 9 years old and in the pre-World Wide Web days, to find out exactly what that gun of his was. No one in my family was a "gun expert". Dad owned guns but they were hunting rifles, and the best he could tell me was that it was a "forty-five".

My friend Tom was a little more helpful, given that his father was a Vietnam veteran, and he told me it was a "nineteen-eleven forty-five like they use in the military". Everyone I talked to hyped up their legendary status in terms of power, kick, and reliability; which made me want one even more.

Eventually after reading everything I could get my hands on at the time, including gun magazines, and "The Gun Digest" and "The Gun Bible" at the library, I'd learned quite a bit about the gun in question. It was still hard to figure out though, why there were so many names floating around, all seemingly referring to essentially the same gun, e.g. M1911, M1911A1, Colt Government Model, Colt Commander, Series 70, Series 80, etc. Finally I wrote a letter to Guns & Ammo magazine asking about these various names and what they meant. Given that hundreds or thousands of people write into popular magazines every month, I figured there was little chance of getting an answer, but surprisingly, the letter was published in their Q&A section (headed by Jan Libourel at the time) along with a detailed answer.

When I got my first job at age 16, I was working weekends making $64 a week. I went to the local gun shop and put a brand new Colt Government Model .45 ACP ($479 + 5% sales tax = $502.95) on layaway (there were cheaper alternatives for a 1911-type gun, but it had to be a Colt, and it had to be new). I put every penny I made toward it (the joys of still living at home with no bills) and in a couple of months' time I had it payed off.

I still have the gun today, and I don't plan to ever get rid of it. It has never jammed; not once, and is as accurate as you can expect from a box-stock 1911-type gun built with standard tolerances.

A note about tolerances; I wouldn't own one of today's popular "tight" 1911s, such as a Kimber. Tight tolerances are great for accuracy, but not so great for reliability. John Browning designed the tolerances to be somewhat loose for a reason. The gun was designed as a last ditch combat weapon at close ranges, not as a target pistol; and as such, reliability is far more important than pinpoint accuracy. Colt still adheres to the original John Browning tolerances on their standard 1911-type guns.

Max,

What a great story! That's really doing it right -- to get a gun like Thomas Magnum's through all those years and the desire still hung in there. I think that ranks right up there in having "Magnum Gear" (go check THAT thread if you haven't already. Maybe it'll get you interested in some other minor things). I think Magnum's gun should rank right up there with his Rolex watch, even if not quite as expensive. But iconic "Magnum gear" should count. Of course, we'd probably ALL like to have the Ferrari GTS, but at least the gun and the watch (or a replica thereof) are relatively obtainable.

Yes, the parrot Hawaiian shirt and the hats are possibly the MOST identified with Magnum, visually. But I think with everything everyone here has collected, we here have most of the bases covered. And even if one of us doesn't have one particular item, knowing someone here who DOES have it can rather be vicarious possession.

Thanks again for a great story of your little piece of Magnum history.

golf

My weapon of choice (and occasionally Tom's, too).



--Sammy

My current plinker rifle, a Henry Golden Boy 22LR.


What I'd eventually like to move up to.

Coops,is that a M14?

Yes, the bottom picture is of an M14, or an M14-type rifle (e.g. Springfield Armory M1A, which is a civilian version of the M14).

Have you ever noticed that when those psychos that go on shooting sprees never do it at a gun range?

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmmm....".

We have two handguns, a Magnum and a Ruger, both locked away in the safe and several hunting riffles... ammo stored in a different part of the house.

Thanks MaximRecoil,
I thought it looked familiar.My Uncle Sam let me use one for two months.Basic Training,Fort Campbell Kentucky..1967

MaximRecoil wrote:I have a Colt Government Model .45 ACP that I bought new-in-the-box in 1991 when I was 16 (my father signed for it; I payed for it with money from my part-time job at the time).

Here are some pictures of my gun that I posted about previously:









Here is a picture of Magnum's Colt Government Model from the end of the pilot episode ("Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii"):



Note the silver-colored trigger (satin nickel-finished steel) and the fully checkered walnut grips on Magnum's gun. My gun is about 10 years newer than the one Magnum used, and Colt was using black triggers and rubber grips by that time, so I got a satin nickel trigger from an older Colt and some military-specification checkered walnut grips from Herrett's Stocks, Inc.

Nice pictures, nice firearm, Maxim. Thanks for posting the pix.

golf

That's awesome. Thanks for the pics!

BR