Jim Taylor
Handgun Stories
Sunday, September 29, 2019, 06:54

I have carried a handgun nearly every day for many years now. I got my first one when but a lad of 13, an old H&R topbreak 9-shot .22 rimfire. It was my "packing pistol" and I carried it in an old home-made holster all over Arizona. I packed it for several years during the time Dad and I were prospecting in the Superstition Mountains.

My next handgun was a Ruger .357 Magnum with a 6 1/2" barrel. I loved that gun! Over the years I shot thousands of rounds through it, literally shooting up nearly hundreds of pounds of lead in one summer! I got the .357 when I was 15 years old and shot it over the next 10 years, a lot. It would group 5 shots inside 2 1/2" at 50 yards if I did my part. My favorite load in the gun was the Keith semi-wadcutter that weighed 173 gr. when cast of wheelweights. I loaded it over 14.5 gr. of 2400 and fired it off with a small rifle primer. We used to shoot an old car rim at 200 yards and this load would crack it. I used this gun for hunting, quick-draw, and long-range target shooting. This was back before long-range pistol shooting was being done by many people except by Elmer Keith fans (of which I was -and am - one!). At the age of 16 or 17 I used to take on rifle shooters at 200 yards, busting bottles or whatever and many a time did more than hold my own.

Somewhere about that same time I picked up an old .45 ACP. It was a WW I gun that someone had chrome-plated. The chrome was peeling off the barrel but was fairly sound most everyplace else on the gun. The barrel was worn and the rifling fairly shallow, but I liked the autoloader.

At one time or another I owned about most every type of handgun except for the single-shots. When I was growing up, we mostly shot one-handed, save for long range game shots. A handgun was to carry on the belt for use in extreme emergencies. You had to be able to get it out quick and be able to hit with it rapidly. Handguns that were strictly a hunting or long-range target gun were mostly unknown. All that has changed now.

RIMFIRE .22'S AND DEER

I had killed my deer earlier in the season, and now was guiding several friends in search of a deer for them. I had set them off around the edge of a large canyon while I waited in the main campsite. A few hours passed and I heard a shot, then several more, then a final one. The shots came from a direction different than my friends had gone, but I decided to check it out. I had only a Ruger Single Six .22 with me, not wanting to carry anything larger at the time.

I walked about 3/4 of mile off through a Mesquite thicket toward the direction I figured the shots came from. Going through a clearing I could see a hill in front of me about 400 yards off. I thought I could see something so I glassed the hill through my binoculars and could make out a person standing on the hillside. As I got closer I recognized a friend from Church. I had not known he was hunting in the area where we were. From his hand signals it was obvious he had fired the shots. As I got closer to him he signaled me that the deer was someplace down in front of him on the flat, and that it was wounded. I worked my way slowly to the area he indicated and began to search the brush. As I came up over a little rise I noticed a small wash in front of me quartering off to my left. As I got within 25 or 30 feet of the wash the deer rose up out of the wash like a ghost out of solid ground, and tried to drag itself off. I fired a .22 into the side of it's head, but apparently I shot too low as the deer did not fall but stiffened itself and turned away from me. I shot again, this time into the back of it's head, and it dropped immediately.

It turned out that my friend had been hunting all day and seen nothing. He did not figure there were any deer in the area at all. Leaving his ammo in the truck he walked over to the small hill and went to sleep. When he woke up there were deer all around him! He panicked and shot at the buck that was nearest him. In fact he fired all his shells, hitting the deer once in the foot and once in the pelvis. When he realized he had no more shells with him he REALLY panicked. My showing up, even with a .22 was an answer to his prayers.

QUICK-DRAW

I started learning how to draw a single action fast when I was still fairly young. I practiced for hours with an empty gun when I could not get on to the range for live-fire. I would stand and draw and snap over and over, pointing at some target or else trying to outdraw the ugly dude in the mirror. Eventually I got to where I could pull a six-gun fairly well. At least I felt I could. I had nothing to which I could test my speed against in those days.

Then one day I was walking out in the hills, talking with a man who recently had begun to shoot with my dad and I. He was a top shooter in the Army Marksmanship Unit and could really punch bullseyes, but had never done any other type of shooting. He was fascinated at how Dad and I could shoot shotgun shells out of the air. Well, we were walking through the desert, and I had on a 7 1/2' Ruger Blackhawk in .30 Carbine. It was in the holster and the holster was tied down. He was carrying a S&W Model 19 in his hand. As we walked along all of a sudden a Jackrabbit busted out from underneath us and raced directly away from us. Without thinking ( it was pure reaction) I jerked the Ruger and fired two shots, hitting the fleeing jack in the back of the head with the second shot. My friend never fired a shot even though he had the gun already in his hand. He just was not used to "reaction shooting". The next time we got together to shoot he was practicing drawing and shooting as well as aerial shots.

JAVELINA

Javelina are little pigs that appear only in parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas (as far as the US goes - they range from there down through Mexico and Central America into the top part of South America). We had them all over the place in Arizona, in fact, they were more of a pest and a varmint than a game animal. Over the years I shot lots of them, mostly with the .45 Ruger. I did take one nice one with a .44 Remington cap & ball revolver. That was a fun hunt. The little pigs are fairly easy to hunt if you know the country and their habits. On a hot day they will brush up in the thickets and you nearly have to kick them to get them to move. Sometimes you can call them right up to you with a coyote call. They will come in with their hair all bristled up and snapping their tusks, ready for a fight. It seems they think something is eating one of their young. On occasion I have called the same one back to me 5 or 6 times. It came up within 10 feet, then would back off. I would call softly and back it would come. Every time it got close enough to see me it would back off.

One season I walked out into the hills in full camouflage. I went up near an area I knew the pigs frequented and sat down and started calling on my coyote call. Soon a lone pig came down off the hill and worked it's way close to me. I did not get it within range however, and it went on back up the hill. I decided to work my way up top and moved out. Easing through the brush and trees I soon spotted several pigs feeding. I tooted on the varmint call and they came a running. But none ever was in position where I could shoot! I went on up the hill and as I eased over the top I found I was in the middle of a very large herd of Javelina. They were all around me. I picked out a nice sized one and shot it through the head. At the shot pigs scattered in all directions, some running directly at me! I shot one that was about to run me down. The shot broke it's back and it flopped down the hillside. I jumped down after it and finished it with a neck shot. The commotion died down and after catching my breath I cleaned it and carried it back to the top of the mountain. There lay two other pigs. One I had shot through the head, and one that had been behind it. The bullet had gone full-length through it after going through the first pig! Well ,that's what big bullets do - penetrate. We had lots of pig to eat that Fall.

CHICKEN GUN

I had a young calf that I was weaning and kept it in a pen behind the barn. The calf would bawl for his mamma, but I was teaching it to eat grain. Well, I noticed that it's grain was disappearing real fast and wondered why. I begin to watch it when I fed and lo and behold, one of the old roosters had caught on to where the grain was and was going in and eating all the grain.It would flog the calf with its wings and chase it off and just hog it all.

Well, the next time I put the grain out I chased the rooster off and had to stand guard to keep him out of the calf pen. This went on for several days until I got tired of it. One morning I went and fed the calf as I walked back to the house I heard the rooster fly over the fence. I stepped around the corner of the barn, pulled a .38 Derringer out of my coat pocket, and dropped the old rooster with one shot at about 15 feet. The load was a .38 Special 125 gr. JHP Remington factory load. Massaad Ayoob says they work real well for self defense. They may. I know they fixed the rooster.

FINALLY

Always remember: "An old man is someone who has had lots of adventures and some of them are true."