Reeder Custom Guns - John Taffin, Jim Taylor and me are probably the

only fossils on here that remember these..
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.38 Special derringer ... wish I had bought a handful of the Ruger Bearcats .... but then a dollar was hard to come by.

The gun shows had .455 Webley’s on every table for $175.00. Some were already modified to shoot 45ACP. I chose a 20 gauge side by side for the $175.00 i had at the time.

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Wish i’d have bought one back then

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Garand, the marlin 336, the Bearcat, the S&W snubbie and the 30 M1 Carbine. My opinion again but these 5 would have made you some dinero on today's market.

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BUT I REMEMBER WALKING INTO THE BIG MILLERS DEPT STORE IN DOWNTOWN LAKE CHARLES IN 1960 WITH MY DAD
HE WALKED OUT WITH A NEW REM 722 WITH SCOPE FOR $100
AND I REMEMBER THE ARMY / NAVY SURPLUS STORE WHERE YOU COULD BUY A LOT OF THOSE FIREARMS IN THAT ADVERT
THOSE WERE THE DAYS

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Saturday. When you lived out in the country it was something special to go "into town" on Saturday. We would go to Woolworth in downtown Nashville. Their sporting good department was in the basement. I assumed he was going to look at fishing gear as we did a lot of fishing together. When we got there there were several large piles of surplus rifles around the floor. He told me to pick one out. He mentioned my 16th birthday was coming up so pick one out. I chose a blond stock Remington 30-06 somebody had sporterized. I didn't know shit from shinola about rifles back then but I liked the looks of the gun. It was priced at $7.50 and boxes of ammo were $3 for hunting, $1.50 for the FMJ military stuff. When we got home he took the gun from me, took the magazine out of the gun and handed it back to me saying, one shot at a time. That was in 1961 and it seems that single shot way to hunt stuck with me thru the years.

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I hunted with that gun until I was about 14. Took a lot of rabbits with. You learned to make the shot count.

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I can vividly remember carrying the Model 67 Winchester on our farm in the mornings hunting rabbits while my dad carried the .22 shorts in his bib overall pocket. We would walk the fence rows and creek bottom and whenever we’d spot a rabbit, my dad would reach into his pocket and dig out a .22 short and give me the same speech every.....single...... time. “If you guy shoot that rabbit, I’ll kick your little ass.....that’s food for the table and we don’t need to waste meat. Shoot the grape (referring to the rabbit’s eye).” As a kid I didn’t realize that my dad trying to instill in me to concentrate on the shot every time and always making the shot count. What it ultimately did was develop confidence and that confidence meant everything in the world when I became a handgun hunter. In the last decade of my dad’s life, he often told me that those morning rabbit hunts on our farm was one of the best investments of time in his life.

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it was a semi auto made by High Standard, A man size 22 rifle. he let me shoot however many rounds I wanted. The only catch was I had to buy the ammo and it came out of my allowance.
Many years later I decided I wanted to buy the guns i had as a boy. I found the J.C.Higgins rifles on line and they ran from $300 to $500. Amazing how a $70 could be worth 5 or 6 times what it sold for 60 years ago. I kept bidding on the model 29, 30 and 31 as they were all alike except for small features and the auctions kept ending in the middle of the night and I would get out bid. Finally I bid on several of them and typically I won all 3 of them.
Here are the models 29, 30 and 31. Top to bottom.
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I used my Dad's J.C.Higgins Model 66 in 12 gauge. It had to weigh 10 lbs.
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After Dad died my step mother's anti gun family had his guns and when I went to get them back they were rusted big time. I cleaned all the rust off, buffed down the steel receiver and barrel and it still had small pits all over it, so I full engraved it and reblued it again. Still had pits but the engraving covered most of it. I mostly shot quail, turkeys and doves with it so the engraving was birds. I think my Dad would have approved.
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shoot was a J.C. Higgins side by side in .410. He bought it from an old gentleman who owned a feed mill near us. It wasn’t very well taken care of when dad bought it in 1972. It has some rust on the color case hardening. I still have it and plan on passing it down to one of my grandkids.

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many of those rifles and handguns to experience myself. Of course it cost me lots more! I still have a SantaFe .303 Jungle carbine.

The rifle lower left was THE gun they used to set up Lee Harvey Oswald. No smoking way did he ever do that fancy shooting with that gun, in that time, from that supposed place. I'll not believe it, ever. I believe that boy that was in prison and confessed working for the mafia and CIA. He used a .222 Cal. XP100 with Bushnell Phantom scope! There was another shooter he told about but I forget the rifle he used. It was a very convincing documentary.

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shots with an identical rifle with that pissant scope shooting downhill at a moving vehicle and I think he hit one shot out of 3.
A hundred years ago I was in Dallas taking an electronics course at Cleveland Institute of Electronics to get my 1st class license. Every radio station had to have a 1st class man on payroll and I figured this was a good way to keep my job. It was a 24 month course that they would give you in 8 weeks. Strictly memory. It was 7 hours in class every day and 7 hours of lab work. If you missed a day they wouldn't let you make it up. I lost 55 lbs during that 8 weeks No time to eat. I got lucky and passed the test and got the license.

Anyway while there on a Sunday afternoon I drove down to where Kennedy bit the bullet and looked that building and the road where the Prez's car was at the shots. And I agree, no way Oswald could have made that shot with that rifle and scope set up. But we'll never know for sure.

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Indicated he was really an average marksman by Marine Corps standards. Far from an expert!

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That guy?

He sounded more convincing.

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I REMEMBER HANDLING ONE OF THE ITALIAN 6.5's AT THE ARMY SURPLUS AS A KID -- THE BOLT WAS ABOUT AS SLOPPY AS IT COULD GET
I'VE NEVER BELIEVED OSWALD USED THAT GUN & MADE THOSE SHOTS

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I bought a Ruger Single Six from them. It was delivered to my door-no fuss no muss.
I really wanted to buy a tip up barrel single shot pistol similar to the Stevens Tip up models. I think every magazine advertised them. I still would like to find one, but don't know the maker.

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Hy Hunter had a similar ad and i found out later when working in the government that it was an outlet for Interarmco, the CIA go to place for starting revolutions. I bought several guns there over the years as it was in Alexandria Va and a story drive from home.
I also remember Bannerman's Surplus store in New York City, Manhattan, on or near Cortland street that was cleared out to build the World Trade Center. The place had a Gatling gun out front and I remember visiting it with a cousin that bought a spanish American War surplus McClellan Saddle in the 1940's, that store had surplus going back to the Civil War! That place started my interest in history and old weaponry.

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John Taffin, Jim Taylor and me are probably the

I had the .303 ... .45 Webley .. .38 Enfield ..

A few years later

Webley

Nice!

the real buys by today's standards are the

DON'T REMEMBER THAT PARTICULAR ONE

I often went with my Dad to Nashville on

Dad started me with a single shot .22 when I was 10.

Same here Jim. Almost 50 years later

my Dad started me out on a Sears J.C.Higgins model 30.

The very first shotgun my dad left me

OH MY YES!!!

I remember

I was a bit young but have gone back and bought

a few years later thay had an "expert marksman" try those

As I recall, Oswald's Marine records

Brass with a Bite Mark?

AGREED ON THE OSWALD THING

Kleins

You can Add me to that list.

no I remember them

I remember Hy Hunter