Gary Reeder
I don't remember not carrying something
Tuesday, December 20, 2022, 12:55

I don't guess it was due to a bad crime situation where I lived. I carried just because. Back in the late 60s to early 70s there really weren't many concealed carry guns around. For a while I carried a Beretta Minx in 22 short.

I never had to pull it. In Tennessee everybody wears cowboy boots so I had a friend that does leather work to cut out a little pouch in the top of the inside of the left boot, so being a right handed redneck I could get to it if I was on the ground getting the crap kicked out of me. But in the 60s and 70s Tennessee was a decent place to live, especially out in the country.

In the late 60s and early 70s I was still working at the radio station in Clarksville Tennessee and working part time at the local gun shop. The owner of the gun shop wanted all of us to carry a gun but said it couldn't be bigger than a 32 auto. We got a Mauser HSC in on trade in 32 auto so I started carrying it while at the shop. I sort of liked the gun so I bought it.

I carried it for a few years until the late 70s. I was at one of the SHOT SHOW type shows in Atlanta and I saw one of the gun writers, George Nonte, behind a table talking to folks. To this day I believe he was talking to Bill Jordan as the guy was about 7 foot 14. He was also a good friend of Nonte's as they were bantering back and forth. At the time I wasn't familiar with but 2 or 3 gun writers and Jordan wasn't one of them.

Anyway I decided to be nosy so I stood there and listened to some of the questions folks were asking Nonte. He said he had just done an article on a new gun from Star called the PD. It was a lightweight 45 ACP and he said it was quite accurate and fed everything. He said he even put an empty case in the magazine and it fed the empty case. So that did it for me. At the time I was working at a different radio station in Nashville and working part time at a gun shop in Nashville. When I got back home I had the manager of the gun shop order me one of those Star PDs. From that day on I carried the PD as my main carry gun. I still have that original gun but have added 3 more thru the years as sort of a back up for my back up.
I only varied a bit on my carry guns and that was to carry a gun smaller than the Star PD. That gun was a 25 Auto made by Budischowsky. I had heard folks talking about the little Budischowsky and how it fed everything. At the time the gun cost around $450 or better so I figured it must be good. Like Jim Taylor I wasn't excited about carrying a 25 Auto but it was small, stainless steel and double action and the 25 auto had to be better than a kick in the nuts. The gun was flat, small and stainless and it fit in that pouch in my cowboy boot with no problem. I carried it when I couldn't carry the PD due to rules or due to tight fitting jeans where a small pistol wouldn't carry well.



So my carry guns haven't been an exciting list of special guns and I didn't change from one gun to another overnight. There have only been maybe a total of 8 or 10 different small carry guns I have carried thru the years. So my list is boring to say the least.