Gary Reeder
Things get stranger and stranger. At our September HHC
Thursday, May 16, 2024, 15:53

we had our normal several cases of guns that we bring to most of the hunts. We had Colleen's 15 passenger van full of guns, and meat coming back. Kase and I remember loading up the van and unloading it when we got back here. Somewhere along the way my longest and older black Pelican case disappeared, along with 8 or 10 custom guns, somewhere around $55,000 worth of guns.

This past weekend I pulled my gun cases out to get the guns we will need for the Africa hunt in case we need to do any work on them. I noticed then that the full size black Pelican was not in the closet where I keep my gun cases. We started searching the house and then the 3 buildings here. After 3 days of searching I have come to the conclusion that they have been stolen. But I don't know when they could have been stolen as the gun cases were never out of our sight.
With Africa looming ahead I don't have time to go into a full scale search and questioning period. Plus I really don't want to do that as if they were stolen it had to be one of my guys. And that is the hard part, suspecting one of my guys of stealing.

The only good thing about this is that I had several G-2 and Encores frames stashed in one of my safes. I am checking each one and got Robert on building some barrels for the hunt. I had several old original Contenders in my safes that I haven't shot in several years. I had a 7 GNR, a 30 GNR, and a 338 GNR barrel. All 12" Contender barrels. My missing barrels were a 310 GNR, 429 GNR, 378 GNR, a 416 GNR and a 450 GNR barrel, all with scopes on them.

The firearms paperwork needs to be faxed in this week so I may have to depend upon my old original Contender barrels that I hunted with in Africa in '92, '93, '94 and probably '95. The Encore came out in late 95 if I remember correctly and I switched to the encore barrels.

Nobody seems to remember that long case either at the hunt or when unloading them when we got back. So for now I will just get this situation out of mind and concentrate on Africa in 6 or 8 weeks. Sometimes life just hands you lemons....etc.