Piece of my childhood

I've recently been blessed with having a couple of pieces of my childhood in my hands. My parents brought me 2 of my "firsts" in firearms. Unfortunately, neither firearm has been cleaned in almost 20 years, since I left for the Marines back in 1990. They were both in remarkable condition, despite this fact. This is a testament to Hoppe's.

Today they brought me the first gun I ever fired - -my dad's High-Standard Dura-matic .22 pistol. It's in great condition, is a great firearm, and since they haven't made them in over 30 years, they're actually a collectable. It was crafted very nicely, and after a little research, I found the serial number places it most likely somewhere in 1960s production. The pistol required very little cleaning, even in the deep nooks and crannies. When the brought me the gun, tucked away in the box they brought with them was the magazine, fully loaded with 10 rounds. No doubt this mag has been sitting there loaded for the full 20 years that I've been gone. I was surprised to find the mag spring was still pretty strong. That's impressive! It's also a huge relief since mags go for $40, and not all mags work well with all variants of the pistol (High-Standard produced some of these guns to be sold under the Sears brand.)

The second firearm they brought me a couple of weeks ago, and is the first gun I ever took hunting -- my dad's Mossberg 42MB .22, marked U.S. Property. When I got this one, it needed some work. Plastic has shrunk, the front sight hood was broken off, and, like the High-Standard, it hadn't been cleaned in almost 20 years. I had to put about 5-6 hours into cleaning this one up. I took almost every single piece apart, including the entire peep sight assembly. Fortunately, there was only 1 small spot of rust, on the outside of the barrel, and the rest cleaned up pretty nice. Now I just need to order the front sight and the plastic hand grip from e-gunparts, and it will be good to go. The magazine is pretty beat up, but for $40 a pop, I think it will have to make due. I remember during the 80s, my dad had to search for a mag for it -- I had been using it as a single shot -- and we ended up ordering it from Numrich Gunparts, and now 20-sum years later, I'm going to the same place to get the parts I need (e-gunparts.com is the online version of Numrich Gunparts.) One really interesting thing about this rifle, is that it is chambered to shoot both .22 Long Rifle, and .22 Short.

Taking these guns apart and cleaning them has brought back many fond memories, and has been a lot of fun. But not nearly as fun as taking them out to the range to shoot -- which I can hardly wait for.

(click on images to get full size. I have no idea why they posted all jacked up like this)