5K KARMA TIME.. tell me a story - winner petepeterson

[robvious]

Ok folks... I just realized I have been liked over 5,000 times.. I believe that is something to celebrate.
Karma time.. and up for grabs is your choice of K/L Square butt Pachmayr grips... or Uncle Mikes if you prefer. Uncle Mikes "grippers" or Pachmayr target style.

KARMA Rules:
1. Tell me you are in.
2. Tell me who helped you get into Smith and Wesson...

#2 for me was my late father that shot IPSC when it was new back in the 1970's with a model 66 that my younger brother has.. will eventually go to my nephew/ godson that is named after our dad..

I will let this go for a week
(noon local time April 6th)
and select at random the winner that evening after work.. and find out which set they want...

good luck and thanks

 

[Krogen]

I'm in! (and here's another like)

Who got me into S&W? Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was an unknown salesman at Warshall's in downtown Seattle. The year was 1983 and the man was an enabler if I ever saw one. I had been reading about the 586 and decided I needed one. Lo and behold there was a 6" 586 in the display case. "Of course you can look at it, son . . . ." It was a used one that had an action like butter and a trigger break like the proverbial glass rod. It followed me home. Only when I learned more and opened it up did I realize it had been slicked up by somebody somewhere.

Eventually, it loosened up a bit and started to spit lead. Might have been due to my infatuation with 296 at the time. (the more recoil, blast and muzzle flash; the better! Foolish kid....) So, about 25 years ago it went back to the mothership. S&W tightened it up, set the barrel back a turn and recut the forcing cone. Thankfully they left the slicked up action unmolested. I doubt they would do that today.

To this day, I still have it and shoot it regularly. It has a fair amount of beauty marks. Somehow though, over the years the sights have gotten fuzzy.

 

[tomhenry]

Yeah, I'm in.

Nobody "helped" me get into S&W.

My parents were anti gun. My interest in firearms evolved much like every other baby boomer boy in America, viz. television and movies.

Dirty Harry added a degree of fanaticism to my interest.

Now, my "accumulation" (that's what I do; I don't "collect"; I "accumulate) of S&W firearms is confined to P&R revolvers. Although I do own one M17 post P&R but pre lock. The Klinton zit is where I draw the line.

 

[lrrifleman]

Thanks for the karma opportunity!

1. Please put me in the draw!

2. In the late '60s I noticed that my grandfather had a S&W revolver in the gun cabinet. I was never allowed to touch it or shoot it, he claimed that it had a hair trigger. Over time, I learned that it fired 32 S&W Longs, and I surmised that it was a Model 30. When he died in '72, that little Smith found it's way to one of my grandmother's brothers.

By the mid '70s, I was bitten by the bug. In the late '70s I visited my gunsmith (Bill) and told him that I wanted to branch out into NRA 2700 pistol shooting on top of my smallbore shooting. He steered me into a 6" Model 17 K22 (new). I still have that Smith, along with a number more!

 

[petepeterson]

I'm in. Thanks.

My grandfather was a policeman, and his duty weapon was a K-38, 6". First handgun I fired. When i bought my first pistol, I modernized a bit, and bought a 915. He wasn't impressed by capacity....

 

[SupportTheSecond]

My Dad was one of the largest S&W collectors at the time in California. He even had Roy Jinks and his family stay at our house at one time. I remember that my Mom served artichokes with dinner and they had no clue what to do with them so we showed them.

My Dad was an avid fan and had everything from S&W Russians to one of the first S&W's ever made. He purchased a .357 in 1957 to put aside to give me when I was old enough. It's my favorite S&W by far. I do buy many other makes but S&W will always have a special place for me.

 

[Wrangler Rich]

I'm in!

My Mother's father, who I'm named after was an all around shooting sportsman. He could shoot anything well i.e. Trap, rifles, pistols, an excellent wing shot, as were all his brothers and sisters. I used to watch him light matches off a fence post at about 25 yards with his Woodsman.

Fast forward to my stint in Uncle Sam's Army and my introduction to handguns. I was issued an old colt 1911 that I couldn't hit squat with. I asked our armorer for a Smith. He had a model 15 that I was very happy with, and vowed then to favor this Springfield Specials.

After my discharge I came back home and about a year later my Grandfather passed away. Grandma decided to offer his firearms to family first. I ended up with quite a few purchased from other family members over the years, but my initial purchase was his Model 1904 32-20 (that us kids never got to even see) so there you have it, how my interest in Smith & Wesson came to be.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Please don't add me as I have no need for them. I just wanted to say "congrats" to a good man who is always a good read.

 

[Model 19 6"]

Yes please put me in.
About 1968 my older cousin, who I still do gun stuff with. He would take me to the range and I fell in love with his Model19 6".I now have 4 of them. 2 are 6" 1 4" and one snubby. all are -3s

 

[Golddollar]

I already have a Hogue grip for my only K-frame, but I always like to tell a good story. My dad probably got me started down the Smith & Wesson road when I was a little boy. He had a pre-Model 30 in .32 Long that he had as long as I could remember. He wasn't big into handguns, so this gun was something special to me. But I think what really got me going down the path was his collection of Gun Digests and Shooter's Bibles going back a long way. I practically wore the print off them, and somehow I was smitten by the line drawings of the N-frame Smith & Wesson revolvers in the back part of the books showing all the handguns that were currently available at the time.

So now Pop has passed on and I'm in retirement. That old .32 Long revolver now belongs to me. And now I have a Model 27-2 (the old 357 Magnum) and 2 Highway Patrolman (what a cool name) revolvers, just like what I gazed upon in Gun Digest when I was a little boy.

 

[jimmyj]

First day at a FBI training class came with a Colt Trooper .38spl.
Training Agents conducted a Smith and Wesson versus Colt .38 Revolver class. Second day I came with a S&W Model 10 4". Been with S&Ws since 1962.

 

[walkin jack]

I have no use for those particular grips but perhaps some may find my story interesting...or at least unusual. It's a great karrma though and thank you.

I joined another gun sight in 2005 when I bought my first *****. It was interesting at first and I learned a lot about*****s. But it soon became apparent that this site was a hang out for a lot of snobs, know-it-alls, cry babbies, and the social misfits. I got to where I rarely posted or even read current posts. Board wars were practically a daily occurrence.

The webmaster was mostly concerned about money and the mods were very uneven in their dispersal of justice...and were seemingly unsupervised from above.

One day I went to log on and it hit me. I'm done here.I need a new cyber home. I ran in to a shooting buddy at a local gun range and and he suggested the S&W Forum.

I have long since forgotten his name but I'd like to see him and thank him...and tell him that it was the best advice anyone ever gave me. Everything that site was this one is not and every thing this one is that one is not.

Y'all say it with me now.....NO-BRAINER.

As I've mentioned in here before I have been playin' around in the WWW for 25 years and seen much. All the sites I tried have been good to start with but without exception they ALL eventually went bad. Some of them right away and some of them slowly a little at a time but until I was adopted by S&W that was a universal truth.

I found it just in time, too. I don't think I'd be on any social media today If I hadn't.

 

[Baxter6551]

Hello Robvious. Congrats on your milestone. I added to your likes ! Please count me in (would love to have those uncle mikes) to your generous Karma:
My foray into Smith and Wesson began in 1976 when I needed to obtain a handgun to work a Security Guard job in California while I was in the Army. I walked into the gun shop in Seaside CA and told the fellow that I needed a gun for the job, but my Army pay did not support a high budget. He said he had just the ticket - some police trade in revolvers complete with basketweave holster and drop pouches…. He could let me have for (as I best recall) around $125.00 He came out from the back with what turned out to be a model 58 in excellent condition. It was engraved on the side under the cylinder release in jewelry style engraving "S.F.P.D." (exactly like the one which sold on the Forum today).
I said sure and he sold me some JSP ammo for it. I fired it once ….. holy cow !!!
Then I traded it for a Belgian High Power. Which I later traded for a 2.5 inch blue Python…. which I sold for gas money to come back East when I was discharged. Please take a number for the Will Smith type punishment I deserve ….
Oh and before I left CA I went back to that gun shop and bought a model 28 for which I later had the Herretts made to measure stocks made for. Now backhand slap me …. because the academy instructor was all about us having a model 65 (we provided our own revolvers) so I traded the HP for a 65. Two years later they issued us 65s so I sold my personal one. But I was able to buy the city gun for $100 five years later when they issued Sigs.
I've since made up for the error of my ways and have a pristine 4 screw 28, but I can't undo the damage of not having any of those 4 guns back ……

 

[Sevens]

1) I am not in but thank you anyway, I just wanted to answer question #2

2) My Dad died in 1988 after being sick for most of my life. Within a couple weeks Mom had me out to visit a friend of the family who was a recreational shooter, hunter, handloader, collector AND kitchen table FFL. Out there I took my first ever shots at the ripe old age of 15, later than most of us serious gun folks. We started with .22 rifles and he brought out a Ruger Single Six with the .22LR cylinder. Also shot my Dad's Colt Challenger that day. I was out there for HOURS and as the day wound down, Mr. Moore brought out a 4-inch Ruger Security Six and stoked it with .357 Magnum. Now I already knew before that day that I was going to be "a gun guy" but those six shots of .357 Magnum were the single major event that blew up some wires in my brain and set the course for my relationship with guns and shooting.

Mom got for me a Model 17-6, 6-inch for Christmas, 7 months after my Dad passed away. We joined a sportsman's club in the next town over and cops were shooting PPC in the basement every Saturday morning… most of them were running customized S&W revolvers. When I went to make my first ever handgun purchase I went for the 6-inch Model 686-3. And then when I graduated high school a year later, my Grandfather gave me the only handgun he had ever owned, a S&W M&P Model of 1905, 4th Change that letters to 1921.

Grandpa wasn't much of a gun guy, was no hunter and not a recreational shooter. He was 90 when he gifted me that heirloom and I asked him about his purchase of it. He recalled that he probably bought it in 1923 and his memory told him that he bought it in a city in the same state that Jinks said it had shipped two years earlier.

He would have been 23 at the time, in 1923 and I asked him why he bought it. And he said "well, in those days, a man had a gun, you know?"

 

[walkin jack]

I can't really say this helped me get into S&W for shooting but it was my Grandfathers S&W .38 top break that a lady friend gave him when he was a young sport (before he met my Grandmother.)

There are several patent dates on the top strap. The two that I can read are 1883 and 1885.

When I was 6 years old (1950) He would let me play with it when visiting. On Christmas Eve after all the family had opened all their presents, we'd take all paper out front and burn it. Gramps would take me and my cousins out and each shoot one bank round up in the air.

It was pretty shabby looking even back then. Now it is only good as a conversation piece or maybe a paper weight. There is about a half inch play in the cylinder. I wouldn't want to try to fire it unless something really, really bad was about to happen to me.

It was passed on to my dad when Gramps died in 1961. Dad gave it to me a couple of years before he died in 2009.

 

[robvious]

just a bump.. the stories are great so far.. keep them coming

 

[quikdraw67]

Thank you. I don't need the grips. but I'll share my story.

My late brother was an avid S&W collector in the 1990's until his death in 2003.

I saw revolvers that I will never see again. Very high end collectibles. Registered Magnums of rare variations. 1917 with factory adjustable sights. Abercrombie and Fitch .32 Target. I loved reading Roy Jinks letters.

He was a doctor who didn't belong to the country club. He lived in a trailer. His vices were S&W revolvers and the fastest car that was available from Ford or Lincoln. And he loved his dog.

When he died, his son had them auctioned through J. Julia in 2004.

He was my shooting and reloading partner.

When he died. I lost the desire for many years. I sold my Bullseye guns.

Now, in the last few years, the passion is back. L-frames and 3rd Generation pistols are my obsessions.

Not as fancy as Registered Magnums, but all the same, my love of Smith and Wesson is traced back to Jimmy.

And I miss him every day.

 

[robvious]

Sunday Bump

 

[robvious]

we have a winner

petepeterson.. I will contact pete (assume that is the name) and find out which grip would be preferred... Uncle Mikes grippers or Pachmayr Presentation.. stay tuned

and thanks to all who shared a story