Boy, thinking on it I have quite a few.
A 2” square butt M36 that I wanted when it came into the shop I worked at used. A buddy bought it before I got the chance and gave it to me for my birthday. He’s since passed on but I still carry it regularly.
A 2” round butt M10-5 I did some horse trading for with an old gun show friend. He’s since gone on too but it remains my main carry gun.
A cheap Springfield 120, (Savage 15), single shot 22 that someone “artfully” carved up the stock with a #6 nail. My Uncle got it in a bird dog trade and gave it to me for my 11th birthday. I bet I put 25k rounds of bulk packed ammo through it teaching myself to shoot roaming the pastures around my folks’ place, eventually got good enough to hit thrown coins out of the air with it. He left us this past week after a long illness.
A 1950s 16ga Ithaca 37. Plowed for my Grandad the summer I was 14 and he gave me the old bottom feeder. Had a broken buttstock he’d epoxied back together, very little finish left, and a Polychoke doinker. I polished it out and reblued it, restocked it, and cut it for screw in chokes when I was in trade school. My dad borrowed it a few years ago when he got a couple cases of 16ga shells at an estate sale for $5. I’ll get it back someday, it’s in good hands and I’m not worried about it.
A 1949 Savage 99EG that an old lady sold to the gunshop I worked at. It was her husband’s though judging by it’s pristine condition he must not have hunted much. I wanted it badly and my manager wouldn’t sell it to me. One day it was gone and I was sad I hadn’t been able to talk him into selling it to me. I was surprised when my wife, who also worked there at the time, gave it to me for our first anniversary. She’d bought it on the sly and hid it out until the right time. I’ve carried it hunting in several states and shot a few deer with it.
A beat up 1980 production Browning HP I rebuilt and refinished. I machined the slide for Novaks, replaced the internals with Cylinder and Slide stuff, polished it out and reblued it, and put a nice set of Herretts cocobolo stocks on it. Wife got it somewhere after I’d mentioned that I wanted another BHP and gave it to me for our second anniversary. I responded by buying her a nice T series with the “beer can” rear sight so we’d have a pair.
My dad bought me a Remington M7 for an early Christmas gift the October I was 11. It came early so that I could have it for deer season that year. I used it for several years and killed a bunch of deer with it until I outgrew the youth stock. I sold it to a cousin who was short enough in stature that it would fit. Last year my dad secretly bought it back from her and gifted it to my son for his 9th birthday. He had previously shot a couple deer with other rifles but used the M7 to make three consecutive 1 shot kills on a deer, a pig, and his first elk this past fall. It’s not mine anymore but it’s still special to me.
I have a 1955 Winchester M70 Featherweight that I killed my biggest mule deer with. And a Voere Black Forest, an oddball but actually the same rifle as a Kleingunther K14, that I have killed a big pile of elk with, plus a couple big whitetail bucks, and my wife has killed several deer with it including a monster whitetail a couple years ago that I had to make good on a promise and get mounted for her. Both rifles were gifted to me by the same close friend. The M70 was a birthday present and the Voere was my wedding gift from him. He lives 4500 miles away but he’s always excited to get the annual hunt report for what “his” rifles accounted for that year.
A New Model Single Six that a cousin had traded out of our uncle and then ended up trading to me. No telling how many rounds I’ve put through it but it’s up in the 5 digits for sure. I taught myself to shoot a handgun with it through a huge amount of practice after I acquired it at age 13. Have shot enough game large and small to fill a traincar over the years. Need to find a twin to gift my son so he can start the same journey.
I’m sure if I thought on it I could come up with some more. Many of my guns came to me and left me as gifts or trades between good friends and family.
