Ever lost a gun?

[Brian41]

I got looking for a 4 inch 586 I've had for years today and couldn't find it anywhere in my safe. I haven't shot it in a couple years but it wouldn't be anywhere but in the safe.
Later I got to thinking about some guns I traded off with a dealer and wondered if maybe it was one as it had a flaw on the barrel and I'll inherit it's twin from my FIL one day.

Sure enough I got digging through some paperwork and it was one I sold to a dealer when my dog was running up some serious vet bills. That's the third gun that I've had come up missing over the years and all have been accounted for in the end.

Have you ever had a gun come up missing like that? I'm getting older and can understand that but my first one was when I was thirty something.

 

[panther]

Not a gun, but a nice skinning knife. I had bought it just because it was an older Remington and had a razor sharp blade on it. I couldn't find it for months, then saw it at the in-laws on a visit. After thinking about it awhile, I kinda remember something going on with my father in law, my wife, and a camping trip. At least I know it's in good hands.

 

[truckemup97]

Before I had a safe, I misplaced one for several months. What's really bad was that I only had four or five at the time.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

I prefer to use the term "misplaced" as I have always found them sooner or later

 

[s&wchad]

A checked bag containing a 342Ti and some ammo didn’t make it to Anchorage when my wife and I went on vacation a few years ago. Does that count?

The airlines delivered my bag to our door early the next morning and all was well.

 

[Qball]

O yes..
After a trip to the range i forgot to lock up the pistol i used.
Just left it in the rangebag under my workbench.

MAN did i freak out when i couldn't find it in my gunsafe.

Gunlaws are quite strickt here in Sweden and i could loose
the rest of my licenses for a stunt like that.
Had to sit down for a moment after i found it.

 

[PPCSHOOTER]

ALL THE DAMN TIME. LOOKING FOR DAYS. I REALLY HATE IT ,BUT I ALWAYS SEEM TO FIND IT IN THE LAST PLACE I LOOK. WHICH ALMOST ALWAYS TURNS OUT TO BE ONE OF THE FIRST PLACES I LOOKED. BUT I JUST OVERLOOKED IT. JP

 

[sigp220.45]

I got dragged by a car once and lost my Model 36 out of an ankle holster. I didn't know it til sometime later. One of the cavalry that came to my rescue parked on it, and when they took off they launched the thing into a lady's yard. I rocketed back to look for it, and she said she'd turned it over to the Sheriff's Office. I finally got it back from them. It had tons of gouges and a guy's initials scratched into the trigger guard, but it looked beautiful to me.

I've misplaced others, but they always have turned up.

 

[Thuer]

One time I had a fellow collector around and I showed my collection.

When I looked at my collection on the table I did missed one revolver.
This is a H&R .22 7 shot snubnose. It is a tiny revolver and easy to put away. I do have all my revolvers in several safes. Also this one.

I couldend find it. I looked the house complete over and upside down.
If I really loose the revolver it will fore sure cost me my permit and all my other revolvers to. This made me very, very nervous.

My wife asked if she could help. She walked into the gunroom and looked around.
After just 5 minutes she asked "is this the one you looked for".
She held the litle revolver in her hand.

After I opend the safe to get out the revolvers the H&R slipped out to and slide under a big bag.
I have had already looked over there.
But woman eyes are sometimes just a bit better. Boy. Was I relieved.

 

[Onomea]

Returning to Hawaii after an 11-month absence a few years ago, got my guns out of storage and when I opened the blue plastic box for my Python, no gun...

Got to recalling that I had, the previous year, occasionally stuck the Python, for temporary safekeeping, in the piano in the rented house I had stayed at... Had I forgotten it in the piano in the rented house the previous year?!

Thinking about it, I said to myself, "Nah. I bet I put it in a gunsock along with the rest of the handguns." And there it was.

Sure had me worried for a few minutes though!

 

[kennyb]

i think a case can be made for....if you dont have a gun safe...consider getting one..

 

[cjw3]

Before I got a safe, I used to hide a few around the house when going out of town for any length of time. I have spent a couple of hours rounding them up when I couldn't quite place where they all were.

We've had a few left at the local range. The most notable was a Savage .308 Tactical bolt gun with a very high priced scope on it, don't recall the make from this time and distance. Somebody turned that one in and the owner returned pretty quickly looking for it. Recently, someone left a High Standard .22 pistol but it got retrieved before I saw it. There have been a couple of others left there that disappeared.

A co-worker carried a Beretta Minx (.22 Short) as a backup/pocket gun. (Yes I know, me either, but....). He got in the truck to work with another officer for a few hours and apparently didn't realize it was missing until that evening. Never did find it. The other officer had a reputation for being light-fingered, so there was a little speculation about that.

One of my great-uncles brought his M1 Carbine back from WW2, but kept it at the house of another relative since he spent a number of years moving around in his job. I saw it once myself, so I knew it was there. I heard many years later that this relative had carried it off somewhere and "lost" it one way or the other.

I once left a loaded 2 1/2" M66 in a zip-up vinyl case on the bed of a flatbed truck just behind the cab and drove about 3/4 mile before I realized it wasn't in the truck with me. Jumped out, and I mean JUMPED OUT, at a stop sign and there it lay. I have never been so frightened/relieved/PO'd with myself in the span of a few seconds in my life. That experience contributed to putting me toward the obsessive/compulsive side as far as keeping up with my stuff. I guess it worked; I haven't done anything stupid just like that since.....in other ways, sure.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

i think a case can be made for....if you dont have a gun safe...consider getting one..

+1. I cringe to think of some of the places I lived without one. I don't know what I did right, but Someone was watching over me.

 

[Gamecock]

Yep. I had a 5mm Remington that I can't find. I guess it
was hidden somewhere in my previous house, from which,
when the X had me clear everything out, was not found.

Maybe. Dunno.

Joe

 

[451 Detonics]

How about finding one you didn't realize you lost because you forgot you owned it? Dad was cleaning out some boxes of files from our gunshop in order to destroy ones past date and in one of the boxes he found a Parker VH I had completely forgotten I owned...

 

[Steave]

Years ago I had a little Beretta 950 in .22 short, to this day I do not know what happened to it. I can't imagine it was lost, I have always assumed someone absconded with it or it mey just be somewhere at my parents house, but I can't imagine it hasn't turned up in 20+ years if that were the case. In any case, it seems to have just vanished.

 

[gunblade]

I once worked part time in a gun shop and we had our regular customers...one was a guy that would come in every week or so and buy something new, then come back in another week or so and trade it in on something else. He came in one day and bought a Star hi cap 9mm (can't remember the model) and then went to lunch at the deli two doors down. Came back to the store the next day looking for his gun...finally realized he had left it under the table in the deli the day before. No one at the deli knew anything about it. Apparently someone sat down at the same table after he left and made off with his new pistol. He didn't come to the store very much after that.

 

[oldman45]

i think a case can be made for....if you dont have a gun safe...consider getting one..

I have gun safes. I still lost a gun a while back. When one has several guns, at least a few of them stay in other places.

 

[m75rlg]

Back around 1977 I lost my Model 39-2 out of a Safrieland shoulder holster while chasing a young lady who I was trying to arrest out the back door of a game room and through a patch of woods. Some companions had jumped into their Chevell (remember the SS 396) and drove down a dead end dirt road behind the woods. She jumped into the window of the moving car as I made a grab for her. The car turned around at the dead end and started back toward me accelerating. I steped into the middle of the road and reached for my 39 and found a empty holster. My next move was a dive into the honeysuckles on the side of the road as the Chevell raced by.

My partner had remained behind at the game room, and figured what the boys in the Chevell were up to. She and a patrol car had blocked the end of the road, arrested the young lady and the driver, and then came looking for me.

I was retracing my run through the woods, and found my shiney nickle 39-2 lying in the leaves. I traded the shoulder holster for a highride thumb break that week. I still have it and the 39.

 

[kennyb]

I have gun safes. I still lost a gun a while back. When one has several guns, at least a few of them stay in other places.

without a "few guns"wouldn't be much need for a gun safe huh?

 

[m657]

....uhhh......I lost one IN my gun safe for about a year once.....*kaff*kaff*.......

 

[trapper704]

Back in the 60's was wolf hunting out of lake hood in Anchorage, we came in one afternoon and the pickup had lots of ice on it, so we stopped at a little bar down the road and locked it and left it running to thaw out. Had one drink about 15 min. came out and the side window was in the seat and 2 browning auto shotguns were gone. never did get them back. They left several hundred dollars worth of down coats and sleeping bags.

 

[cass]

I was running my hog traps and left a Blackhawk on the tailgate of my truck while I was loading up a bunch of hogs. Somewhere between traps, the gun and holster fell off. Found it two years later in the pasture covered in mud and cow dung. It cleaned up good as new - even the holster survived, but not as good.

 

[E Z MUNNY]

A couple of years ago I was shooting some handguns at my club's range. One other person was there with his son who was about 10 years old. They left about 10 minutes later and I started looking for one of my revolvers which I had put on a table and it was gone. I jumped in my car and caught the guy just as he was going out of the gate. I said "Sir, I have reason to believe you might possibly have one of my guns in your car!". He got pretty upset with me and said that was absolutely impossible! I asked him if I could please take a look just to satisfy myself. He finally relented, I looked and there was my gun in its case. He started yelling at his son and son replied that the case looked just like one his dad had. The guy didn't really apologize much and I have always wondered about the whole sequence of events.. So, I have lost a gun but only for about 5 minutes.

A good friend of mine (a retired LEO) momentarily misplaced his pistol one day just when someone deliberately tried to run him down. He threw his Maglight right through the windshield, hit the driver and didn't get hit by the car but got written up for it later.

 

[Iggy]

I was working a wreck in a blizzard on I-80 and a car came out of the snow at me. I jumped up on the hood and rolled off the side and under a guard rail.

When I got myself gathered up, my gun was missing. I finished up the investigation, took the victims to town.

By then my shift was over and I returned to the scene and spent the next two hours moving snow. I found it. We went home and got dried out and re-oiled.

Back to work in the morning.

That's how old cops and their guns earn their scrapes and scars.

 

[Class III]

I lost a KelTec P32 for a few months. After I finally discovered that it was missing I started trying to figure where in the world I had hidden it. After a few months of looking, tearing the house, truck and office apart I found it in a flower pot (Silk flowers) over the kitchen sink. After finding it I remembered placing it there while washing pots and pans and not wanting to get it wet with dish water.

Class III

 

[peyton]

My family moved while I was in Iraq. All of my guns went out of the safe and into my Dads house. A month later all of my guns went from my dad's house into the new house and into the safe. Easy right?? OH NO, I got home finally and realized there was 3 rifles missing. We searched my dad's house and the new house. No luck, I am out in the garage two weeks later organizing the man cave and go to pick up rifle cases and they are inside the cases!!! No one in the family remembered putting them in there before the move. I always told my kids never to store anything in them due to rusting problems. The Marlin rifle was the first one given to me by my mom and dad when I hit 14 years old.

 

[Alpo]

A couple of years ago I was shooting some handguns at my club's range. One other person was there with his son who was about 10 years old. They left about 10 minutes later and I started looking for one of my revolvers which I had put on a table and it was gone. I jumped in my car and caught the guy just as he was going out of the gate. I said "Sir, I have reason to believe you might possibly have one of my guns in your car!". He got pretty upset with me and said that was absolutely impossible! I asked him if I could please take a look just to satisfy myself. He finally relented, I looked and there was my gun in its case. He started yelling at his son and son replied that the case looked just like one his dad had. The guy didn't really apologize much and I have always wondered about the whole sequence of events.. So, I have lost a gun but only for about 5 minutes.

Got home from the range one day and my gun pusher called. Said Chris's gun had vanished, and did I have it. Had taken 8 or 10 pistols to the range, each in one of them black MTM hard cases. Chris had a Rock Island 1911 in a factory black hard case. He had set it on the table I was using, and my daughter picked it up when we were leaving - thought it was one of mine. It happens.

He'd have probably been more scared if he didn't know me.

 

[gunblade]

I was a small arms instructor in the USAF. We used to issue a weapon to each student for classroom and range use...the instructor would also have an extra weapon in the class to use as a demo. After class we would head out to the range. Every now and then an instructor would slip up and leave their demo gun in the classroom. When another instructor found it, we would hide it and wait for the guilty party to realize they had misplaced a weapon. Happened to me once early in my career...I also hid guns from my troops when they did the same thing. Never really lost one, but it sure made you nervous when you went looking for that M16 and it ain't where you left it. We would have a big laugh about it after we let the poor guy off the hook, but no one ever failed to get the message after the first time.

 

[scoutsdad]

Christmas Day I was at a friends home. Early this year she had lost her J-frame. I asked about the gun and,she said oh no I found it last week. It was in her make-up case and had been back and forth across the country a few times. In an airplane.