GatorFarmer
Member
I will admittedly preface that I am unsure whether this belongs here or in the "other brands" category. It is as much a cultural thing as about the hardware I suppose, thus my initial posting of it here.
As some of you may know, I recently moved from Beaufort, SC to Sheridan, WY. This meant exchanging the lowlands of South Carolina with high heat, no snow, and high humidity for drier mountain air and a place where it has already snowed.
As part of the transition, I had occasion to remark to folks here upon several rifles that I called "genuine Carolina swamp guns", which seemed an exotic topic here. Being originally from Michigan, they were once exotic to me as well to some degree, though I know they are seen in MS, LA, FL, GA and beyond as well.
The first thing to grasp in understanding one was the realization that when having one black BBQ paint would be considered a perfectly acceptable finish. So called "Bubba" milsurplus sporters, old store brand rifle and shotguns, guns made in the backshed, blue collar models from major makers....These were never showpieces, but working guns. These were tools used on the farm, for hunting the backwoods (often in and out of season for sustenance), and protection. Once upon a time, entire companies such as Iver Johnson specialized in the type.
One will see BBQ paint, primer, other painted on finishes...home brazed sights...slings of cords and old belts...miscellaneous bits of hardware store metal used... These are guns that have been used, dragged around, pawned when times got tough. These are guns that saw hard lives and real use. Perhaps due to shear survival of the fittest, some of them are also tough and still work.
I have a couple of these that I kept, and show off. Not as a condescending novelty I suppose, but because I have grown fond of these guns and the way of life they represent.
One is what I call my mutant Carcano. The stock came off an old '91 long Carcano and was cut and sportererized long ago. It bears a date from 1938 carved in the stock. I was told that was old evidence markings from a long ago murder trial. The rifle wearing that stock was sold to me by a combination pharmacy/gas station/barbershop in rural MS that had incongruously listed it online for auction. The action now on this rifle is from a much later 7.35mm Carcano someone else sporterized and that I obtained for the Fajen stock it wore. An Enfield donated an upper handguard and a few screws, and an SKS accessory from the 80s provided a combination flash hider/muzzle break. I believe one of the buttplate screws was found laying around in the backyard as a deck leftover.
The finish is the finest Walmart black spraypaint on the metal and some sort of satin Nato green on the stock. This cleaned up a prior coat of BBQ paint.
Basically it was made from leftovers and put together by an armorer at Parris Island. He was a lance corporal with a family and not a lot of income. I would lend him my Carcano for whenever he wanted a rifle to take in the "back country". Get it wet....drop it off a boat....eh.
But something strange about that beast. It worked. Fire it with 70 year old WW2 leftover ammo that would sometimes hang fire like a flintlock....and it was dead on with the remaining iron battle sight on it. Didn't kick much...ugly...but about as powerful as the old .300 Savage, itself a backwods cartridge of lore.
So I have retained it. Alongside it is a 6.5mm Carcano, ex Italian Army, ex Bavarian constabulary, and more or less as issued....save for the painted finish and stock that look like its relative. It even has an accessory of sorts, a sling made from a luggage strap.
I saw and sometimes owned other guns like this is SC....a Sears shotgun in shiny BBQ paint, various bolt action shotguns, an old Remington 270 bolt gun... I saw still others. Shotguns made from plumbing supplies, flare guns repurposed as snake pistols (legal with a rifled insert) and a Ruger Old Army with a brazed on screw front sight.
They were all genuine Carolina swamp guns in their own right...and I try to explain those here and still draw a blank stare at the term.
Though they exist here too you know. In forlorn racks in the pawnshop, dusty back corners of the gunshops. All but forgotten behind the ARs, newly minted polymer stocked bolt action wonders etc....But they are there.
Here they are called truck guns at times, but more often don't have the dignity of a type name being just "this old gun".
You know what, that is okay. An Enfield that survived the trenches, then perhaps another World War, then the hacksaw fifty or sixty years ago. It soldiers on, forgotten, overlooked, seldom remarked upone....but always there.
So perhaps a slim minority, I find myself fascinated by these guns, their modifications, their uses....the bead sight on an 1884 trapdoor to use it qith 410 shells, the compass set into the bottom of an old Krag, a GI duffel bag strap made into a sling...
As some of you may know, I recently moved from Beaufort, SC to Sheridan, WY. This meant exchanging the lowlands of South Carolina with high heat, no snow, and high humidity for drier mountain air and a place where it has already snowed.
As part of the transition, I had occasion to remark to folks here upon several rifles that I called "genuine Carolina swamp guns", which seemed an exotic topic here. Being originally from Michigan, they were once exotic to me as well to some degree, though I know they are seen in MS, LA, FL, GA and beyond as well.
The first thing to grasp in understanding one was the realization that when having one black BBQ paint would be considered a perfectly acceptable finish. So called "Bubba" milsurplus sporters, old store brand rifle and shotguns, guns made in the backshed, blue collar models from major makers....These were never showpieces, but working guns. These were tools used on the farm, for hunting the backwoods (often in and out of season for sustenance), and protection. Once upon a time, entire companies such as Iver Johnson specialized in the type.
One will see BBQ paint, primer, other painted on finishes...home brazed sights...slings of cords and old belts...miscellaneous bits of hardware store metal used... These are guns that have been used, dragged around, pawned when times got tough. These are guns that saw hard lives and real use. Perhaps due to shear survival of the fittest, some of them are also tough and still work.
I have a couple of these that I kept, and show off. Not as a condescending novelty I suppose, but because I have grown fond of these guns and the way of life they represent.
One is what I call my mutant Carcano. The stock came off an old '91 long Carcano and was cut and sportererized long ago. It bears a date from 1938 carved in the stock. I was told that was old evidence markings from a long ago murder trial. The rifle wearing that stock was sold to me by a combination pharmacy/gas station/barbershop in rural MS that had incongruously listed it online for auction. The action now on this rifle is from a much later 7.35mm Carcano someone else sporterized and that I obtained for the Fajen stock it wore. An Enfield donated an upper handguard and a few screws, and an SKS accessory from the 80s provided a combination flash hider/muzzle break. I believe one of the buttplate screws was found laying around in the backyard as a deck leftover.
The finish is the finest Walmart black spraypaint on the metal and some sort of satin Nato green on the stock. This cleaned up a prior coat of BBQ paint.
Basically it was made from leftovers and put together by an armorer at Parris Island. He was a lance corporal with a family and not a lot of income. I would lend him my Carcano for whenever he wanted a rifle to take in the "back country". Get it wet....drop it off a boat....eh.
But something strange about that beast. It worked. Fire it with 70 year old WW2 leftover ammo that would sometimes hang fire like a flintlock....and it was dead on with the remaining iron battle sight on it. Didn't kick much...ugly...but about as powerful as the old .300 Savage, itself a backwods cartridge of lore.
So I have retained it. Alongside it is a 6.5mm Carcano, ex Italian Army, ex Bavarian constabulary, and more or less as issued....save for the painted finish and stock that look like its relative. It even has an accessory of sorts, a sling made from a luggage strap.
I saw and sometimes owned other guns like this is SC....a Sears shotgun in shiny BBQ paint, various bolt action shotguns, an old Remington 270 bolt gun... I saw still others. Shotguns made from plumbing supplies, flare guns repurposed as snake pistols (legal with a rifled insert) and a Ruger Old Army with a brazed on screw front sight.
They were all genuine Carolina swamp guns in their own right...and I try to explain those here and still draw a blank stare at the term.
Though they exist here too you know. In forlorn racks in the pawnshop, dusty back corners of the gunshops. All but forgotten behind the ARs, newly minted polymer stocked bolt action wonders etc....But they are there.
Here they are called truck guns at times, but more often don't have the dignity of a type name being just "this old gun".
You know what, that is okay. An Enfield that survived the trenches, then perhaps another World War, then the hacksaw fifty or sixty years ago. It soldiers on, forgotten, overlooked, seldom remarked upone....but always there.
So perhaps a slim minority, I find myself fascinated by these guns, their modifications, their uses....the bead sight on an 1884 trapdoor to use it qith 410 shells, the compass set into the bottom of an old Krag, a GI duffel bag strap made into a sling...