Raising A Gun Nut - Part II

by Paul Moreland

At college I married a wonderful young lady and we returned to Brazil to work with a church in
the "middle of nowhere". While working on my wife's documents we lived in the old family
home in Araguaˇna, fixing it up a bit. My folks had moved to Belem, near the mouth of the
Amazon, several years before and everyone who lived there owed my dad months of rent. As I
was cleaning up I found an old feed sack with the remains of a Harrington and Richardson 28
gauge shotgun, I didn't know what brand it was at first because almost all the writing was long
gone. I identified it from a picture in a magazine years later. It wasn't much to look at, but I
asked dad if he wanted it. To my delight he told me I could have it, if it would do me any good. I
had a new chamber installed in it and cleaned it up quite a bit. I'd never shoot anything but black
powder in it though because of the worn barrel. Later I traded that old H&R on a beat up
Winchester '73. The '73 was very popular in Brazil during the old rubber days as was the '92.
The old 44 WCF (44-40) was most common, but I saw one old 38 WCF (38-40) and ammo was
available for it.

I took the old '73 to a black smith back in the boondocks who does wonders with old guns. He
tightened up the linkage and fitted a new stock and the old gun would fire. I traded it, a Lee
Loader, bullet mold and 100 rounds of ammo for a new 32 SWL Taurus revolver for my wife.
That was our first serious disagreement. We needed furniture, not another gun. I could see that,
but didn't know of anyone with furniture who wanted the rifle. Anyway, she ended up with the
most accurate centerfire handgun I've ever fired. We never shot anything but reloads, mostly
some Hornady wadcutters over a 22 short case of Bullseye. I could write my name with that gun.
I loaded some of those wadcutters turned hollow base forward for defense loads. Praise God we
never had to use them for that purpose. They were plenty accurate too. Mostly, though, that
little gun was my goat gun. We'd buy goats on the hoof and I'd slaughter them for meat. That
.32 would drive a bullet clear through the back of a goat's head and through its throat, killing and
bleeding with one shot.

My personal carry gun was a six inch stainless Rossi target pistol. I developed a load based on a
148 grain hard cast wadcutter, unsized and lubed with a mixture of stingless bee wax and paraffin.
I loaded it over a .22 case full of Especial de Caza{spelling?} (Hunting Special), a Brazilian smokeless
shotgun powder. That was an accurate load, but weak for hunting. I shot a dog with it once,
she'd been stealing chickens and eggs all over the place. I was alone in the house when I saw her
come sneaking up the trail. It was a good 50 yards off and I figured I'd never hit her at that
distance but wanted to at least give her a good scare. I held right on her head between her ear
and her throat and when the hammer dropped it was like I'd reached out and pushed the bullet in
with my hand, only hard. She went right down. The trouble was that the load didn't have enough
speed to deliver a killing shock and she started to drag herself into the brush. I followed up with
two rounds in the neck region, again not enough power. I was finally able to get in front of her
and put her down for good with a bullet placed right in her head. Bullets I recovered at various
times indicated that this round was inadequate for hunting since there was no expansion and little
penetration, but it was a great target load. Even my boys, ages 3 and 4 could shoot this gun with
only minimal help from dad with this load. Again, my guns are always loaded. My sons have
never placed a hand on one of my guns with out permission. Proper discipline and training are
much better than a gunlock. I have found that teaching children to shoot and taking them as often
as possible eliminates the curiosity factor which is responsible for many accidents. It also keeps
them from handling guns in an unsafe manner. Education is the key, not prohibition.

Current educators have things backwards. They teach gun prohibition and yet also promote
sexual activity by young people. I believe that both areas need proper education. The NRA's
efforts to educate young people has lead to a dramatic decline in accidental deaths by firearms.
This education is centered on the concept of: "If you see a gun, STOP, LEAVE THE AREA,
TELL AN ADULT". It doesn't teach kids to run around shooting others like the violent movies
and video games do. If the same principle were followed in sex education the proper message
would be, if you are approached with a sexual proposition: "STOP, LEAVE THE AREA, WAIT
UNTIL MARRIAGE". This education would lead to a dramatic drop in teenage pregnancy and
would also lead to a decline in divorce rates. But this is a theme for another article.

In Brazil, which has very strict gun laws, I was privileged to handle some fine arms and also some
fascinating antiques. I was able to identify firearms from England, Belgium, Italy,
Czechoslovakia, Spain, Germany and of course the U.S.. As mentioned before I found these arms
in all kinds of illegal calibers and mostly in the hands of the elite, the rich and the politicians. One
man I know was actually given about a bushel basket full of .308 brass by the local police chief.
And this in a caliber illegal for civilians and of which collectors are only allowed 5 rounds. But
even though he was a civilian he was a hunting buddy of the chief's, so ... what law???

Dacio was a backwoods gunsmith who uses only hand tools, many of his own design and
manufacture, and who can do wonders in building or rebuilding a gun. I loved going through his
shop. It was amazing what all he had laying around. The remains of many old Winchesters,
European shotguns, countless handmade muzzle loaders and unidentifiable miscellanea. I had him
build me a singleshot muzzleloading pistol from a piece of Willys Jeep steering column I had.
This makes a pretty good smoothbore barrel. I still have this piece, it stands as a monument to
the ineffectiveness of gun control. If a backwoods gunsmith could build such an arm with only
the minimal tools and education, what could the countless back yard machine shops in the U.S. be
capable of building if they put their mind to it? Dacio has no formal training and has learned by
trial, error and much experimentation. Sounds kind of like John Moses Browning to me. By the
way, the pistol is a muzzle loader to keep from having troubles with the BATF over a smoothbore
cartridge gun. Dacio would have built me a 28 gauge shot pistol if I'd asked him to.

Why the fascination with guns? I don't know. Something has always attracted me to them. For
a peace-loving man I've always managed to have a considerable arsenal of one kind or another.
My first handgun was purchased at the age of 14, a little Rossi double barrel side by side .22. I
wanted the little single shot derringer, but couldn't find one. I bought the little double from a
family friend. It never crossed my mind to use it against anyone who caused me grief or made fun
of me. I carried that little useless piece for quite a while. Bought it and a box of shells for $12.
In Brazil the box of shells was worth $10 so I got the pistol for $2. I quickly found that I could
hit the broad side of a barn with it, if I stood inside and closed all the windows. With some
experimentation I was able to get some hits by sighting down one barrel instead of using the
useless bead sight between them. Those barrels were welded together looking in completely
different directions. I learned to reload .22 shells with that little gun.

I know, you can't reload a rimfire. HA! I found that two Berdan shotgun primers could be
pinched (one at a time) with pliers and the powder shaken down into the shell. I'd tamp it down
with a nail head and then pour the case full of Tupan powder and crimp a TTT size shot on top.
Didn't know about lube back then. The shell was then placed in the chamber so that the firing pin
would fall on an uncrimped part of the rim. This worked well for up to three reloads. After that
it was a chancy thing. We experimented quite a bit with variations on the theme. Once we loaded
a CCI Stinger case full of firecracker powder, flipped a coin to see who got to shoot it. My
cousin lost, but at first thought he'd won since he got to shoot it. He fired that one in his
Winchester 67A single shot, wish I'd been able to chronograph it. Went clear through a board
that would stop a regular 22 shell. The head was ripped of the case and my cousin's ears rang 'till
the next day, but he hit the mark with it. That was the last time we used firecracker powder in a
.22, talk about a fast powder, forget Bullseye.

Why reload a .22 shell anyway? We were poor and those shells cost 20 US cents apiece at the
time. It just made sense to us. We could load them for a tenth of the price of a factory shell and
get more shooting in. The down side was the corrosion. Those Berdan primers were corrosive
which is not a good thing in a humid climate. We finally quit, reasoning it wasn't worth the risk
of ruining a good gun.

Write Paul