First of all, I have to remind folks here that I live in UK. although the rest of my family is back in SE ON. Prior to the cartridge-firing handgun ban here - 1996/7 - after the Dunblane Massacre - we used to do a LOT of police pistol and combat style wheelgun shooting. My handgun of choice for this was my Wilson-worked S&W 686 heavy barrel full-rib with the four position foresight [that I never actually used] - very sweet to shoot, too. I have had it de-activated, so I can remember what a real revolver feels like. Doing all this amount of shooting - 400/500 per week and lot more on comp weekend, meant that I bought a lot of bullets - 5000 a time - as four of us in the club shared the reloading with a spiffy Dillon press.
Our LGS was in Bedford, a mainly target-oriented store whose husband and wife owners were renowned for their collective grumpiness - him in particular. Every time I went there I'd peruse the wall-mounted gun rack for anything of interest, and my eye was always drawn to this old pre-war Mauser single-shot. It was a full-size rifle in every way, comparable to the centre-fire version, but with a nice stock and epic pre-war finish of blessed memory. But it had no rear sight of any kind. What it
did have was a pair of 10 inch long dovetail grooves with numbers engraved to the sides - the foresight was hooded. The tag told me that it was £80 - a VERY small amount of money for what seemed to be a quality piece. So, after two or three visits and some head-scratching, and notwithstanding the lack of a rear sight, I approached Mr Grumpy, produced my Firearms Certificate (FAC), on which there were a couple of empty 'slots' for .22cal rifles, and produced the funds.
'I'm sure I'll find a back sight for it', says I, filled with 'buyer's blindness' - some here will understand that....'huh', was all I got by way of response. I ought to have known how long it would take to find one.
As he was writing it out of his register, and into my FAC, Mrs Grumpy looked over his shoulder at me - 'Hah! You finally gave in, eh? Well, I'll just go and find the scope for it.........'
'WHAT SCOPE?' came the strangled holler from Mr Grumpy, looking at here totally horror-struck. 'Well,' she replied, 'back in 1980 or so, when you took it in to sell for that poor old lady whose husband had died, leaving her to deal with his guns, you said that having that old scope sticking out of the rack was just going to get on your nerves, so I took it off and stuck it in a filing cabinet upstairs, out of the way. I'd just about given up any hope of getting rid of the thing, I'll be honest'.
So saying, she clumped upstairs from where shortly after we heard the muffled clang of a metal filing cabinet opening and closing, followed by a return clumping down the old wooden stairs.
'There y'are!' she said proudly, 'I knew we still had it!' 'It' was a near-mint 2.5 power Ajack scope and see-through mounts. A number 4 German reticle completed the as-new glass view.
Mr Grumpy looked at me over his spectacles, and with clenched teeth, muttered 'Didn't YOU do well?' I agreed, resisting the temptation to make some smug wisecrack about the thousands of pounds we'd spent there over the years, and taking possession of my beautiful Mauser ES350B with its equally spiffy and entirely suitable old scope, I walked out of the store a very happy man.
The story of the missing rear sight must await another time - I figure that I've used up all your patience.
Because of some impossible to figure out restriction, I'm unable to post images here, but if anybody cares to help me out with that, we can share them.
Trust me, it's really worth the trouble.
