Have you ever found a gun in the bush?

Not in the bush but back when I was scuba diving all the time We found tones of guns Niagara river and chipawa creek were full of them . Buddy found a full auto ak47 under a bridge was rusty and the stock was busted but still cycled. I found a bunch of pistols all prohib and shotguns in the river outside of buffalo ny.Musket balls and cannon balls was a common sight as well
 
This thread reminded me of this story as a kid......

My father used to do some commercial scuba diving in the province of Quebec. About 40 years ago while diving in Lac St-Jean he found the remains of an old Hawker Hurricane. They used to do some training in that area during WWII.

On-board were several machine guns in the wings. He removed at least 1 (I think it was 4 in total, but I only ever saw 1) from the aircraft. I was young at the time. We had it at home for the longest time. I think it was a Browning Machine gun.....looked like this, no tripod, or sights, no ammo (at least I never saw ammo for it):

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As a kid I used to play with it....it was actually in pretty good condition. Parts were not too rusted up and they would cycle by hand (actually by foot, I used to have to stand on the bolt to get it to cycle).

No live fire of course. We ended up giving it to a museum.......
 
In 2007, Found a FEG P9R while diving in a lake at Mont Louis (Gaspesie, QC). The lake is just next to a Route 132, very close to the St-Lawrence River. From its condition, I guess it bathed there for at least 2 years. Suspicious of the reason it ended down where speckled trouts live, we called in the RCMP. We were told the local drugstore was held up 2 years before. It was at night, suspects car was seen doing a screaming stop near the lake, then take off like bat out of hell few seconds after. The officer's best guess at the moment was that robbers gave a floating test to a compromising piece of evidence.

Here is the thing. We were never told if the piece was hot.








 
Several Decades ago, was breaking trail through some pretty heavy brush. Came on an old log cabin that was collapsing.

Snooping around, found a Herter's U9 rifle, all wrapped up in oilskins. Had a little surface rust, but fully functional.
Also found a number of boxes of Herter's bullets for reloading, all 180 grain semi-spitzer soft points.

Made a number of enquiries in the area, but no one even knew about the cabin. An acquaintance still owns the U9...shoots well.

Dave.
 
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I never thought about the underwater finds before. I suspect there is a lot still down there.

A good friend of mine was a WWII combat veteran. He told me that when they came home from Europe the MPs came on board to tell the fellows to throw overboard any contraband. He said they threw all sorts of German hand grenades and machine guns, etc. into Montreal harbor. He told me one fellow even had a complete German "Kubelwagen" scout car stashed on board and they threw that overboard too. He told me that he himself had brought back a German MP-40 submachine pistol, with several clips of ammunition. And he threw it in the harbour. He said it was just as well because he brought it back to kill his parents, didn’t know why, and that the desire to do so passed after a few weeks. A friend of his did manage to smuggle a machine gun home but was caught with it several months later, shooting at ducks on a lake north of Montreal.
 
Found a Marlin 336 in 32 Winchester special in an attic of an old house in BC 20 yrs ago. Light rust on one side so cleaned up and still have it.
My niece found a newer 336 near a road in a field where they were combining this fall in SK. Lever was jammed open with rounds still in the tube. I got the rust off of it now just have to reassemble. will be needing a screw that I broke, plus the nose band on the fore-stock that I had to cut off due to rust. Hoping it still works as it looks like it was on the ground for only a year or so. Some-one likely tossed it in a fit of anger when the thing jammed.
 
I was sitting on the edge of tree line way back in the mountains looking for sheep one day(A very long ways back), I laid back in the moss and looked around at the trees around me, saw something that didn't look right leaning against one of those trees. As I focused my eyes I could see what looked like a rusty lever action rifle leaning against the trunk of one of those old trees. I just about came out of my skin thinking that I had just found and old lever action rifle left by an old prospector or trapper. Upon a closer inspection it turned out to be a Daisy Red Rider that must have been sitting at the base of that tree for 20 years or more I would guess.

I always wondered about how it got there and the poor little guy that forgot it there, I bet he was heart broken when he got home! I know I would have been...

Also goes to show how times are changing, young fellows with Red Ryders were in sheep country to play twenty years before that. Now they play video games. :) My grandfather's Red Ryder in on my eldest son's wall.
 
we found earlier when i was a kid in a barn some stuffs left by the french resistance, we played with some of the stuff until grenades were found and an old man came to us to stop that foolish game. never know what happen to all that stuff. it was i think close to 40 years ago now...

during my army time in Europe so few decades ago we found a cache with never issued german rifles, ammos, cleaning kits and slings all in crates with oil or something like that.
unfortunately the MPs that were with us took it to the local Gendarmerie and was completely destroyed in front of us.
at that time 8x57js was higly ranked to be not easily accessible for civilians ... i ve learnt two years ago that now this is legal i imagine now a lot of german mauser are used for hunting.
 
i found a radio and a set of knives left by a guide a year before in the toundra in northern quebec ... radio was out lol but the knives were perfectly working after a little of sharpening.
 
Found a rem 742 in 308 at the garbage dump years ago. It had a healthy dent on the ejection side of the receiver. Took it home and with a few evenings of work, I managed to bring it back to life. Amazingly it worked very well after changing out the gas ball. Even changed the rough looking wood stock with a composite stock. Eventually sold it due to not being into semi autos (not my thing).
Have found a few knives in the bush, a rifle mag, and an ammo belt with eight 30/06 rounds hanging in a tree (by the looks of things it was where someone had stopped for a dump).
 
Years ago, ( 1964 ) I was going through the Oldtimers Museum in Maple Creek Sk. and one of the displays was an old Winchester lever gun that had been leaned against a very young tree and left so as time progressed the tree grew around the rifle.
Eventually someone found the rifle and cut the tree down and the section of the tree entwined around the rifle donated it to the museum.
I've often wondered over the years what became of the owner of that rifle, what a story that might be...... or not ?
 
I have two model 94's found in the bush leaning against trees, all rusted, long sitting...know of another imbedded in the crotch of a tree 5", .........might try to find it again some day.
Best was a model 73 Winchester sitting on the bottom of a bay, in 5 feet of water, near an old Indian campground.
 
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