# What hunting rifles did your grandpa use?



## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

My grandpas on both sides of the family started out with mode 94 winchester .30-30 lever rifles (I know, shocking right?). The one from my paternal grandpa has a serial number that places its manufacture date sometime in the mid 1930s. It is in near mint condition and basically a safe queen for my own father now. The model 94 from my other grandpa is a little newer 1950s model with quite a bit more rust and wear, but still very functional, accurate, and aesthetically appealing. Despite the extra wear, this grandpa quit hunting at a fairly young age, and I doubt that this rifle ever saw very much use. This rifle is now in my ownership and I have used it on some jack rabbits and rock chucks. I hope to draw some antlerless tags in the coming years that will give me a reason to take it out after some big game.

My grandpa with the older, yet prettier 94, eventually moved on to a .30-06 that he bought second-hand. The original owner built a very beautiful rifle around a mauser action that points like a dream, and has a trigger that breaks like glass. By the time I was getting old enough to hunt, grandpa was in the twilight of his hunting career, and found it fitting to pass the old girl on to me! I have taken all but one of my any legal weapon season, big game animals with this tack driving beauty. I hope that some of my future posterity can make some memories of their own with this prized heirloom. Grandpa also had a .257 Roberts that I never really saw him use; I can only figure it's because his .30-06 was such a wonderful piece of work. I believe one of my uncles is hunting deer with the old "Bob" nowadays.

What did your grandpappies put venison on the table with? I'm really interested to hear from you guys who are a generation or two older than I.


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## Fowlmouth (Oct 4, 2008)

30-30 Winchester model 94 1953
Savage .308 model 99 1954
Winchester 30.06 1954
Stevens 30-30 bolt action Not sure what year, I will have to check.

I have all 4 of these guns...

Oh, I did end up with this jewel too. http://utahwildlife.net/forum/18-firearms-reloading/43425-22-win-auto-model-1903-a.html


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

Both of my grandfathers believed in a 10ga double barrel shotgun. They put a lot of meat on the table back in the early 1900's with them.


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## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

A 30-40 Krag on one side and a Carcano on the other. I doubt the Carcano was ever fired at an animal. The Krag, however, accounted for a whole bunch of bottled venison. Always a fat, dry doe. 
I'm not sure where either ended up.

.


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## Mr.CheddarNut (Jan 16, 2013)

only one grandpa who hunted and it was a 1894 WCF that I hope to one day have as my own, and take a deer in grandpas honor with it. Many memories with that gun


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## itchytriggerfinger (Sep 12, 2007)

300 savage. My grandpa always gold hunting stories and how he would party hunt and filled my grandmas tag too. One year with two 25"+ 4 points. My dAd has it now and I'm inline to inherent it


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## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

Critter said:


> Both of my grandfathers believed in a 10ga double barrel shotgun. They put a lot of meat on the table back in the early 1900's with them.


That is interesting. This is for big game, too, I'm assuming? What period of time did your grandpas hunt? Around here or back east? I can't picture many westerners big game hunting with a double-barrel 10 gauge shotgun. I find that very interesting.


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

colorcountrygunner said:


> That is interesting. This is for big game, too, I'm assuming? What period of time did your grandpas hunt? Around here or back east? I can't picture many westerners big game hunting with a double-barrel 10 gauge shotgun. I find that very interesting.


Late 1800's and early 1900's. One of my grandfathers homesteaded up South Fork in Provo Canyon and hunted with his shotgun quite a bit 00 buck is what he used from what I heard since he passed away before I was even thought of, my Uncle got that shotgun. The other grandfather mined and was the Justis of the Peace in Eureka around the 1910-1920 period. From his journals he used to hunt deer with that 10ga.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Early Marlin 336 30-30. ------SS


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

One grandfather was an Army foot soldier in WWI and after the war made an unsuccessful attempt at farming in Kansas during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years.

My other grandfather ran the family farm and as far as I know never indulged in sport hunting as we know it. A product of the Great Depression, farmers just shot whatever was on their property to either protect their livelihood or to feed a hungry family.

Guns were tools, a .22 rifle took care of most everything including cattle and hogs come butchering time. Usually every truck and tractor had a gun in it. 

He had:
2 or 3 Stevens single shot 12ga shotguns
Stevens single shot 16ga shotgun with the short 2 1/2" chamber
Winchester Model 1890 .22 pump rifle
Winchester Model 1906 .22 pump rifle
High Standard .22 caliber revolver .22

.


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## MKP (Mar 7, 2010)

My Grandpa that hunt had a custom built 6MM Rem built on a Arisaka action that his best-friend (a very competent gun smith) built for him, on a Mannlicher, Monte Carlo style stock. Quite the looker. The only other rifle I can remember him hunting with is a Model 720 Remington in 30-06 that his father used. My Grandpa used that for his Henry Mt. bull buffalo and his Thousand Lake Mt Bull elk. I have the Arisaka, while my brother has the Remington.


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## Nambaster (Nov 15, 2007)

I inherited a Remington Model 700 BDL from my grandpa. It is chambered in 30-06. He only hunted one doe hunt down in Fillmore with it and decided that hunting just wasn't his thing. He went right back to fishing and told me that he had no use for the thing. Since then I have harvested countless elk, deer, pronghorn, and even a moose with that gun. 

It came with the older Japanese made Tasco scope that I just can't convince myself to replace...


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## Mojo1 (Sep 8, 2007)

Remington 760 pump in 300 savage topped with a K-3 Weaver. He killed over 150 deer thru the years with it.

I have it now, I've killed a few deer with it. I haven't changed a thing on it other than I added sling attachments on it. And it stills shoots as good as it ever did

Before he got that rifle, he killed deer with a Iver Johnson 12 ga single shot. Dads got it and it will be mine one day


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## Bo0YaA (Sep 29, 2008)

30-30 Winchester model 94 1942

In my safe 8)


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

My great-grandmother was a widower living alone in an old rundown house on the outskirts of Chanute Kansas. In the heat of the summer she only had a small fan to keep her cool and her back door was always propped open.

One time a coyote got into her house after her pet cat. She shot the coyote dead in the kitchen with her Winchester Model 92. Her picture, complete with the lever-action rifle and the coyote, was in the local newspaper. I believe she was in her 90s then. I'll try to dig the picture up.

.


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## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

wyogoob said:


> My great-grandmother was a widower living alone in an old rundown house on the outskirts of Chanute Kansas. In the heat of the summer she only had a small fan to keep her cool and her back door was always propped open.
> 
> One time a coyote got into her house after her pet cat. She shot the coyote dead in the kitchen with her Winchester Model 92. Her picture, complete with the lever-action rifle and the coyote, was in the local newspaper. I believe she was in her 90s then. I'll try to dig the picture up.
> 
> .


That's an awesome story, Goob! I'd love to see the picture if you can find it!


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

colorcountrygunner said:


> That's an awesome story, Goob! I'd love to see the picture if you can find it!


Yeah, my sister is trying to find it. The local newspaper companies can't find it. We think it was around 1959-1961.

.

.


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## massmanute (Apr 23, 2012)

My maternal grandfather hunted with a Winchester model 94 in 30/30. Given when my grandfather lived, the rifle was probably a relatively early serial number. It is still in the family, owned by one of my cousins.

I never knew my paternal grandfather, but it is unlikely that he was a hunter.


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

wyogoob said:


> Yeah, my sister is trying to find it. The local newspaper companies can't find it. We think it was around 1959-1961.
> 
> .
> 
> .


Goob, last year I was doing a lot of research in old and I mean old newspapers and I found that a lot of them were archived with no way for the common person to access them. Then I found this web site. It cost quite a bit but when I first signed up I had 1 week of free access before they started to charge me and then I could opt out of it.

You wouldn't believe the amount of research that I did in that one week. Either you or your sister might want to check it out and see what you can did up. 

Newspapers.com


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

My grandad on my dads side hunted.Model 94, gave it to my dad,who gave it to me.It was stolen along with my 270 Ruger and my 357 Colt about 20 years ago. The old 30-30 had to have been made in the 20s.


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## polarbear (Aug 1, 2011)

1954 Remington 760 Gamemaster Pump 30-06 with a 3x Herter's scope. That thing has been killing deer and elk for 3 generations now. I finally retired the scope in 2010 after I missed a big bull. I swear it made things look farther away. It now has a 4-12x scope on it and is even more deadly. My dad killed an elk with it last fall.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

My wife was given her Grandmothers .30-30 that she used growing up in the outskirts of Torrey Ut. Killed alot of critters with it hunting and defending the livestock. Its in good condition, my wife hopes to use it on a future hunt.

-DallanC


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

polarbear said:


> I finally retired the scope in 2010 after I missed a big bull. I swear it made things look farther away. It now has a 4-12x scope on it and is even more deadly. My dad killed an elk with it last fall.


Are you sure you didn't have it turned backwards? ;-)LOL


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## outdoorser (Jan 14, 2013)

My grandpa on my moms side used a remington 30-06. Don't know the model, he is still alive and may even hunt again. He is almost 90. He also has a:
Browning .22 lever action
Winchester model 94 30-30
Weatherby 30-06
and a few shotguns.
My grandpa on my dads side hunted mostly with a stick and string. "Traditional" gear. I'm not sure if it was recurve or longbow. I believe he still has them. Him and grandma were in a target archery league. He told me he's killed probably 15 deer with archery gear. Maybe 2 or 3 with a rifle; an a303 30-06 which I have now and have scoped and killed my first deer with it. He stopped hunting very early in life, maybe 40yrs old. He also has a model 94 30-30 (I have it too) and an old 25-20 lever action with a saddle ring. And a few shotguns and .22 revolvers.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Savage lever action in 308, same as my father, his son in law. Same one I used to shoot my first elk.


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## Kevin D (Sep 15, 2007)

My paternal grandfather grew up in Star Valley Wyoming and in 1934, with a young family, paid $18, pretty much the whole family budget, on a used Winchester 94. He put the .30-30 to good use over the next few decades keeping the family smokehouse full of deer, elk, moose, and bear meat. He always thought my dad and uncles scoped .270's and .30-06's were a city folks rifle, designed for those that "ain't got no sneak!"

Here is a favorite picture of my grandpa, taken when he was 14 or 15 years old. It was in the roaring twenties when full length raccoon coats were all the rage among fashion conscious young men. Well, raccoons and money were pretty much nonexistent in Star Valley at the time, so he had to make due with what there was in abundance, bear. He had an Indian lady fashion him this bearskin coat that he is so proudly showing off with his newly aquired colt and saddle.










It is mostly in my grandfathers memory, that my favorite deer rifle today is still my 1941 manufactured Winchester 94.


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## fishreaper (Jan 2, 2014)

My maternal grandfather has a bolt action open sight model 70 in 30-06 and I believe a marlin 336 30-30


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## Frisco Pete (Sep 22, 2007)

> Remington 760 pump in 300 savage topped with a K-3 Weaver.





> 1954 Remington 760 Gamemaster Pump 30-06 with a 3x Herter's scope. That thing has been killing deer and elk for 3 generations now...


The Remington Model 760 Gamemaster pump was introduced in 1952. My dad (_and therefore my kids granddad for purposes of this thread_) bought one as soon as they were available in Salt Lake and used this rifle for the next 30 years here in Utah to harvest deer after deer. It then was sold to a friend who continued to get deer with it though he was a very old man at the time.
It wore an early Bushnell 4x scope.

It was also used in the Cache/Bear Lake area to harvest a nice bull elk that first year. Elk permits were tough to draw then.










After using a borrowed 30-40 Krag that wasn't sighted in properly on his first hunt, my dad bought a used Winchester Model 94 (pre WWII) with an octagon barrel for his early deer hunting. By 1952 he felt that a more modern flat-shooting '06 was a better choice and sold the Winchester to buy the 760.

He loved jackrabbit hunting best and felt that it gave a rifleman much more fun and practice than once-a-year deer, so he eventually added a Savage 340 in .222 Rem to the collection, and later a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight .223 (that I now own).

His FIL (my grandpa) used a Winchester Model 94 in .32 Winchester Special to hunt deer with in Idaho in the early-to-mid part of the 1900s.


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## 35whelen (Jul 3, 2012)

my dad's dad had a savage 99 in .300 savage he used every year. my mom's dad used 94 winchester in .30-30. my dad's grandpa had an 1886 winchester in .45-70 that he got from his father. that 86 is still in the family but one of my second cousins has it.


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## hondodawg (Mar 13, 2013)

Winchester model 71
Because of his age put a Lyman 2x on the side. Dad said they took plenty of deer north of Panguitch. Other grandpa had a Rem 700 270 Win. And before that a model 94. 
I have the model 71 and my dads Remington 512









My old man with his 512 around Red Canyon


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Critter said:


> Goob, last year I was doing a lot of research in old and I mean old newspapers and I found that a lot of them were archived with no way for the common person to access them. Then I found this web site. It cost quite a bit but when I first signed up I had 1 week of free access before they started to charge me and then I could opt out of it.
> 
> You wouldn't believe the amount of research that I did in that one week. Either you or your sister might want to check it out and see what you can did up.
> 
> Newspapers.com


I subscribed to Newspapers.com and did a search on my maternal grandmother. Struck out on the coyote story. As-a-matter-of-fact I found news stuff on her from 1918 but couldn't find her obituary....??


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## bigbr (Oct 24, 2007)

95 Winchester 30.06 and a Colt single action 32.20. My grand dad was a sheep herder and he harvested a lot of animals with those two guns. Back in the twenties he killed a bull moose in Wyoming with the Colt as it was tearing up camp and trying to gore his horse. I would have given good money to see that happen as I have listen to him tell the story many times. Later in life my dad took both guns away from him as he told pops they were to valuable to be bouncing around his Ford pickup. My dad replaced them with a bolt action scoped .270 and a Ruger single six .357. Pops cursed those two guns until the day he died.


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## Packout (Nov 20, 2007)

Bigbr- You have some excellent stories and some neat old guns. 

My Dad grew up shooting a 30-30, Win 94 with an octagon barrel. He then moved on to modern rifles (30-06, 22-250, 25-06) in the 60s and had scopes long before many. When asked today what he'd do with mule deer management he says "make scopes illegal". haha 

I'd love to find a nice, old octagon Win '94 in 30-30 to give him as my uncle sold Gpa's 3 decades ago....


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## ridgetop (Sep 13, 2007)

My grandpa used a 30-30, which I used to kill my first buck when I was sixteen. He then shot a military 30-06 for all the years I hunted with him.
My wife's grandpa shot a .270, which my father in law now shoots.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

Grandpa had two rifles. One was a Husqvarna bolt action 30-06, with a 2 1/2 X scope on it. 
The other was a 30 Savage on the Savage m99 frame. Though, growing up in the depression years in eastern Idaho, he never hunted for fun. In fact, I've never heard him tell hunting stories. Lots of fishing stories, but the meat for the table was raised on the farm. 

Other Grandpa never hunted big game much. My Dad told me he went out a few times, and had WWII surplus 30-06 - the Springfield 1903. But he loved to hunt birds - especially upland game birds. He used a 1906 Stevens pump 12 gauge, that I now have.


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

My gramps always shot a .300 Savage..

.


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## Mavis13 (Oct 29, 2007)

sawsman said:


> My gramps always shot a .300 Savage..
> 
> .


Mine too; Mod 99 - I have it now and still use it.


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