Tales of a Gun

Model 14 Target Masterpiece

Tales of A Gun.

Model 14

The first handgun I ever owned has an amusing piece of family history attached. Many moons ago my grandfather, a coal miner, Korean vet, and eventually railroader, (after he'd been "covered up," i.e. buried in mine collapses too often for Grandma's sanity,) let it be known that what he really wanted for Christmas was a .357 Magnum. He wanted to try his hand at handgun hunting for deer.

My dad was then a whippersnapper, too young for the purchasing of handguns, but he and Grandma pooled their resources, and she went to buy it for him. She made sure to get the prettiest, most top of the line model, with all the bells and whistles of the age. What she got: A Smith & Wesson Model 14, only a short time before this known as the Target Masterpiece. An exquisite 36 oz of steel.

It was beautifully polished, had the six-inch bull barrel, target sights, target grips, and wide target hammer and trigger. An example of the gun-maker's art rarely to be equaled in these fallen days.

If you know your S&W model numbers, the chances are you've already spotted the fly in the ointment. Beautiful as it is, the Model 14 is chambered in .38 Special. Not .357 Magnum, the minimum caliber required for deer hunting.

Gramps was a gentleman, a real hill-william. He looked at that gun, he oohed and aah-ed over it, and made a place for it in his display cabinet. (This being, of course, in the days when guns could be displayed proudly, not shamefully hidden away in a miniature Fort Knox in the basement.) And that's pretty much where it stayed for the next forty years.

Until one day when Gramps heard that I was working midnights in a gas station, all by myself, right off of the interstate. At the time, Ohio did not have a concealed carry permit, we had a "reasonable man" standard. One was not supposed to carry a concealed handgun, except in circumstances that would "justify a reasonable man in going armed." Gramps decided that these were exactly such circumstances.

He got that beautiful old gun, still in pristine condition, down off its pegs. He gave it to me, on the condition that I'd carry it at "that durn-fool job."

I did. In spite of the fact that a 36 oz Target Masterpiece is quite the hogleg, I did in fact carry it in a cheap nylon vertical shoulder rig, under a flannel shirt, for several months. Between its size, and the fact that visible wear was starting to show on that exquisite blue job, I decided I needed something more portable, and less like a stained glass window for a carry piece.

Come back next week for that Tale of A Gun.

Let me know in the comments, do you have any family pieces with amusing stories attached? Carry guns that really shouldn’t be?