D.J. Reigel: Notes from the Workshop

Remington No. 4 Rolling Block, the Boy's Rifle

noreply@blogger.com (djreigel) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:38:00 +0000

Growing up in the fifties afforded a lot more opportunity to be an all-American boy in the classic sense of the word. By that I mean boys dressed up like Davy Crocket, or their favorite cowboy hero dressed in a cowboy hat and boots, with a slingshot stuffed in a back pocket, and a highly prized Nichols Stallion cap gun holstered about the waist, in case of an Indian attack. Happy was the day when a boy proved he was responsible enough to handle a .22 rifle. Nostalgic was the dad who gave him one.

As a kid in the fifties Dennis enjoyed hunting with his beagle, bringing home rabbits to feed a small menagerie of injured birds of prey his younger brother kept in the back yard. Though he had an Ithaca .22 at the time, he would have loved having this Remington No. 4. His inner kid instantly fell in love with it the first time he saw it, and it became his next engraving project.

Remington No. 4 Rolling Block .22 Solid Frame

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Remington first introduced the single shot No. 4 rolling block rifle back in 1890. Calling it the “Boys Rifle” it was a smaller, lightweight (4lb 4 oz) version larger Remington rolling blocks used by the army and buffalo hunters. An appealing thought to little boys at the time.

Undoubtedly there were many letters to Santa with the No. 4 on the top of the list, and dog-eared pages in Sears Catalogs. In fact the No. 4 boys rifle was wildly successful, with over 157,000 made in a twelve year period.

The “solid frame” version of the rifle seen here was made from 1890 to 1901. The octagon barrel could be ordered in a 22 or 24 inch length, and chambered in .22 or .32 caliber rimfire ammunition. In 1902, Remington offered an improved take-down version and in 1906 a smooth bore for shot cartridges was introduced.

This rifle is dedicated to all the boys out there, young and old.

See Roy M. Marcot’s The History of Remington Firearms for an excellent historical account of this classic American company.

Hunting Season: What happened when a Couple of Boys Bag Their First Deer

noreply@blogger.com (djreigel) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:57:00 +0000

We were in our favorite coffee shop early this morning trying to shake off sleep and warm up creaky joints. Dennis started a conversation with another gentleman, marveling at how they managed to survive childhood doing all the stupid things that “seemed like a good idea at the time.” The stories eventually centered around hunting tales.

Back in the mid sixties there was a vest stretch of Southern California landscape, an old Spanish land grant, owned by the Irvine Company. Long before the houses and shopping malls of Newport Beach, a boy could spend countless hours in this paradise exploring sea cliffs looking for hawks’ nests, paddling the waters of the “back bay” and wandering the sun drenched hills with a dog and a .22, looking for something to plink. Dennis had an idyllic boyhood.

Winchester Model 1890 .22 WRF Rifle

One day, when Dennis was about sixteen, he and his best friend Tim decided they were old enough and man enough to bag themselves a deer--a boy’s rite of passage to manhood.

They took a carbine and drove to the Irvine Ranch. There they came upon a fence and gate with multiple padlocks. Without missing a beat, Dennis simply shot off the lock. Why not? They did it all the time in the movies.
Once inside they wandered around a bit and finally spotted a deer, which was quickly dispatched with a clean shot. A deputy patrolling the ranch a few hills over must have heard the shot, because Dennis spotted him driving their way in a hurry. They threw the deer in the back of the car and quickly made for the gate, running over a skunk on the way…they were in a convertible.

Safely on the other side of the fence, they made their way home with their prize. If nothing else, their adventures usually ended with bringing home food. Planning for an unexpected meal of wild game often occupied the thoughts of their mothers more than contemplating any near-death experiences associated with obtaining dinner. No further questions were asked.

Back then their fathers had very strict rules about hunting. Hunting was allowed, but with bow and arrows only. No guns. This presented a problem. But adolescent minds quickly improvise when under pressure. The solutions aren’t always the best, but some of us learn faster through trial and error, not by the admonitions of our parents.

The boys cleverly stuck an arrow in the bullet hole, and hung the deer up on the back porch to clean it. Tim’s uncle wandered outside after awhile to see how the boys were doing.

While Dennis and Tim were cleaning the deer a bullet dropped out of the carcass and landed on the ground with a “tink.”

The uncle looked at Tim, Tim looked at Dennis, both boys looked at the uncle…

“Aw, I won’t say anything,” said the uncle, and he walked back into the house.

Dennis saved that bullet and wrote on it, noting the date that he shot his first deer. It is in a jar somewhere, with mementos of other boyhood adventures.

Personalized Engraved Buck Gen-5 Hunting Knife

Click here to purchase!

Just an end note: Dennis eventually became one of those patrolling deputies for Rancho Mission Viejo, another land grant just down the road. Funnest job he ever had, he says. Yes, he did come across tresspassing deer hunters. But that is a story for another time...

Annie Oakley and the Stevens Model 35

noreply@blogger.com (djreigel) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:25:00 +0000

Well, we are dusting off our blog and making an entry this week after a very long dry spell. Not that we haven’t been busy…in fact we have been very busy with the business, forcing us to put some things on the back burner like blog entries, lawn mowing, some outdoor paint jobs, etc. Some things can’t wait, like stacking wood for winter, which by all counts is supposed to be a rough one, this year.

Dennis has been busy engraving some antique firearms. One of the more interesting ones is a Stevens Model 35 off-hand black powder target pistol. This particular one was made sometime around 1906-1916. Annie Oakley, the famed sharpshooter of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, was said to have been given one of these by her husband Frank Butler. Dennis, being a sharpshooter, himself, with a penchant for “Old West” firearms engraved this pistol in honor of her. He always liked the graceful lines of this pistol. It was a fun project for him.

Click on photo to enlarge. You don't want to miss the detail!

A Two-Dog Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (djreigel) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:59:00 +0000

Thanksgiving to most of us means a time when friends and family get together to enjoy eachother's company around a table of food lovingly prepared. We often reflect on the things for which we are thankful before we eat. Some years giving thanks may seem a little more difficult: we may be more pessimistic and resentful of misfortunes beyond our control.

But Thanksgivings during times like this can also make us reflect more fully upon the things that we take for granted every day. Indeed Thanksgivings of the past may have had more meaning to people simply because making a living was so much more difficult and precarious. Dennis once learned this lesson when he spent a couple of years in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

Dennis was a southern California boy. It was the early 1970s and he had been recently discharged from the Marine Corps having served in Viet Nam. He grew his hair long, took a few college courses then pondered his next move.

One day Dennis met a young man who told him about life as a caretaker for an inactive gold mine near Iowa Hill, an old gold rush town in the southern Sierras east of Sacramento. Lots of young people from the city were "caretaking" up there at that time and "getting back to nature." Caretaking was not a paid position. But what it did provide was a free place to stay in a beautiful spot--better yet, it was remote and there wasn't much authoritative scrutiny. There they grew their own food or hunted for it. And what they had they shared.

Dennis was looking for just such an adventure and it didn't take much encouragement for him to start digging around for for the owners of the once-famous California Morning Star gold mine. The owners, located in Chicago, were only too happy to have person to watch over their 163 acres at no cost to them. All there was left to do was to pack up a few belongings and convince his girlfriend's mother to let her daughter accompany him. She consented. So, they loaded up a Volkswagen bus with their gear and two dogs then set off for the gold-filled hills of the Sierras.

Iowa Hill sits atop steep-sloped hills through which the north fork of the American River flows. The flanks of these hills once thronged with men sifting through one of the richest deposits of gold in California during the latter half of the 1800s. The town was so prosperous that it was once considered for the site of the state capital. But the gold played out. The gold rush town shrunk in size through attrition and finally fire. When Dennis arrived, there was just the basic services for the area: a post office, a three-can grocery store, and a tavern--all in one building.

What was left of the huge Morning Star operation was a couple of old out buildings. The only one that afforded anything resembling comfort was the foreman's office, which at that point was little more than a tumble down corrugated steel shack. Dennis affectionately called it the cabin. There was no electricity, no running water save that which flowed out of a mine tunnel next to the cabin. There was an outhouse nearby: a privy built over a mine shaft. Dennis and his girlfriend set about making a living. They hunted deer for fresh meat, they grew vegetables and they established friendships with their far flung neighbors. What the community produced, they shared along with friendships, the type that are established by people who depend upon eachother for survival.

Now, gold rush miners had a long tradition of creating what comfort they could afford given the various odd materials they had at hand--comfort being a place to warm their bones, and a hot cup of coffee. There in the center of the foreman's shack of the Morning Star mine stood a silent tribute to that frontier ingenuity: a wood stove made of two 55 gallon drums. The drums were mounted sideways on a stand with one stacked on top of the other. The bottom drum held the fire while the top was used as an oven. Atop this drum was a welded rack that once provided a stove for coffee, and skillets of beans, bacon and flapjacks.

This stove was the center of Thanksgiving that year at the Morning Star Mine. With no refrigeration available, careful plans were made for buying a turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and pies, all to be consumed within one or two meals. The nearest town to buy the ingredients for the thanksgiving meal was in Colfax, a day's journey along a twisting, dusty mountain road.

The next day, with a plentiful supply of aromatic alder wood, the fire was lit in the stove and the turkey was placed inside. A vigil was kept to ensure that the fire didn't burn too hot or too cold during the long hours of roasting. Drippings were periodically poured over the bird while it roasted in the fragrant smoke. Pumpkin and apple pies were baked in the oven just above the turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing were cooked on top.

Finally after many hours of watchful cooking, the feast for two was complete. The table of wooden planks was laid out with tin plates, enamel cups, and knives forks and spoons. A few test slices of the turkey were taken to ensure the bird was done. Dennis said it was the best turkey he had ever tasted in his life, roasted to perfection, tender and juicy with a delicate smokey flavor. He and his girlfriend decided to go for a walk before they ate to whet their appetites. They walked out the door with little more on their minds than the feast that was to come.

Dennis speculates on what happened next. Arrow and Flower were good dogs who rarely got into trouble. They never raided garbage cans, they eagerly but politely received snacks that were given to them...they always dutifully obeyed. Perhaps it was a scrap of turkey that was tossed their way before Dennis left the cabin. Perhaps it was the irresistible aromas that tantalizingly wafted about the cabin for hours that day. There might have been a tentative peek at the table top, a sniff... There certainly must have been a thought about actions and consequences because when the two dogs trotted up to greet Dennis and his girlfriend upon their return, they both stopped, dropped their heads, and tucked their tails underneath them, refusing to make eye contact. Both dogs were as round as 55 gallon drums.

So the Thanksgiving that took two days of hard work to prepare was gone. What was there to be thankful for? A roof over one's head, a warm place to be on a cold day, love between two people, family, the loyalty of friends in times of need--animals included. They weren't starving. Certainly the dogs weren't. Sometimes we just need to strip away the layers in our lives and discover the things that sustain us, and for those we can be truly thankful.