J. C. Higgins Model 41, made by Marlin for Sears Roebuck. Christmas 1962. A few months shy of my 10th birthday. I remember a couple of things...
- It cost, as I remember it, $16 in the Sears catalog, from which it could be mail-ordered (handguns too - pre-GCA' 68).
- My father made a little rack on the family room wall and the rifle was always on it - sans bolt. I could fondle the rifle all I wanted, but obviously it was harmless without the bolt. Almost every day, I took it down and rubbed 3-In-1 oil into that stock. My wife would say that, figuratively, I still do the same thing....(Note... it took me a couple hours' search time to find where Dad hid the bolt, but I never told... and there would have been "consequences" had I messed with it.)
- I still remember him bringing home that first box of .22 Long Rifle ammo. Fifty whole rounds! I weighed each one on my junior chemist set balance scale... who could have predicted that nearly six decades later I'd be doing the same thing with .223 and 6.5CM brass...
I just pulled it out of the very back of the safe. I need to clean it. But that trigger... a $16 rifle, almost 60 years old, with a trigger that breaks crisp&clean at 2 pounds 1 ounce. No liability-special 12-pound ultra-creep triggers then.
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