Old Guns and Other Stuff Newsletter for January 2023

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From the "always assume it is loaded file..."

A North Port (Fla.) man was in for a surprise when he purchased a Civil War musket on an online auction. John Pisano purchased a Springfield 1861 model that was manufactured in Connecticut in 1863 at the Colt Manufacturing Company.

The gun belonged to a soldier in the state of New Jersey. When Pisano received the gun, he found out that the gun was ready to fire. “It could’ve gone off and killed somebody and I guess that person would’ve been a victim of the Civil War had it gone off,” said Pisano.

Pisano took the weapon to a local gunsmith who helped him safely remove the charge without the gun firing. Jim Morrison, owner of J.M. Gun Repair, told the paper that it appeared as if the load was from the 1860s due to its condition. “It’s just unbelievable, it’s just awesome to bring back this soldier who loaded this rifle, he loaded this rifle to shoot in battle," said Pisano. "He never would have imagined that it would be unloaded 160 years later.”
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"You go on ahead, honey, I have a pebble in my shoe, I'll be right behind you..."

A Utah man has learned the hard way not to get too close to bison. Kyler Bourgeous, 30, was gored by a bison during a hike in Antelope Island State Park in June suffering a cracked rib and collapsed lung. Believing his misfortune was “just a freak accident.” Bourgeous recently returned to the park with a date, Kayleigh Davis, to jog and watch the sunset. But a bison charged and gored her too, puncturing her thigh. “I generally am not superstitious” said Bourgeous, “but I have this weird feeling that the bison there really do not like me.”

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Oink... oink

A brigade of eight firefighters needed 25 minutes to free a chubby rat that had gotten stuck in a manhole cover. Two children in Germany discovered the portly critter and phoned for help. “The rat had quite a lot of winter fat and got stuck at his hips,” said rescuer Michael Sehr. Animal control’s Andrea Steinbach said that as the rat was freed, it “it took a small look back,” so if to say ”thank you very much, and yes, I know I have to diet.”

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Too many text messages? Well, we have a solution...

A Chinese computer programmer created a chatbot that sent realistic responses to his girlfriend’s daily barrage of 300 texts. Li Kixiang said he developed the program to avoid hurting his girlfriend’s feelings while he was at work. But the girlfriend became suspicious when the responses to her texts came back nearly instantly. “Why are you responding so fast?” she asked. After revealing his ruse on social media, Li was inundated with requests from other men for the source code to his bot.

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Top 30 Sellers during the last two years:

Although we acknowledge the importance of manuals, particularly rare old ones, in a way, we are sorry so many of the best sellers are manuals. We offer thousands of really terrific catalogs, both merchant and maker catalogs, that we would expect owners of old firearms would want to have with their guns. They are all period pieces that offer a wonderful comprehensive view of what people were buying at the time the catalogs were printed. Just a few of our favorites are: