HOM: Rimfire Romance I

I've had a love affair with rimfire rifles since I was a kid. Part of this might be hereditary, though I suspect my father shaped some of my interests. My first exposure to reading and outdoor sports came while sitting on his lap as he thumbed through outdoor magazines and told me what the pictures were. I suspect he was a gun nut too, though he died while I was quite young. Family tradition and friends tell me that he owned one of the first .22 Savage Hi-Powers in the area, as well as an early Colt Woodsman .22 and a 12C Remington .22 with a scope. He also owned an old "Nitro Special" 16 gauge single shot that I inherited and used as a cap gun in my cowboy & Indian days. ( AS an aside -- at some point in his teenage years, he got a hard lesson in firearm safety from that old shotgun - after a duck hunting expedition, he made the mistake of grabbing the loaded gun by the muzzle and pulling it out of the boat. The hammer hung on a seat edge and then released, firing the shell. Luckily most of the charge missed him, but a lot of the shot went into his arm and he carried the scars and some embedded shot for the rest of his life.) I have no idea what became of these guns over the years, though the Savage, the Colt and possibly some others were disposed of by an uncle who did my Mother a "favor" by buying them from her and then reselling them TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)