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I guess it boils down to interest and means. It started with an M1 Garand. Perhaps I should not have purchased that gun. With one M1 in the house, it being a Winchester, I had stepped on the treadmill. The announcement that International Harvester Garands were in short supply caught me unawares. So I bought one. If one must have an M1 Garand, and one is 5MadFarmers, one made by a tractor company was a must. If John Deere made guns I’d be sunk. With the WRA and IHC here I noticed I was only 2 away from having the Franklin Mint set of M1 Garands. I happened into a lend-lease Springfield. 3 down, one to go. So I bought the HRA just to complete the set. I should have stopped there.
M-1903 and M-1917 rifles were the main guns of WW1. So for M-1903s we’d have to have the Springfield, Rock Island, Remington and for M-1903A3s it would add another Remington and a Smith Corona. So 5 of them. 3 M-1917s as Eddystone, Remington, and Winchester all made them. 8 more guns. With the Smith Corona being hard to find.
Once that set was complete I went back in time. Each maker and each model is what I’d like to see. Krags? That means 1892, 1896, and 1898 rifles. 1896, 1898, and 1899 carbines. I’m missing the 1898 carbine but it’ll come.
Before that we have trapdoors. So the 1873, 1884, and 1884 with the rod bayonet. 1873 and 1884 carbines. Lady luck smiled on me and the early 1873 carbine came early. Missing the later carbine. Just not real motivated but it’ll come.
I’d missed the M1 carbines. Whole plethora of makers. IBM, Inland, Quality Hardware, National Postal Meter, Rockola, Saginaw Gear, Saginaw Gear S’G', Standard Products, Underwood, and Winchester. Irwin-Pedersen didn’t have any guns accepted so the S’G’ is the correct plant for that. Commercial Controls and Un-Quality Hardware seem a little excessive. I bought the set.
Had to decide where the limits on this are. Do I buy little variations? That would get a bit out of control. So avoid the snipers (pun intended). Don’t get too bogged into the details. Buy what you like. So I started doing research on the guns the army didn’t buy. Mainly due to the ordnance department being staffed with officers whose sole qualification seems to be their stupidity. The ones they either didn’t buy, or bought in small quantities, are harder to find. They cost more. Lady fate fell in love with me some time ago though so she watches out for me.
A Johnson rifle. A Chafee-Reece. Ward-Burtons (carbine and rifle). The trials guns start to appear. A couple of Durst rifles and a trials Remington-Lee. It’s getting expensive.
The guns of 1861-1865 have been appearing. I’ve discovered I seem to have an appetite for excessive ownership of Krags. Counting duplicates, I seem to own too many guns. Which induced a serious cost in safes.
At one time I took a quick, and not very deep, look at buying one of each gun the US fielded. It didn’t seem too bad. M1 Garand, M1 carbine, M-1917, M-1903, and a Krag. If I had stuck to thinking that way I’d have been fine perhaps.
I think, on reflection, maybe I should have collected tin lunch boxes.
Seems that there is method to the madness :-)
I am curious - do you shoot with all of them, or just some of them? or are they just for loving?
Any chance for some pictures?
Some would be difficult as ammunition is scarce or non-existent. The Dursts for example - only small amounts of ammunition were ever made and that was over a century ago. .56 Spencer is a rather expensive cartridge in its own right.
When I shoot it’s normally restricted to guns I can get surplus ammunition for and the pistols as they’re cheap. So mainly the Swedish Mauser and a Garand for long guns.
Pictures are possible but it would be best to let me know what you’d like to see pictures of. Some of them are harder to get at then others as the safes are four rows deep. Getting at the guns in the back rows isn’t trivial as the ones in front must be removed first.