Boys will be boys... Ruger 10/22 Take-Down

Decided to take the family out for dinner Friday night.  We headed a county south to catch one of our favorite steak and buffet places... which just happens to be near a favorite gun store of mine.  Town and Country Department Store is one of those great places that time forgot.  You can stop in and try on some Rocky boots, let the gals check out some new clothes, pick up a furnace filter or a set of every-day dinnerware, and of course... check out the hundreds of guns, accessories, hunting supplies, and stock up for your reloading needs.

While the gals tried on some new shirts, I meandered back to the gun counter and ran across one of those new-fangled Ruger 10/22 Take-Down rifles that was just announced the day before.  I couldn't help it, I was like a kid back in W. R. Thomas' Five-n-Dime again with a crisp $10 bill in my pocket from a birthday card.  Just as I thought about pulling my wallet out, the clerk said, "we got two in, sold the first one and this one's mine... just leaving it out for people to look it over."

As a kid growing up in the 19?0s... well let's just say a long time ago, I wanted an Armalite AR-7 Explorer the instant I saw one in the hands of James Bond in "From Russia with Love".  Never quite had the chance to pick one up for use in my day-dreamed secret squirrel missions back then.  Henry makes a modern .22 rendition of that magical ".25 caliber" secret agent take-down rifle.  Gun nuts and James Bond fans will understand the .25 caliber reference.

Then in high school, I was at a local gun shop one day and saw a beautiful Marlin Papoose take-down .22 rifle in a bright red case.  It had a shortened wood stock and weighed next to nothing, plus the case even floated when dropped in water.  That would have been perfect for cuttin' the rapids in a canoe along the river on my way to hunt big game like rabbits and squirrels and such.  Marlin still makes a Papoose model with a synthetic stock, stainless-steel barrel, and that floating case in bright blue instead of red.

Now we need another .22 rifle in the house about as much as I need a sixth toe, but that inner boy just takes over occasionally.  If you folks follow my blog, you already know I'm kind of partial to those Made in America Rugers, and I've long ago forgiven Bill, Sr. for his misguided comments on magazine capacity limits.

A Ruger 10/22 take-down rifle right from the factory... why I need one of those for each of our Bug Out Bags, one for the truck, another for the motorcycle, one in the trunk of the wife's car, and... wait... the wife says I can have one... JUST ONE... someday... not now.  But... but... but... how will I save the world on the off chance that zombies attack while I'm canoeing the river on a secret squirrel mission?

What can I say... boys will be boys... and every boy needs a Ruger 10/22 Take-Down.