TargetTalk

My club had it's league organizational meeting recently and began talking about how to recruit new shooters, both junior and adult, into our sport. A major problem, we agreed, is equipment cost, but then we fell to talking about the lack of used equipment. Where have all the rifles of the past gone? The Winchester 54s, the Remingtons, the 1400-series Anschutz and pre-GX1 Walthers? And air rifles, too - what happened to all the spring-piston Feinwerkbaus, Anschutz and Dianas? These rifles never "wear out" but one never sees them at tournaments or even at informal league shoots.

Where is the burial ground, and can it be excavated?

That's a great question, and one that comes up at our club too. Especially when people ask about buying "starter" equipment.

We are convinced that most of this older gear is actually stowed away in the closets of former shooters, or parents of former juniors. They are hanging on to this stuff for sentimental reasons or simply because "they're going to start shooting again someday".
I'm really convinced that we could outfit numerous clubs and junior programs if we could just jar some of this stuff loose! (Of course, maybe the collectors would snatch it up before we could).

I also ought to add that we've had some recent success finding older air rifles here at the TT Buy/Sell forum.

I'd say most of it is sitting in safes for sentimental reasons.

I have a buddy who shot small bore in highs school (he's in his 40's now). His old Anschutz is still sitting at his dads house in the gun safe.

I was talking to a guy on the ham radio a while back, when he heard I was a junior shooting coach he said hhe had been ajunior shooter, still had his target rifle at home (IIRC it was martini single shot).

Have you tried calling Mac Tilton at MTguns.com? He usually has a bunch of used target rifles.

When it comes to buying club guns for smallbore to me only Anschutz makes sense. The old winchester 52's and 75's and remingtons 513t's,521's, and 40x's are of no use at all. They are setup for prone and prone only. I always look for Anschutz 64's and old 1407's or later '07's. The others should be left to collectors. With the anschutz's you have parts availablility and upgradability. We have 4-64's that we got from mac tilton for about $350-$400 with sights. I just bought a beater 1407 from Thad scott for $635 with sights. These are great guns for the price. The 1407 was a tad rough so I cleaned it up and shot it a bit and it shot a 3/8" group at 50yds-not bad. Also, watch the auction sites. Either auctionarms or gunbroker has a decent looking 64 on there right now. I don't see the equipment cost as a real big issue for club stuff if you work at it a little at a time. The cmp walthers are a bargain. I had a beautiful anschutz 2002 pneumatic that I used as a loaner. None of the juniors could cock it. The walthers can easily be extended to be pretty suitable guns for grownups.