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Moved from the old YW site:
gschwertley
My First Experiences Firing the M95
Shall I delve again into the past and tell stories therefrom? Many of my fellow YW'er's probably think that I dwell overly on the past. Well, that may be true at times, but it can be a pleasant alternative to the present!
For example, in my youth, I used to go out and do things all day like climbing, running, jumping, biking, and other forms of physical exertion that caused me to ache by the end of the day. Now, I wake up aching and try to figure out ways to get through the day without it getting worse!
So, back to the M95's. I bought my first M95, a Stutzen in 8x56R, back in 1965 for $15. I was able to get ahold of some dirty, battlefield pick-up ammo for five cents a round and had enough money for about 200 rounds.
My friend from school, Wayne, had a couple of 8mm Mausers, one each G.24(t) and K.98k and a British .303 (No. 4 Mark 1). He and I wanted to get out to the desert and shoot all of these guns, plus a .22 that we had.
My Uncle Charlie had a cabin on five acres near Landers, California. When I say cabin, I am exaggerating a bit, but that's what it was called. No water or electricity and hadn't been painted since 1953. The cabin was located right on the edge of the 29 Palms Marine Corps Base, so at that time you could shoot out away from the cabin and the bullets flew off into the Marine Corps property somewhere.
For many years, my grandparents had been going out to this cabin for a little solitude, so my mother suggested that we all go out there for the weekend and "the boys can shoot." I was 15 and a half, and had my driver's learning permit. After we got out of the city, I did the driving in my mother's 1962 Lincoln sedan on desert roads out to the cabin. I vividly remember that I had not yet mastered the art of looking out over the road in the distance and driving "in the big picture;" I would try to line up the moulding on top of the left front fender with the yellow dotted line on the roadway and keep it there. That makes for very choppy steering if you've ever tried it.
When we got to the cabin, we jumped out and couldn't wait to start blasting right away. In those years, even on the weekends, this area was quite deserted. Since we each had limited ammo, we tried to meter our shooting out over a period of time as long as we could. So we pounded away intermittently with 8mm ammo (we left the .303 behind) most of the weekend. There was a small gunshop in the nearest town and we begged to go there for more .22 ammo, but after while, my mother's nerves were worn down from the gunfire taking place right outside the cabin for so long and we didn't go there. As foolish as it sounds now, none of us were wearing hearing protection.
For years afterward, when I would go by my uncle's cabin to check up on it, I could find spent 8x56R shell casings lying around here and there.
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