Gun-store frenzy: Like a kid in a candy store

A funny thing happened to me at the gun store yesterday.

Hank and I made a trip to Guns, Fishing & Other Stuff in Vacaville because ... Hell, I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but here goes: I won another shotgun at a California Waterfowl dinner. Yes, it's my third in a row. Yes, I have done nothing to deserve such good fortune.

Anyway, I won a Mossberg Silver Reserve 20 gauge side-by-side, and Hank was the winning bidder on a Mossberg Onyx Reserve 28 gauge side-by-side. We really don't need either of these guns, so our plan was to trade them for a new duck gun for Hank that he'd been thinking about for a while - a Benelli SuperNova.

The way this works is when you win a gun at a Cal Waterfowl dinner, the gun store that processes the transaction will usually allow you to apply the wholesale value of the gun(s) you won to the retail value of the gun(s) you want.

I figured the wholesale value would be pretty low, so we went to the store thinking just Hank would get a new gun. But when we got there, we found out the wholesale value on the Mossbergs was actually pretty good, and we could easily get two decent guns without having to do much more than plop down a little extra change.

What I've really been wanting lately is a practice bow, just to start playing around with archery a bit. But the store doesn't carry bows, so I found myself in the odd position of suddenly being able to buy a gun.

Uh, what do I do now???

Hank and I conferred and decided we needed something for target practice and maybe small game - perhaps a .22-250?

I darted around the gun counters trying out .22-250s, and the only one I liked was super expensive, like $800, which was way more than the trade credit I had available.

I went back to Hank, who was still dealing with the paperwork on his gun (oh yes, we have LOTS of paperwork here in California) and informed him of my failure.

"Maybe a .17?" he suggested helpfully.

"I'll try that."

I took a look at several .17s and found the same problem - the only one I liked was really expensive, and spending extra money really wasn't in the cards for me.

I paced around the gun counters anxiously.

I can get a new gun!

I must take advantage of this opportunity!

But how???

See, normally I know what I want when I go gun shopping, but I just hadn't been prepared for this. I felt like a game show contestant who had 60 seconds to decide whether to go for the sailboat or the RV. I had to pick something, because all we could do was trade - they won't give back cash.

But I was flummoxed. Here I was in a position to walk away with a gun - a gun! - and I couldn't find anything that fit my needs and my budget. Our gun safe is too full to get something we don't need, and my credit card is too overburdened to plunk down hundreds of dollars willy-nilly.

So I decided: I had to walk away from the guns.

I felt pathetic and stupid. What self-respecting hunter could walk away from an opportunity like this?

But Hank had an idea: Could we use the extra trade value on ammo?

We asked the manager. "Sure!" he said.

So we went downstairs to the ammo department and picked out five cases of target shells.

Yes, five cases. A case has 10 boxes. A box has 25 shells. So we walked out of there with 1,250 rounds of target ammunition, which took a couple trips because that stuff is heavy.

And suddenly, I was happy.

Instead of getting a gun of potentially dubious value to me, I would be able to shoot skeet to my heart's content for easily the next few months without having to shell out for shells. Instead of having to learn a new gun, I could invest that time in improving my accuracy with my current gun so I have less bad shooting to be mortified about next duck season.

So what if I blew my chance to get a new gun? I've never been a gun nut anyway. I'm just a hunter who uses guns and ammo to get the job done. And that's just fine with me.

And hey, Californians, if you'd really like to win a gun, I recommend you join Cal Waterfowl, become a life member and attend a CWA fundraising dinner. At many dinners, you can make a $200 payment toward your $1,000 life membership and be entered in a drawing for a shotgun. There are usually very few people in that drawing - it's been three to eight the times I've participated - and I've won the last three life member drawings I've entered.

And it's OK - my life membership payment is now complete, so you don't have to worry about Lucky Holly competing with you anymore.

© Holly A. Heyser 2011