Early last year I had some shotguns on consignment at a friend’s gun shop in Armada, MI.  He had a very nice looking Model 52B; so we traded, my two guns for his Winchester.

It came complete with a 10X Scope and Redfield Olympic and Palma sights.  The only magazine with the gun was a single shot conversion; I’ve since taken care of that issue!

Now, the twist: last night I was more curious then most nights so I removed the action from the stock.  The bluing underneath the wood line looks like it just left the factory – beautiful.  I decided to remove the buttplate and found what turned out to be pieces of newspaper used as filler.  I carefully unfolded the paper and through some research – one piece is dated Wednesday December 21, 1949.  I was able to use a name of a city commissioner, a partial name of the paper (Journal), and a funeral home name to determine the newspaper is the OREGON JOURNAL, from Portland, OR.  As I said, the gun was acquired in a small Michigan town.  I called my friend – didn’t know any history of the gun; it would be nice if I was able to trace its route from the factory to Michigan.

Pictures can be found at Rimfirecentral.com under my user name cwo4uscgret