Oddball acquisitions

Occasionally I come into oddball things for no apparent reason. Sunday was one of those times.

I had a chainsaw that I picked up used last year. It didn't run quite right, and I ran out of patience to tinker with it. A couple friends who are good with saws made a few suggestions about what might be wrong, but I never got around to digging into it.

A few weeks ago I placed it on the local Craigslist with a clear description of what it did and didn't do, and what the presumed problem was. A few nibbles here and there but nothing solid. One guy finally got hold of me by phone and asked if I was interested in trades. I explained that I had a functional saw and wasn't interested in another ... but he had in mind a shotgun. He isn't a gun guy, so could only tell me it was a "J Stevens Springfield 16 gauge single shot". I allowed that I may be interested, and we set up a time to meet.

I went over Sunday and met him, showed him the saw, and looked over the shotgun. It is pre-GCA, as it has no serial number. The butt stock is in decent shape, no dings or damage, wood isn't anything fancy. The butt plate is also in good shape, although one of the screws is buggered. Receiver is in good shape, no rust, but not much color left either. Honest wear. The forearm, however, has a crack and is very loose on the stud. Looks like the screw had been replaced at some point with one that is slightly mis-matched. The bore was mostly clean with a few patches of surface rust, no obvious pitting.

In mint condition, it would be a $150 gun. I pointed out what was wrong and explained that it was worth perhaps $70 or $75 to me, and I couldn't go straight across for my saw. He offered some cash, which put us in the right ballpark but was still low. He then asked if I had another shotgun - I do, both a 12ga and a 20ga. He offered a couple boxes of 20ga slugs to balance things out, and I figured that'd be a pretty fair deal.

He showed me the three saws in his garage that were "too small" for the project he was working on - and based on what I saw and my own experience, the problem isn't the saws, but probably a loose nut on the throttle.

So now I have a wall-hanger shotgun that will be trade fodder for some gun show down the road, or maybe a wintertime project to replace the forearm before selling it. The slugs will be of use in MrsZ's 870, and the cash already went into processing costs for the buck I got earlier this season.

It's nice to roll things that are taking up space into things that have some real potential use to them. *grin*