An unintended gun collection

I have never considered myself to be a gun collector. The firearms I own have been purchased or received as inheritances over a sixty-year period. Some of them fit nicely into specific types of collections, unintentional on my part, and some were just interesting and fun to shoot. My interest in hunting has also led to some of the firearms in my possession.

My first “collection” started out with a firearms purchase at a pawn shop in Kodiak almost forty years ago. We happened to be in town, and I thought it would be interesting to step into the pawn shop and see what was there. I spotted a Savage model 24 in the used gun rack that was in pretty good shape. It was in the classic 22 rimfire/410 shotgun combination and was priced very reasonably.

I had had several experiences hunting on Afognak where both a shotgun and a small-bore rifle would have been handy on the same “woods walk.” I bought the gun and took it home. Over time, I carried it on various trips, including checking my small trapline. It proved invaluable on several occasions.

I began thinking about how useful this combination firearm idea was and began looking to buy another one in a different combination of calibers. While we still lived on Afognak Island, I bought a 22 rimfire/20-gauge gun which my wife used, with rifled slugs, to harvest her first deer. I had drilled and tapped the gun for mounting a receiver sight just for this type of use. A year or two before we moved, I picked up a newer Model 24 with a synthetic stock in 30-30/12-gauge to use when I was out deer hunting.

That combination firearm put a few deer in the freezer along with the occasional opportunistic duck I jumped while hunting along the shoreline. I also appreciated the idea of having a 12-gauge slug in the shotgun barrel as a defensive back-up to the 30-30 in case I happened on a brown bear, which was not unusual in the area.

After we moved to the Valley, I acquired another newer model Savage 24 in 223/12-gauge to use while hunting predators like foxes and coyotes. Both of these newer models were very accurate with the single-shot rifle barrels. The downside, if you will, was that both firearms were relatively heavy, weighing around eight or nine pounds with a sling and scope attached.

As time went by, I bought a 22WMR/20-gauge firearm, a 222/20-gauge, and a 357/20-gauge to round out my uses for this type of firearm. These were all older models in good condition which weighed less than the newer models.

Here’s a little background on the Savage model 24. The gun was originally meant as a do everything gun for the farm or to introduce a youngster to shooting where a single-shot gun was preferred. The guns were well made but not at all fancy. They were designed for everyday use and were reasonably priced for those who had a use for this type of firearm.

This combination firearm has been popular in Europe for a long time, but never really caught on in this country in any big way. There was a market for them, but not a large one. Savage stopped producing the model 24 around thirty years ago. Later, they came back out with a reconfigured combination gun called the model 42 and are still making it. To my eye, the model 42 is ugly compared to the older model 24.

The model 24 has been manufactured in many different caliber combinations and different mechanical functioning mechanisms. My preference is for the firing pin selector switch being mounted in the hammer and the break-open mechanism being a lever mounted on the top of the tang. I do have one gun with the opening mechanism being a push-button mounted in the front of the trigger guard. That’s the gun my wife used for her first deer harvest.

There has been significant collector interest in the model 24 since Savage quit making them. Some of the guns I own have doubled or even tripled in value since I purchased them. The 30-30/20-gauge is my most recent purchase and was listed at over $1,000 on GunBroker over the last few years. I bought it from a friend and only paid less than half, even after telling him what the gun was worth. I had another friend interested in my 222/20-gauge until I told him it was valued at over $550.