I have shared this story here before, but I'll share it again and it may make you feel better. I'll state up front that I am like you, I HATE to get that scratch on my pretty guns, but my Glock and Sig Duty guns are like me, scarred veterans. But, they still shoot like the demons they are.
Here is the tale, some of the facts may have faded like my memory, no attempt at deception, just my fading memory.
I was a Marine Sergeant, Selected for Staff Sergeant, waiting for my "Number" to roll around and get promoted. I was a Member of the KBay Rod and Gun Club in Hawaii, and we did a lot of Volunteer work around the Islands. I ran the Mongoose trapping project to Save the Hawaiian Stilt (The Hawaii State Bird) and coordinated our hunting of feral Goats on the Island of Kahoolawe to control the population. This was the result of two things, A bio-experiment during WWII, and a lawsuit by the people of Hawaii years later when the goats were abandoned on the island and began to eat ALL the vegetation on the small island and cause a serious erosion problem. The main program was coordinated from Ford Island at Pearl Harbor.
On one of the hunts I had the pleasure of hunting with a retired Colonel who had once commanded a Battalion of Marines, but insisted we NOT call him Colonel, but call him by his first name, which I can no longer remember. But his nickname became something like, "Just Bob." He hunted with a high dollar fully engraved gold and silver inlaid Presentation Grade Weatherby. We are hiking and climbing the mountainous terrain of the lava fields on this island in search of targets and he is banging and scraping this $10k rifle along, using it to help on the climbs and dinging the stock. When we stopped for a break I asked him why he didn't bring one of the nylon stocked Remington 700s he owned.
I love hunting with this gun, it's a dream to shoot and very accurate at long ranges. Shooting across a valley here I know I'll hit the shot and I don't buy my guns for them to sit in the gun case and friends Ooh and Ahh at them. I USE them. He opened the bolt and passed the rifle to me. The stock had deep gouges and scrapes here and there and some of the gold and silver had been dinged and dented. Engraving on the receiver and forearm had been dinged and dented as well.
"It seems a shame to bang up such a beautiful gun, these mars must break your heart."
"On the contrary," he said. He smiled.
"Those aren't Mars and scars," he explained. "They are memories."
He touched this one and that one as he talked. "I sit at home in the den at night, and I take down a rifle or shotgun, and I can touch this scar and remember my last hunt with my dad, when he slipped and scraped this on a boulder in Colorado. This ding came on a great hunt with my Brother in Law in Wyoming when I took my largest Ram. And this was my last hunt with a Captain who served with me for ten years. You see, Memories."
Not all of them were good, but they were all there, like a diary. We hunted together all weekend, and often afterward. I have never owned a safe queen, I shoot all my guns, but so take care to keep them clean and functioning and try and keep them nice. But a scratch doesn't bother me as much anymore... they are memories...
! Next trip to any range. I'm bringing a towel. Too bad I didn't have my sling in yet. I wouldn't have put it down.
