Model 12 different grades?
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2020 3:47 pmI purchased a Model 12 a while back and I've always liked these old guns but had never owned one. I must have shot a million .22 rounds out of my old single shot back in the 50s and 60s but I never had a pump. I have fond memories of shooting pump rifles like they had at the shooting galleries at the fair back when I was a kid. Which brings to mind a story.
My best memory of the shooting galleries was in Daytona Beach back in July of 1967. They still had a shooting gallery at the boardwalk, actually concrete walk, on the beach back then. My girlfriend and I were walking along and saw the gallery and I decided to give it a try. You could win a teddy bear if you knocked 5 out of the 6 steel balls out of a rotating circle that was about 4 ft in diameter. If you did hit 5 out of 6 then the next time you shot you had to hit 6 out of 6 balls to win a prize. The first time I shot I had to get used to the sights and where to hit the balls and you had to hit the balls directly at the bottom or they wouldn't move. The sights were off of course about a couple of inches to the right and about 2 inches high but I still managed to knock out 4 out of the 6 balls out the first time. The next 3 times I paid to shoot I knocked out 6 out of 6 all 3 times and won 3 bears for my girlfriend. When I started to pay again they cut me off and told me to leave. By that time there was a small crowd of people watching me shoot and they got really pissed off when the owner ran me off. We laughed about that for years and I still get amused thinking about it.
I've been looking on the Internet at pictures of other Model 12's and there are a lot of them that have the model 12 stamped in different locations on the gun or in some cases it appears not stamped at all and I haven't seen any with the grade letter A, B, C ect. stamped on them. Mine only has Model 12 stamped on the receiver and nothing else. There's nothing fancy about the rifle so I assume it's a 12A? Looks like they would have put the grade on the guns as well as the model?
The serial number on mine is 716187 which according to the Rimington list it was made in 1928. I bought it from an individual and paid $325 which I thought was a fair price. It doesn't look like it's ever been refinished so evidently it's been taken pretty good care of over the years.
If anyone else has pictures of their Model 12 I would like to see them.
My best memory of the shooting galleries was in Daytona Beach back in July of 1967. They still had a shooting gallery at the boardwalk, actually concrete walk, on the beach back then. My girlfriend and I were walking along and saw the gallery and I decided to give it a try. You could win a teddy bear if you knocked 5 out of the 6 steel balls out of a rotating circle that was about 4 ft in diameter. If you did hit 5 out of 6 then the next time you shot you had to hit 6 out of 6 balls to win a prize. The first time I shot I had to get used to the sights and where to hit the balls and you had to hit the balls directly at the bottom or they wouldn't move. The sights were off of course about a couple of inches to the right and about 2 inches high but I still managed to knock out 4 out of the 6 balls out the first time. The next 3 times I paid to shoot I knocked out 6 out of 6 all 3 times and won 3 bears for my girlfriend. When I started to pay again they cut me off and told me to leave. By that time there was a small crowd of people watching me shoot and they got really pissed off when the owner ran me off. We laughed about that for years and I still get amused thinking about it.
I've been looking on the Internet at pictures of other Model 12's and there are a lot of them that have the model 12 stamped in different locations on the gun or in some cases it appears not stamped at all and I haven't seen any with the grade letter A, B, C ect. stamped on them. Mine only has Model 12 stamped on the receiver and nothing else. There's nothing fancy about the rifle so I assume it's a 12A? Looks like they would have put the grade on the guns as well as the model?
The serial number on mine is 716187 which according to the Rimington list it was made in 1928. I bought it from an individual and paid $325 which I thought was a fair price. It doesn't look like it's ever been refinished so evidently it's been taken pretty good care of over the years.
If anyone else has pictures of their Model 12 I would like to see them.