I went to the big Houston show at Reliant Arena Sunday with the goal of buying a pistol. I had set myself two possible targets, a summer carry piece or a "classic." Texas Gulf Coast heat and humidity had me decided on a single stack nine, like a Smith 908. For a classic, I was searching for a Colt .22. Looking over my finances, I figured I could get a pretty nice Huntsman or Challenger. If I didn't find one at the show, I knew Collector's Firearms had a couple under $450. A Woodsman would have been great but I didn't think my finances would allow that. Imasgine my surprise when I found two pre-war Woodsmen at the $500 mark. One had the long barrel and the early mainspring housing for standard speed ammo. The other was the sport model built for high speed fodder. Talk about a dilemma. The older gun was in better shape, but I was more interested in a shooter. Talking it over with my walking around buddies and $460 later, I was headed out into the heat with the Sport. A spare magazine ran me another $30. Talk about pleased!
The nice people from Lufkin who sold me the gun said it had lain around under a bed unfired for years. I could believe it. I scrubbed it out, hit it with steel wool, oiled it, and did some plnking. It's been years since I'd had a Woodsman. It was more fun than I'd remembered. The thin short grip is perfect, the sights dead on, the trigger crisp.
Proofhouse.com says it's a '34 vintage. Bob Rayburn's excellent colt .22 site says 1933. Either way, grandpa might have given this Colt to my dad as a first gun and I can't say he didn't. By the time my niece's son is old enough for his first self-loader, who knows? The pistol will be pushing 90 and still going strong, I trust.
Here are some pix and one with it's grandson. (OK, I know the Target Model is closer in lineage to a High Standard, but the barrel says Colt.)
The nice people from Lufkin who sold me the gun said it had lain around under a bed unfired for years. I could believe it. I scrubbed it out, hit it with steel wool, oiled it, and did some plnking. It's been years since I'd had a Woodsman. It was more fun than I'd remembered. The thin short grip is perfect, the sights dead on, the trigger crisp.
Proofhouse.com says it's a '34 vintage. Bob Rayburn's excellent colt .22 site says 1933. Either way, grandpa might have given this Colt to my dad as a first gun and I can't say he didn't. By the time my niece's son is old enough for his first self-loader, who knows? The pistol will be pushing 90 and still going strong, I trust.
Here are some pix and one with it's grandson. (OK, I know the Target Model is closer in lineage to a High Standard, but the barrel says Colt.)
