Sunday, March 15, 2009

Old Victory - New to Me


My quest to get back to .22 shooting by buying a Browning Buckmark 5.5 Field Model took a hit back on September 2, 2008. For some reason I was drawn into Ace Buyers - a pawn shop - on Saturday August 30, 2008. In over 7 years here I had been in that store twice. I went back to the gun case and didn't see much until my eye caught on an old looking revolver. The tag read S&W Victory Model .38 Special - I asked to see it. It had a lot of an all business no nonsense finish except the front sight had some red paint on the blade and the top strap had the finish worn/taken off on it, the action felt good - oh and it felt right at home in my hand. The tag showed $299.99 I didn't have it - not even close. I asked what their best price was - the customer service rep checked with the manager and said they could take off $10 from the price. I handed the gun back. They mentioned they had 60 days same as cash and they would need 20% down. I didn't know what a Victory model was so I thought I would head home and search on the internet....

While searching I came across a very informative blog site - www.xavierthoughts.blogspot.com - He has a lot of great info on firearms and more. Looking around the site there is Victory info and I also read entries about pawn shop hunting. He had written about puting funds down on firearms and making payments - which I had never done. The Victory model Smith and Wesson .38 was a revolver made during World War II and the serial number is prefaced with a V. The revolver I was looking at had what I later found out is a parkerized finish but I noticed the revolver did not have the original smooth wood grips or the lanyard loop that screwed into the bottom of the grip frame. The grips it did have are S&W and have seen a lot of use. Check out Xavier's site and others that can give you more of the interesting info about the Victory Model S&W and it's place in history and thanks Xavier for all the great information! I wonder about the specific history of this Victory, before and after grip change. I got an impression that maybe the Victory I found was a trainer for some law enforcement agency after the war - red paint on blade, top strap parkerizing rubbed off?

I went back to Ace Monday September 1 ...payday. They are closed Sunday. I asked to look at the "Victory" again. I wanted to see the pistol again and make sure it had what I thought was a screw under/just below the cylinder release - that is an identifying feature to a Victory . It looked like a pin. Xavier said it is the hammer pin. I brought up the fact that the Victory didn't have original grips, hoping I could get more knocked off the price....they didn't budge. I again handed the revolver back. Driving home I thought I might have made a mistake. That night I decided that if the Victory was still there after work the next day I would put money down on it. Headed right over after work and it was still there. I gave a lot of people a good chance to get it. I put $60 down and needed to pay it off by the end of 2 months. That with money tight. Now with the payment they took that revolver from under the counter and put it in the back - safe for now!

Well, I made $40 the next payment....but about halfway through the second month I ran into a little funds setback and called Ace to let them know that I wouldn't be able to payoff the Victory....they said, no problem, just keep making monthly payments until it is paid off - I have found this is unique to this store. I made a $22 payment by the end of the month and have made payments each month ever since. I made the last payment of $56.44 on 3/14/2009. After all said and done I paid $289.99 plus a $10 gun processing fee.

I know....blah blah blah blah....hows it shoot???? I can't wait to fire some rocks down range!!!! Raining all weekend here, not that I havn't been shooting in that before - it is Oregon - the sunshine has rain in it a lot. I've lived in Oregon all my life, it's beautiful here - Coast, High Desert, Mountains.... just don't tell anyone. I hope to get out after work this week or next weekend. I went through training a long time ago with a S&W model 13 - still want to pick up one of those - but it has been too long since shooting a Smith and Wesson Revolver. I'll let you know how it goes.

No comments: