I thumbed the selector lever on the hammer to the. Predictably, the other squirrel broke cover and started to move out. The 20-yard shot was rather easy with the. The squirrel made it to the tree’s trunk and flattened out, his head pointed toward the ground. When one of them moved back down a limb toward the tree’s trunk, I rested the gun against the tree I was using for cover. After a couple of minutes I found two bushy-tails holding tight. I heard nuts being chewed and watched the pieces fall and hit leaves on the way down. Easing into rifle range, I watched the tree for movement. Topping out on a logging road and stopping to listen again, I zeroed in on a hickory that had produced several early-season squirrels on prior hunts. Homing in on the sound, I crossed a draw north of the cabin and eased up onto the next ridge. I only had to stand still in the cabin yard to hear a hickory nut getting whittled down by a set of limb-chicken incisors. “The tough synthetic stock and simple design make it easy to use in training new hunters…” That done, I swapped shirts for a bit of camouflage and shoved a handful of. Arriving at my farm a couple of hours later, I wasjust in time to tack up a target at 25 yards and confirm the sight settings for the. When the late summer squirrel season arrived, I unpacked the gun, stuck it in a soft case and tossed it in the back seat of the truck-where it belongs. A tad different from the Savage Model 24 combo guns of the author’s youth, the Model 42 celebrates the switch-barrel utility of its predecessor. 410 to find out if the new gun would be as accurate and functional as its predecessor. With more than a million Model 24s sold and continued consumer demand, it wasn’t surprising to see that Savage Arms revived the combination gun concept with its new Model 42. According to the Blue Book of Gun Values, Savage manufactured 15 different Model 24 variants from 1950 until 2007, when they discontinued the 24F Predator (and the design altogether). Thirty years have passed since those days, and although my friend and mentor is now gone, I still have a fondness for the practicality of Savage’s combination guns. It was never any farther away than the cab of his four-wheel-drive pickup truck, and sometimes when we would take a break while working on his West Tennessee farm, he would break out the Model 24 for a little competitive.
One of the things I remember about the cigar-munching, tough-as-nails man was his satin-chrome-framed Savage Model 24-DL. He taught me a lot about business, hunting, people and life in general. I learned a lot from him and could even call him a mentor. 22 LR/.410 later picked up a big game version with a centerfire rifle cartridge and a larger shotgun bore.I’ve met a lot of colorful characters in my life, but few could match the genius redneck Wayne Roby. Many who started out with the small game version in. That made the Savage Model 24 the ultimate gun for this kind of “woods foraging.” It was the first gun for thousands of kids, but adults discovered its merits and took to this gun in droves as well. Most Baby Boomers who hunted went after small game, and rabbits, upland birds, and squirrels were all part of the potential bag. Things were a lot less specialized back then, and often “hunting” meant any legal game you came across when you were out and about. This was the perfect configuration for small-game hunting. 308 Win, but without a doubt the most common combination was a. 30-30 Winchester, and with 20 and 12 gauge shotgun barrels. But Savage also chambered it for centerfire cartridges, ranging from.