Archaeologists find 1882 rifle leaning against Nevada desert tree

Yahoo News ^ | 1/16/2015 | Dan Whitcomb

[Sacajaweau]

I’d pursue this until I dropped. I don’t think it’s a BIG mystery...just a mystery.

[rickomatic]

Wow - the ultrs-rare “Winchester 1783”! You would think that even the geniuses at Yahoo or the “archeologists” who found the rifle would: 1. Recognize an 1873 Winchester with the octagon barrrel, full magazine, curved steel butt as a very common artifact of its time and 2. Read the serial number at the wrist and then give the Cody museum a call to see the exact date of manufacture and to whom it was sold from the factory. 3. Then, if their brains were really in full gear, examine the chamber and magazine to see if it’s loaded and after clearing it, read the head stamp on the cartridges to get an idea when it was loaded and where the ammo might have been purchased. But it’s just Yahoo. They were just lucky to recognize that it was an old rifle.

At least they didn't call it an AK1873.....

[nikos1121]

I noticed that the article said it was first discovered in November, 2014. I mean, are they saying it was first noticed by some Jim Dandy US Forest Ranger... who made note of it, but left it there, and then discovered again more recently?

[nikos1121]

These are professional archaelogists. I’m sure they know what they’re doing. (satire)

[Paladin2]

I,m testing FReepers to see who has a sense of humor and who doesn,t.....

[SunkenCiv]

This is number five, so, just adding, not pinging.

• Rusted, 132-year-old Winchester rifle found against tree in Nevada national park
• Mystery 132-year-old rifle found in national park
• The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a national park tree
• 132 Year-old Winchester rifle found against a tree at Great Basin National Park

[SunkenCiv]

A bit of an update (with the usual YT production values; at least mixup98 is a gun guy).

Winchester 1873 Rifle Found In Nevada - What Happened To It?" [YouTube posted by mixup98]

[WKTimpco]

A man was teaching his son to hunt. He wanted his young 13-year-old son to set up his shots carefully, not just pop off a bunch and hope for the best; so the father removed the rifle’s lifter so that the boy could only discharge one cartridge at a time. And so the man and his son went hunting, leaving the lifter back in the man’s one-room house to be put back into the rifle when the boy matured a bit and learned to hunt the right way.

One day, while out on a hunt with his father, the young man, being easily distracted as youth are wont to become, put his gun up against the tree and went exploring around. When his dad finally caught up with him, he asked him, “Where’s your rifle, son?” The boy said, “Oh, it’s over there up against the tree, Dad.” His father said, “Which tree? Where?” “Over there, Dad!” “I don’t see it, son. Let’s go get it.”

So they looked, but the boy forgot where exactly it was, and the trees all looked dauntingly similar. And the boy forgot how far and in which direction he had traveled. So the boy and his father looked all afternoon, but they eventually had to go home because Mama had a pot roast in the stove for supper.

They tried over the next few months to find that rifle, but they never did find it. Then, 132 years later, the rifle was found by a society that hates guns, loves sodomy and frowns upon fatherhood. The gun was happy to be found but went into a major depressive episode later because the free and wild society that offered so much promise of Liberty to Americans and the world was turned into a sniveling little European nanny state. The rifle pined for the day when he could finally go hunting with a free child and his loving father again, but he found that, like the Constitution that protected the boy’s freedom, he was put under glass and consigned to a slow spiritual death by cultural malaise and general apathy.