Way back in the previ0us century, 1987 to be exact, my oldest daughter was 11 and wanted to hunt Javelina with me. She had been going with me on hunts for several years, but now she wanted to shoot one. She had taken the State course on firearms safety and on hunting and was ready! Well, almost. We needed a gun she was comfortable using. She was a pretty good shot with a rifle so I wasn't concerned about that aspect. I just did not have a rifle she could use.

Arizona Fish and Game had authorized the .22 Magnum in a rifle for Javelina and that was what I needed. Looking around I had an old Stevens Marksman .22 rifle. It is the break open single shot that Stevens had made.

The barrel on the one I had was no good, but, the Marksman is a take-down! And I had a perfectly fine Mossberg barrel in .22 Long Rifle. All I had to do was rechamber the Mossberg barrel to .22 Magnum and turn it down to where it would fit the Stevens. The action was plenty strong for the .22 Magnum.

I worked on it and got it done. I did not have a .22 Magnum chambering reamer but I improvised. I used a drill bit a few thousands smaller than the .22 Magnum cartridge. Then, using a fired .22 Magnum cartridge on a home-made shaft, I polished out the chamber with my electric drill, valve grinding compound on the cartridge. It was slow but it worked very nicely. I fitted the barrel to the Stevens, got the sights lined up and sighted it in. Then my daughter started practicing with it.

Opening day found us out in the canyons near Oracle, Arizona. I knew where the different herds of Javelina were and we headed towards one that I thought promising. Coming down a hill towards a wash in the bottom, suddenly we both spotted Javelina on the opposite hillside, maybe 40 yards distant. My daughter said, "Look Dad!" and I said, "Shoot one!" She raised the rifle, cocked the hammer and fired. At the shot a pig rolled down the hill toward us. It raised its head and I told her to shoot it in the head, which she did.

We found that her first shot was high but had taken out nearly 2" of its spine above the shoulders. I was more excited than she was I think.

Those were good days and I am happy to have the memories.

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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.