Hoarding
It is time to confront our collective insanity
For some reason, shooters have an almost obsessive need to collect little souvenirs and save every bit of broken gear they’ve ever run across. When you add in the old brass scavenged from the range — even though the shooter in question has never, is not currently and likely will never reload — you are talking about a lifetime accumulation for the average firearms enthusiast which will run into the dozens of tons.
We need to confront this hobby-wide problem — let’s face it, we’re hoarders.
Guilt or Innocence?
I’m sorry, being bluntly honest here, but all this collected detritus is just trash. I know many readers forcefully recoiled in horror but there it is, the stark-naked truth, lying there quivering in its birthday suit for all the world to see. Sure, some of our collection might have intrinsic value but if we’re being honest, we mainly keep all this rubbish for other reasons.
For example: what about your “special” fired shell casings? You know, the empty .22 LR from when you shot your first squirrel or the partially stomped shotgun hull from the day you won the local turkey shoot 30 years ago. They’re all enshrined somewhere like a bone fragment from a minor saint held inside a religious reliquary. Personally, I have these casings scattered everywhere from desk drawers to a box in my “gun closet.” I never intentionally seek them out, I am forbidden from displaying them in our home and they will eventually end up being thrown out by my children when I finally go to the nursing home, assuming I’m not eaten by a bear first.
And don’t get me started on the old holsters. I’ve got some shucks pre-dating Lexington and Concord but they will never again leave the battered plastic tub where they reside in my storage unit. Yes, I have two storage units and one is nothing but a shooting and outdoor cornucopia.
We shall not talk about our second unit, packed full of my wife’s holiday décor. This stuff is not junk, it is important and MUST be saved at all costs even though some of it has a 3″ layer of dust on the top of the totes. If you’re married or in a long-term relationship, you understand. Just move past it.
Ammo Dump
I’ve also been forced to reckon with, “Exactly how much ammunition do you need?!?” My obvious answer is “All of it,” but this just causes the inquisitor to pivot and start a lecture about the size of my boot collection.
She does have a point about bullets. I certainly recommend keeping half-boxes of ammo for guns you haven’t owned in decades, but even I can’t explain the pounds and pounds of orphan rounds held in reserve. It’s a common habit — we all save those individual cartridges found in our pockets, packs and bags after a day at the range or hunt. They end up in a box someplace and accumulate even though we have no intention to ever use, sell or give them away.
In my case, just the .22 LR rounds rolling loosely around inside an old box, covered in lint and dirt, could fulfill the lead needs of a major auto battery manufacturer for six months. I’ll never use these because they’re filthy but they are safe, having found a “forever home” in my loving care. Some of these rounds have been around longer than my children.
Souvenirs are another thing. Some aren’t directly-related to shooting but we keep them by the gross as mementos of an adventurous life. Besides odd-shaped rocks and old permits, my own collection contains enough animal parts to start a small taxidermy museum — deer skulls, fur scraps, feathers, mediocre antlers, jawbones, turtle shells, clamshells, vertebra of unknown origin and the remains of a partridge in a pear tree. There is also the deer hide I attempted to tan but ended up looking like a sheet of putrefied Formica.
All this hoarding is fine and dandy when you have enough space, but things eventually start to overflow. There will come a time when you realized there is a serious risk of being killed in an avalanche of broken rifle scopes, worn-out duck decoys and dozens upon dozens of mostly empty bottles of gun solvent.
This becomes the day you commit the ultimate act of despair — start throwing things away.
First, you think “I could sell most of this!” and you could … provided you spend decades of your life in the effort and are willing to make a profit measured in pennies. After cold financial prudence sets in, you start looking for someone to deliver a construction dumpster.
Cleaning Up
Thus, I found myself deep inside a storage unit on an unseasonably warm late fall afternoon, eviscerating the accumulated contents and vowing once and for all I would simplify my life by getting rid of all this non-essential junk.
One thing I didn’t mention above was ammo cans. Even neophyte shooters know the value of military-surplus ammo cans and we all covet them. Old Gun Cranks have dozens, maybe even scores, not only holding ammunition and shooting gear but goodies such as game calls, fireworks and dried bug carcasses.
As I reached back onto a long-hidden shelf, I pulled out one can which obviously contained something but the handwritten label had fallen off long ago.
The stage was set. I was wedged in the back of an airless storage cubicle while doing my best to avoid inhaling any of the scattered mouse droppings. My shirt was drenched in perspiration and I felt slightly dizzy from dehydration. This was the moment I attempted to open the ammo can.
The airtight lid wouldn’t release easily due to a slight vacuum inside the container. I finally managed to pop the gasket and there was a slight slurping noise as the pressure equalized. I flung open the lid to see what treasure was held inside.
A Bad Mistake
I’ve previously noted another terrible character flaw: I’m an avid fisherman. It turns out this rusting .50 Caliber ammo held my long-forgotten collection of stink baits for catfishing. In the years since I had last used it the various bags and bottles of brownish glop — bearing names like “Big Stinker Sewer Bait” — had melded together inside their steel coffin until reaching a heretofore-unknown point of critical-smell-mass.
The spectacular odor actually defied the laws of nature and man. It was truly the Pandora’s Box of Stench.
It is a normal reflex to inhale spontaneously when startled. As the rancid, deathly miasma reached my nostrils, I involuntarily gasped and drew in a lung full. With the crystal clarity brought about by a near-death experience, I can recall the next few seconds in excruciating detail as time slowed down.
There was the savory tang of limburger cheese, pig manure and rotting fish on my tongue. My eyes were on fire. My sinuses unleashed. The pizza I ate for lunch did its best to make a violent curtain call. I wish I had done more to relish this brief moment of pleasure before I became really nauseous.
Dropping the box, I staggered half-blinded toward fresh air. Had the floor been clear, I might have made it with minimal damage but my “treasures” were strewn about like a junkyard obstacle course.
On my next blind step, a broken target frame caught my foot and I began to fall. Trying to avoid the machete-sharp deer hide, I spontaneously grabbed an old spotting scope tripod in the corner, which started a chain-reaction cascade of detritus off the shelves.
Twisting as I fell to avoid being impaled by an old wooden gun-cleaning rod, I landed in a cardboard box of duck feathers being saved — for over 20 years now — for fly tying purposes. The box upended and feathers filled the air as if a mallard had been vaporized by antiaircraft fire. I finally crawled, gagging, to safety.
I lay on the gravel for a while, blinking in the sunlight, bruised, battered, choking and plastered with handfuls of down stuck to my sweaty brow. Right then and there, I decided everything must go and I would never again fall victim to this packrat mentality.
And I will stick by my vow — at least until the next range trip.
