I thought you might like to see this one. It is a G43...but not really. It was put together, so I am told by the guy who did it, with a file, a rasp, a screwdriver and a pocket knife (maybe a couple of other hand tools....I don't know). The guy's name was Gary, or so he said, I didn't question him. He sort of showed up in my hometown one day, having made friends with another friend of mine and me.....when he was working as a bouncer at a club in another town. Sort of a strange looking bouncer......not as big as either one of us.....scrawny looking with a scraggly beard, glasses and a ponytail.......also very quite, but he kept order. Nobody seemed to challenge him. We used to talk with him a lot, and he seemed to like us. We quit going to the club, and shortly after that Gary showed up here. He worked some for my friend, but seemed to like to talk more than work. They worked on my house some, and Gary spent most of his time talking with me. My friend finally let him go, but he stayed around.......have no idea where. He liked to talk about combat, war, explosives and how he could make weapons out of virtually everything and anything........said he was trained to do it. He also liked to talk about the Navy Seals........he said he was one, but got in trouble and got kicked out and that he spent time in jail or prison. I don't know. He said he had done some pretty bad things for his country.......but I don't know. He actually told me that he could tell me, but that he would have to kill me and he didn't want to do that. I didn't either.....so, I never asked. He would disappear now and then, but always came back......said he had to do a little work.......I never asked what. I sort of believed Gary. Especially after what I saw one night at a local football game. We were standing behind the end zone behind a chainlink fence watching the game, when one of the town tough guys who was drunk came up and grabbed him from behind. Much quicker than I can tell about it the guy who grabbed him ended up slammed up against the fence with Gary's finger on one hand wrapped around his Adam's apple sunk in deep about about to rip his throat open, and the other hand poised to either take out his eyes, or maybe his whole face off. I also saw one of the strangest looks on the guy's face......sort of like what I would imagine a fellow might look like who had just stared into the eyes of death. The guy sobered up quicker than I had ever seen done before or since, and Gary let him go. The guy appologized so many times in such a short period that I lost track of the number, and he backed all the way out of reach of Gary.........which is when I noticed that the front of his pants was soaked. Gery just quietly went back to watching the game. I never saw Gary do that ever again. When he was out to my house one day he saw a couple of old beat up rusty G43 mags, and he asked if he could buy one......said he needed it......I didn't ask him what for.......I just gave him one. Then around the time of the bombardment of Bagdad right before the first Gulf War he disappeared again for a while. After he came back again, he asked if we had watched it on TV, and said "wasn't that something......I watched it too.....from the river".....he didn't say more, and I didn't ask, neither did my friend. Not too long after that my friend came by and told me Gary had died......he was fairly young. I don't know what he died of, but it was natural causes.....heart I think. I went to the funeral. He was buried in his blue jeans, and a gray sweatshirt, just like he said he wanted to be.........I can't remember for sure, but I think the sweatshirt was just a plain one.......didn't say Navy or Seals. It was a very plain casket, but looked very substantial and a bit expensive. My friend and I had told the funeral director that we would pay (I don't think he had any family, except a sister maybe, who had nothing). We asked the funeral director how much we owed, and he said nothing. He said he had heard Gary was a Navy vet and had called someone about the expenses and was told there was no record of Gary, but after some more guestions told him to hang on.......they later came back and gave him a number to call. He called and told them what it was about, and the voice on the line said "just a minute". When it came back they asked for his business bank account number, and told him to check his account a little while later. He did, and Gary's service was paid into his account in full. He didn't ask where it came from, but it was paid. I don't know what Gary was......I know he said he was a Navy Seal, but I never saw any papers on him..........and I never asked more guestions of him. At the funeral my friend, who was a little closer to Gary, told me that Gary had left something with him that he wanted me to have, and he would bring it around in a few days. He showed up with a G43.......or sort of one, and gave it to me from Gary.......it was missing the mag, don't know what happened to it, and I didn't ask. He also told me how Gary took the junk reciever he got somewhere and made a laminated stock, and all the other parts, he used an old leather belt with a U.S. brass belt buckle for the sling keeper, a piece of copper became the front site (I don't know what the base is), he used something to fabricate the other parts, screws, have no idea what the cleaning rod is, and it is held in the stock with a carrige bolt. I don't know if it fires or not.......but I have never tried it, and don't want to. My friend claims Gary told him it works just fine, but I never tried. He said that the barrel is threaded because Gary made a silencer for it......but I never saw that.......he said Gary told him he threw it away because he didn't want me to get in trouble. So, I have a G43 of sorts......I know it is fake, not real and not genuine........and it is worthless; however, it is, at least in part, a genuine and real Gary original.........and to me it is priceless, not another like it.
Ron
Ron
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