WARNING! A Springfield Armory M1A Nearly Ended My Marriage

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Tragically, the only effective way to learn hard lessons is through experience. As a card-carrying 59-year-old geezer, I thought I might impart some of my hard-won wisdom to you younger folks. If you are a broke gun nerd trying to make a new family as was I, for the love of all that’s good and wholesome, don’t be like me.

The Landscape

Marriage is an institution conceived and ordained by God Himself. Per the Genesis narrative, the first two humans became the species’ first married couple. Of course, the pickings were slim there in the garden of Eden. It was just Adam and Eve. There was little need for Tinder. Nowadays, marriage has come to be viewed as a fairly fluid thing. Some might say it has evolved with the times. Others feel it has been horribly corrupted. Regardless of your particular camp, practical reality bears little similarity to the idealized fiction portrayed in the bridal magazines.

Folks enter into marriage for some of the most extraordinary reasons. I dated my girl for years, spending every free moment and every spare dollar in her pursuit. Others get hitched on a whim. My wife’s grandparents dated for three weeks. They were ultimately married for seventy-two years. It’s a weird old world.

Now that I have been off the market some 37 years myself, I have learned a few indelible lessons about marriage. For starters, it is way more about sacrifice than satisfaction. Enter into marriage because of what your spouse can give you, and you are destined for misery. The truly successful spouse should derive intrinsic satisfaction out of facilitating their mate’s happiness. 

Those are some fine platitudes, to be sure. However, do not for a moment believe I was born knowing that. That particular life lesson was inculcated as the practical result of some fairly ghastly experience. In my case, a particularly sweet Springfield Armory M1A rifle nearly torpedoed my marriage before it really got started.

The Interloper

The modern powerhouse gun company Springfield Armory had its genesis as a family business hawking ex-military swag called Reese Surplus. Their earliest business meetings took place over the dinner table. Along the way, Reese Surplus acquired large quantities of torch-cut scrap military firearms. By stripping the usable parts from these hulks and reselling them, Reese Surplus began to grow.

The company was owed a debt by a small gun-building concern that could not meet their obligations for a significant parts purchase. Bob Reese, the founder and CEO, subsequently bought that small company and grew it into what we all know as Springfield Armory today. Doing so required mortgaging the family farm, but it obviously turned out fine.

Starting around 1971, Springfield Armory began producing a semiautomatic version of the M14 service rifle they called the M1A. Those early rifles were built around newly-manufactured semiauto receivers but included a great many GI surplus parts. As they were the only show in town for domestically-produced battle rifles, the M1A sold vigorously.

The world of scary black guns was unrecognizable back then from what it is today. New-made machineguns were both plentiful and cheap, but there weren’t but a handful of folks who had the means and interest to acquire them. The $200 transfer tax in 1971 would be about $1600 today. This onerous tribute essentially suffocated any potential commerce in automatic weapons. Additionally, the SP1 Colt AR15 was really the only modern sporting rifle on the market. The Mini-14 debuted in 1973, but gun shops back then carried Fudd guns and little else.

In fairly short order, Springfield Armory was building complete M1A’s from scratch and developing a well-earned reputation for quality. The same power, accuracy, and reliability that made the M14 a successful combat implement translated into popularity with American civilian shooters as well. There is just something sultry about that long barrel, the thin slotted flash suppressor, and the 20-round box magazine that synergistically creates an aesthetically attractive firearm. As a committed gun nerd who came of age in the 1980’s, I simply had to have one of my own.

The Disease

You’ve all got the gun nerd gene, or you wouldn’t be reading these words. Some folks are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, or porn. For me, my drug of choice is firearms--the scarier the better. Oftentimes, it’s not the having but the getting. I will set my sights on something cool and noisy and then wheel and deal to make it mine before moving on to the next conquest. Back when I had very few resources, that most often meant trading for stuff at gun shows.

There are two discreet categories of money in America. These two currencies look the same, but they couldn’t be more different. One sort of money is used for stuff like rent, gas, insurance, food, and diapers. The other kind buys guns and ammunition. I found out the hard way that these two different currencies, though appearing esoterically similar, are very seldom interchangeable.

Real money comes from your regular job. Gun money is accumulated over time via birthday presents from Aunt Edna and those intoxicating little envelopes you might score on Christmas morning. Taken individually, each of these little gifts won’t do much at the local gun emporium. However, if hoarded over time and responsibly wielded, great mischief can be found through the adroit management of these tidy sums.

The Problem

I had been married to my soul mate for mere months. I was in my fifth year of mechanical engineering school and was essentially worthless. I had earned my commission as a second lieutenant the year before and would enter the Army on active duty soon after graduation. My new wife, who was and is markedly smarter than am I, toiled away as a school teacher to keep us both fed. That paid the rent and bought the food, but we didn’t have two spare dimes to rub together.

My own burgeoning gun collection was both modest and eclectic. The SP1 Colt AR15 had been the end result of an entire year’s toil as a janitor in a drug store. The HK VP70 was a steal because the trigger sucked so badly. The Franchi LAW12  autoloading shotgun had come at a good price. However, the luster had waned on the scattergun. I felt that was something I could now live without. I tossed the Franchi over my shoulder, dropped $400-worth of meticulously-accumulated gun money in the pocket of my Levis, and climbed into the truck with a buddy to trek the 2.5 hours south to Jackson, Mississippi, and the only decent gun show in the state.

Candyland

For those unfortunate enough to have grown up in the Information Age, you just cannot imagine how awesome a decent gun show was in the era before the Internet. Nowadays, sites like GunBroker offer pretty much anything that shoots 24/7. Gone are the days of feverishly stalking the grubby aisles looking for treasure and then haggling until a deal was done. I mourn the passing of analog gun shows.

My buddy and I had a tradition. We would drive down early, scope out the wares, and then score a couple of GI-reject MREs from a surplus vendor for lunch. We’d stake out a corner, eat our nasty antique Army food, and scheme out our conquests. Then, once our repast was complete, we’d fan out to do our haggling. 

Wheeling and dealing was the order of the day. Sometimes I hit the jackpot. Others I ended up as somebody else’s sucker. Regardless, the economy got stimulated, and a grand time was had by all. On this fateful day, a certain magical melding of Parkerized steel and stained walnut began calling my name.

This particular tricked-out M1A was gorgeous. It was glass-bedded, accurized, and marked $1100. In a moment of heady stupidity, I made that sexy smoke pole mine for my LAW-12, my $400 in gun money, and a further $300 in real money I insanely put on the credit card. I got my buddy to drive so I could paw over the thing on the way home.

The Aftermath

My sweet young wife didn’t know squat about guns, but she could tell at a glance I did not land that epic rifle for my old beater 12-bore and $400. I sheepishly admitted to my extraordinary lapse of judgment and threw myself on her mercy. For reasons I still do not comprehend, she neither divorced nor murdered me. We ate beanie weenies for three months, and I learned a valuable lesson.

My own personal arsenal has grown substantially since then. However, since that moment, I have not spent a dime of real money on guns. I actually embarked upon a side hustle writing for gun magazines just to keep my sordid addiction fed. I also still have both the woman and the rifle, so I guess that means I win.

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