For Gun Fanciers, It Was That Perfect Feel : Firearms: Crowds gather to look at and heft weapons at an NRA convention clouded by several legislative reverses.

“I definitely like the feel of that,” Duane Rowland muttered to himself as he stared down the scope of an imposing .44 magnum pistol that would have made Dirty Harry proud.

Carefully, the Huntington Beach charter bus driver squeezed the trigger, lurching backwards ever so slightly as he imagined a direct hit on an imaginary spot on the wall at the Anaheim Convention Center.

“That’s my gun,” Rowland, an occasional big-game hunter, said as he rested the big firearm with its 9 1/2-inch barrel gently on the table. “It’s perfect.”

For Rowland and several thousand other people at the opening of the National Rifle Assn.’s three-day gun exhibit, it was a day to dabble in perfection--to get a glimpse of some of the best firearms made, and to do it among people who appreciate “a good gun.”

At a time of rising public concern over crime issues, gun enthusiasts have been thrown on the defensive by increasingly successful efforts to limit access to some firearms. In the eyes of their critics and the media, complained Jack Greenlees, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, “we’re zealots and fanatics and crazies.”

But none of that seemed to matter Friday as Southern Californians and others from around the country, in Anaheim for the NRA’s annual convention, viewed the latest in pistols, rifles, crossbows and firearms paraphernalia from some 200 exhibitors in one of the biggest shows of its kind in the nation.

Collectors combed the exhibition hall in search of that elusive 19th-Century pistol or ogled other antique weaponry, such as a glistening replica of a George Washington battle sword. Cops came to see what they might be facing on the streets because, as retired San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputy John Cooper asserted, “The crooks don’t care about the bans; they’ve got the guns.”

Mothers brought small children to the exhibit, keeping them busy with books on display on children’s gun safety and with a nearby shooting range--five shots for 50 cents.

In the evening, an expected 1,500 NRA members and supporters attended a rally to begin a campaign aimed at raising more than $1 million and making the NRA’s presence felt more powerfully in California’s voting booths in November.

State NRA leaders plan to target still-unspecified legislators who have taken anti-gun positions on key issues--specifically the passage of two unique pieces of legislation that made some types of semiautomatic assault rifles illegal in California and put into place a 15-day waiting period for the purchase of all firearms.

In an interview, Wayne R. La Pierre Jr., executive director of the NRA’s lobbying arm, said that the NRA was even displeased with some of its past supporters, including Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a candidate for governor who voted last month in favor of a semiautomatic weapons ban that passed the Senate. The bill has now been stalled by opponents.

The effects of California’s newly enacted gun restriction could be seen at the exhibition--a scarcity of some types of semiautomatic weapons. Some out-of-state gun dealers said they were uncertain about the timetable for enactment of California’s new law and about which semiautomatics would pass muster under it, so they just left them all at home.

But there were plenty of other guns to go around--Remingtons, Rugers, Smith & Wessons, Colts and the latest in many other big-name models.

For Greenlees, the retired L.A. sheriff’s deputy, it was an $800 Century Model 100, a 6 1/2-inch revolver first discharged in the late 1800s, that caught his eye. The large pistol, he explained, seems custom-made for an oversized Civil War-era holster that he owns.

“I looked down (at the display case) and realized that was the one I’d been looking for,” he said. “I have to have it. . . . I’ll just keep it for my collection. There’s not much else you could do with it--except shoot elephants, maybe.”

A PROFILE OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSN.

Founded: In 1871 by former Union Army officers, with its main focus on marksmanship, hunting and safety. Current mission is “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially with reference to the inalienable right of individual, law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”

Membership: 2.8 million members in 1989. Annual dues are $25.

Budget: $87.5 million in 1989. Included $19.7 million for federal and local lobbying.

Among noted members past and present: Presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard M. Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt; actor Charlton Heston; entertainer Roy Rogers; rock singer-guitarist Ted Nugent; Joe Foss, former World War II Congressional Medal of Honor winner, first commissioner of the American Football League and outgoing NRA president; and Jerry Mathers, television’s “Beaver” from “Leave it to . . . “

Why people bear arms: About 51% of the nation’s 65 million gun owners say hunting is their main reason for having or using a firearm, according to a 1978 survey. Another 32% listed “protection,” 13% target shooting, and 4% collecting.

Source: National Rifle Assn.