To say Roger Buchko supports gun rights would be an understatement. Just ask his letter carrier.

Buchko, 49, of

, made a giant mailbox in the shape of a .44 Magnum revolver that has been drawing attention and turning heads in his northwestern New Jersey community.

Ever since Buchko installed the mailbox two weeks ago, he's been overwhelmed by the support he's received.

"At least 500 people have taken pictures of it already," said Buchko, a semi-retired cabinetmaker. "They love it. I haven't had one hater yet, except one night somebody threw eggs on it.

"I'm lucky. I expected everybody was going to hate me but turns out everybody loves me."

Buchko got the idea while surfing the Internet one day.

"I just came across a couple on the Internet, and I said, 'I could build one of them but much better,'" he said in an interview today. "I'm like a crazy artist. I get an idea in my head and just roll with it."

Buchko said he worked a couple of hours per day for three or four months on the replica gun. He modeled it after his own Smith & Wesson, he said.

He did it, he said, not to make a statement about gun ownership or to anger anyone with philosophical differences. He said he respects different viewpoints.

"I put it out there to try to get some work and because I needed a new mailbox," he said.

A friend, excavator Troy Vansyckle, helped build the mailbox, which is made of wood and PVC pipe. It weighs several hundred pounds and is mounted on a 1,200-pound steel plate for which Buchko enlisted Vansyckle's backhoe to install.

The gun's ammunition cylinder, which revolves on ball bearings, is made of wood, as is the grip. The barrel is PVC piping. Bills, letters and junk mail all get deposited into the muzzle. Buchko says his mail carrier loves it.

He checked with postal officials before placing the piece at roadside.

"I don't see a problem with it," said

Postmaster Melody Baylis. "As long as it accommodates the size of the mail he receives, it's not a problem."

Baylis, postmaster in the Warren County town the past two years, said she was amazed by Buchko's craftsmanship.

The mailbox, she said, isn't any different in principle than other mailboxes shaped like fish, cartoon characters or other nontraditional receptacles.

"I think it's very innovative. I'm 100 percent supportive," she said.

Buchko was pleased with the outcome.

"It's a monument," he said.