Where Are Your Rifles...Gone But Not Forgotten.

[AP2020]

I'll start!

Several years ago...

Ruger K77/22Mag VWMBZ with Custom Green Mountain 17HMR Barrel. This baby "was" a shooter. Easily 1/2MOA out to 200 yards [with no wind!]. I added the trigger over travel screw.

In my quest to fund another project.....I sold this baby...tsk..tsk..tsk!!

 

[contender]

Nice gun.

I think all of us can recall many firearms we "let go" and wish we hadn't. It's called "seller remorse." I found a cure,,, I quit trading & selling. I buy what I want & keep it.
But it wasn't always like that. There was this Garand,,, or the Remington 788 in 222,,, or the Herters 6mm,,, or the,,,,,,,,! Aw heck,,, I'm not EVEN going to get started on the handguns!

 

[AP2020]

Nice gun.

I think all of us can recall many firearms we "let go" and wish we hadn't. It's called "seller remorse." I found a cure,,, I quit trading & selling. I buy what I want & keep it.
But it wasn't always like that. There was this Garand,,, or the Remington 788 in 222,,, or the Herters 6mm,,, or the,,,,,,,,! Aw heck,,, I'm not EVEN going to get started on the handguns!

Indeed!
Wow, Herters... I have not heard that name in awhile!
Growing up in the 1970s I would pour over their mail order catalog. Waseca, Minn.

 

[Rocdoc]

Of course I regret sending some down the line, but they did so to get something I wanted more at the time.

 

[wayned]

Many of my bills have been paid and family fed by weapons I've owned and loved, but oh well. STUFF happens.

 

[Bearcat]

After fifty years of collecting and trading, I am now deciding to send some very nice rifles off to new homes.

Painful at times, but we need the cash in retirement more than a couple of dozen rifles in the safe. Sure do regret selling the Ruger 77 .22 WMR. Great old, high-gloss bluing in a figured walnut stock....and a real tack-driver. Now it is someone else's favorite rimfire......

Still trying to justify keeping the red pad, tang safety .30-06 and the 6.5 X 55 mm Swede Model 77s......

Also let a lot of nice 10/22s go in my quest for the perfect one.....

 

[contender]

Bearcat,,, I hear you. I always say that we are only temporary custodians of such stuff. Plus,,, Miss Penny doesn't mind my buying & keeping guns,,, as she likes to say: "Keep on building my inheritance."
But I also know that one day,, I will start selling my goodies as well. Unless something happens to where Miss Penny or our sons have to do it.

 

[9x19]

I haven't forgotten, as I keep a list of all the guns I've owned... but like others have said trading/selling is the only way I got to enjoy so many different makes/models. Most were good, some were not, some I've kept a long time, others moved on in a hurry.

Life's too short to own guns you really don't like.

 

[jjas]

The only ones I've sent down the road that I wish I hadn't, were the first .22 rifle I purchased (a marlin model 60), a Marlin 39m, a Ruger mark ll, a Colt .45 acp, and a Browning bps slug gun. All were trouble free and accurate.

The rest that I've purchased (and later sold) were fun to own (well most were) but I quickly grew bored with them and/or wanted to try something new, so off they went....

 

[Rumrunner]

Better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. Oh wait does this apply to guns or??

 

[AP2020]

So true!

 

[Big John]

Usually I don't opine, but this struck a chord with me. Back ~ 1984 a "Mid-Box" store was closing shop in Houston. I convinced my wife to purchase a S&W 17 with an 8 3/8" bbl. for $215. She came home as mad as a wet cat because it took over an hour. I was gonna put it on the shelf, but my devious brother convinced me it wasn't a good investment. A month later he convinced me to sell it to one of his friends for $230. I thought my wife would be happy that it was gone and there was a $15 profit.
I was wrong.
She pointed out that her time was worth more the $15/hour.
That was over 30 years ago. I learned to research, make a good decision, and NEVER get rid of a gun...unless you gift it to a child or friend.

 

[jimd441]

I have always done a much better job of buying guns than selling guns. Actually, I have never sold a gun, much to the dismay of my wife. There are some old guns from my youth that I haven't shot in years, but every the the thought of selling one comes up, it is overwhelmed by all the fond memories I have of that gun.

Jim

 

[AP2020]

Usually I don't opine, but this struck a chord with me. Back ~ 1984 a "Mid-Box" store was closing shop in Houston. I convinced my wife to purchase a S&W 17 with an 8 3/8" bbl. for $215. She came home as mad as a wet cat because it took over an hour. I was gonna put it on the shelf, but my devious brother convinced me it wasn't a good investment. A month later he convinced me to sell it to one of his friends for $230. I thought my wife would be happy that it was gone and there was a $15 profit.
I was wrong.
She pointed out that her time was worth more the $15/hour.
That was over 30 years ago. I learned to research, make a good decision, and NEVER get rid of a gun...unless you gift it to a child or friend.

Great story indeed!

 

[Mike Armstrong]

My gun accumulation has gone up and down with the national and regional economy over the many years I've been doing this. Doctor bills, house payments, etc. trump (sorry, but it's the right verb) most guns. I say "most" because there is a core of arms that a person needs--for defense and for maintaining a sense of personal history; YOUR story.

I went from owning 24 guns in 1982 to 2, due to a very bad regional recession in the Northwest that ended with bolth my wife and I being laid off and having to move our two kids from Idaho to Vermont to get ONE good job. And our ID house didn't sell for two years.

Kept my first gun (single shot Win .410) and my grandfather's Colt New Service .44-40. Killed a lot of small game and birds with that .410 while waiting to get a job, tho! I'd forgotten how well you can do with a "minimal" gun when that's all you've got! The .44 did "house gun" duty, and still could.

One year later, I woke up one morning and there was a truly beautiful Savage/Valmet Model 333 12 guage O/U sitting on the couch, courtesy of my wife. That's the third gun I WON'T sell! Guns with stories are part of the glue that holds our family together, good times and bad.