I know you've got one...

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A cheap rifle. Nope, not like the savage you picked up on black friday a few years back. I'm talking about the gun your neighbor sold you for $8 back in 1975, you get the idea.
-what gun do you have that you got ridiculously cheap? (excluding gifts)
-do you ever shoot it/ is it decent?
- would you buy another at the same price if possible?

I'm a sucker for a deal and have bought quite a few guns over the years for low prices but only one stands out as not only the cheapest (traded 100 rds factory reloaded 45 acp for it) but also a pretty decent rifle that i would trade for or buy another for a good price anytime.
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Yep, a winchester model 250. It's kind of an odd ball, never knew it existed and haven't seen another one in person. The guy i got it from was shocked i was interested in it and obviously didn't think much of it. I doubt its ever been disassembled for cleaning. I added the scope and use it as a designated subsonic/cb cap rifle. Sighted in at 10 yards and typically loaded with cci cb shorts for plinking around and dispatching yard and attic pests when need be. I keep this one handy and don't worry about taking it out in the rain or if it gets dropped by accident. Kind of the redheaded step child of the winchester family but has proven to be very reliable and accurate, who wouldn't love that?

What have you gotten dirt cheap?
 
I'm a relative newbie so no cheapies for me. I did get my only revolver for free as a gift from my uncle (was my grandpa's armored car sidearm), otherwise I've paid relatively normal prices via retail. My Weatherby Vanguard Heavy Barrel I just bought claims an MSRP of $789 or something like that and I got it for $399, but that's not crazy far under the actual street price I'm guessing. Maybe someday I'll score a crazy cheap deal!
 
uh...just bought a Savage 110 in 06 for 275 landed, not great but cheaper than usual. It's got a Butler Creek stock, and Philippines Simon's that are going back on eBay.
I also have a Shilen barrel to install that I think I got for 100....so be out the door at 400 for a shilen barreled custom rifle after labor.
 
My dad had one of those Winchesters when we were kids, and we shot the snot out of it. Ended up breaking the firing pin.

Took it to a couple of local smiths, and both said the parts were unavailble and might as well just scrap it. It sat in his closet for a couple of decades after that and we found it there after he died.

I decided before I chucked it, Id look aroud and see if I could find some parts. 5 minutes on line, Numrich had everything, and a couple of days later, and another 10 minutes or so and it was back up and running. Still as fun now as it was then too. :)
 
Best I can do is a Rossi Trifecta, 20 ga/.22/.243 barrel set, still in the plastic, with the case. Uglier than snot. Was at a garage sale, Sunday afternoon, saw it on the table, picked it up. Tag said $100. Put it down. Guy said he's take an offer, told him I really wasn't interested. It was a Rossi. It was ugly. Said i was the first person in 3 days to even pick the thing up. Asked me if I'd take it for $50. While I'm trying to figure out what I'd do with it, he says, "How 'bout $40?" Gotta love it when a guy bargains with himself. Bought it for the $40. Took it home, cleaned it up, never been shot. Donated it to my D U chapter, who raffled it off, making $300 for the ducks. Win all around.
 
I buy a lot of fixer uppers so I usually get decent deals on old guns but only because they need TLC and finishing so few people would want it. I paid $100 for a pre war mosin nagant in excellent condition a couple years ago. The guy hadn't gotten the memo that they aren't $100 any more. The best deal I've ever gotten on a gun is a Thompson Center contender. I won it on an gunbroker auction for $400 and after selling the barrel, scope, grip, and scope mount I had a free contender frame.
 
Just got this .32-20 Hand Ejector for $50 at an estate sale-
20191009_214524.jpg Spent a couple hours dissasembling and buffing it last night. Getting dipped in the salts tonight. Mechanically perfect.

Paid $14 for my first Arisaka back in the '90s.

Paid $150 for this nice Victory Model at a tacticool shop who thought it was giving their poly guns cooties in the display case-
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I got this New Army with original finish and cartouches for $175 because it had a bunch of broken springs.
20170506_101552.jpg Ordered some spring stock and made what I needed. Cost me $35 and a couple hours labor. Got a $700 trade-in credit for it on a Luger later on.

Paid $100 for this Model 4.
index-32.jpg It had a broken spring and bent trigger bar/disconnector. Easy fix. Actually ran pretty good for such a crude pistol.

Paid $100 at a gunshow for my Marlin M81DL. It needed refinished and was missing the trigger guard and peep sight aperatures.
Marlin 81dl.jpg One of my most accurate and favorite plinkers now.:D
 
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60 years ago my dad bought me a Winchester Model 67A 22LR from a Montgomery Ward store. I think he paid $7 or $8 for it brand new. I still have it. Wrapped it up in paper about 40 years ago when I moved and it was in the back of a closet when I came across it several years ago. I refinished the stock and reblued the barrel about 4 years ago. Took it out shooting at a range. Put about 200 rounds through it and it shot right on at 25yards. Brought it home cleaned it real good. Oiled it up and put it in a rifle sock and into my safe and that's where it's been since. I hope someone will take it out shooting before another 55 years passes by. Going to give it to one of my nephews or nieces real soon. I would take it out but I just have too many other guns to shoot.
 
One of my Dad's friends gave me a U.S. Springfield Model 1898 rifle (a.k.a. Krag Jorgensen), for free. Tough to turn down that kind of offer even if it had been bright chrome plated along with having a heavy shellacked coating on the wood. Probably used as a parade rifle by some veteran's organization it was still in pretty good shape overall, especially the barrel. The plating and shelIac actually did a great job of preserving the metal and wood underneath.

I stripped off the chrome plating by soaking the parts in Hoppe's No. 9 and carefully removed the shellac finish with very light sanding. Had the gun blued, leaving the bolt in the white, stained the wood with a mixture of walnut and mahogany stains, and sealed it with several applications of tung oil. Turned out pretty nice and everything still works just as it was designed for over 120 years ago.

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I picked up a Colt New Service .45 with its original holster at an auction for $450. That doesn't sound so unusually good, except that it was in near perfect condition. What helped it a little more were the Naval markings. It was marked USS Illinois but made a year too late to have made the ship's round the world cruise.
 
Back when I was trading things around a lot trying to find stuff I actually liked, I traded into a few muzzleloaders. I still have the TC Hawken and what I call my “canoe gun”.both are percussion sidelocks that were thrown in as boot to sweeten a deal I was waffling on. A few inlines came and went but these stayed.

I also have a few basket case guns that were broken when I got them and I fixed them or reassembled them. My 1896 S&W safety hammerless 38 is one, the Colt New Line 22 is another.

how about the Marlin 62 Levermatic 30 carbine I have $120 for a couple years ago...

then there’s the marlin 60 that was found while squirrel hunting. My buddy got the squirrels and I got the rusty old rifle to play with and get back to operational. I had to buy a stock and clean it up with steel wool and sandpaper, but it’s functional now.

I’m missing a cheapo shotgun on my list. I have had a few and I have them away or trade them for other stuff because I typically don’t have much need for a scattergun.
 
I picked up a Colt New Service .45 with its original holster at an auction for $450. That doesn't sound so unusually good, except that it was in near perfect condition. What helped it a little more were the Naval markings. It was marked USS Illinois but made a year too late to have made the ship's round the world cruise.
Wow! Pics, man, we need pics!
 
-what gun do you have that you got ridiculously cheap? (excluding gifts)
-do you ever shoot it/ is it decent?
- would you buy another at the same price if possible?

Picked up a Ruger Mark II pistol in ‘99 from a buddy, while in high school. He had bought it from another guy, but his parents found out and wouldn’t let him keep it. I offered him $90, plus $10 for a couple 500rnd boxes of ammo he had and walked home with the pistol. I made a valiant effort to shoot one of the boxes empty on the 3 mile walk between our houses.

I shoot the hell out of it, and have since ‘99.

I’d buy a hundred of them if I could find them for $90. I’ve paid a lot more than that for them since.

More fitting to the spirit of the post, I suppose - I bought a Ballister Molina Policia Federal pistol at a farm sale that same year for $70, about half of street price at the time, it was disassembled in a box of parts, labeled “not a 1911.” There weren’t any other guns on the salebill, so nobody was there for guns, and nobody seemed to want to take a risk on a mystery box. All of the parts were there, and in the next ~15 years, I shot the barrel smooth. Great pistol, a 1911 near-clone, nothing fancy, nothing special, but it shot well. I gave up on it a handful of years ago and sold it to a friend whose son had been shooting it quite a bit at my range the few years before when they came over. I’d sourced and fit a new barrel, such it was shooting about the same as the day I bought it, so I sold it to the kid for the price of the barrel - $50.
 
One of my Dad's friends gave me a U.S. Springfield Model 1898 rifle (a.k.a. Krag Jorgensen), for free. Tough to turn down that kind of offer even if it had been bright chrome plated along with having a heavy shellacked coating on the wood. Probably used as a parade rifle by some veteran's organization it was still in pretty good shape overall, especially the barrel. The plating and shelIac actually did a great job of preserving the metal and wood underneath.

I stripped off the chrome plating by soaking the parts in Hoppe's No. 9 and carefully removed the shellac finish with very light sanding. Had the gun blued, leaving the bolt in the white, stained the wood with a mixture of walnut and mahogany stains, and sealed it with several applications of tung oil. Turned out pretty nice and everything still works just as it was designed for over 120 years ago.

View attachment 866135


Much drooling. I have a little bit of a Krag fetish and that one looks better than it did newly issued. Congratulations!
 
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