Best and worst gun deals you've ever made

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...Ever pass up a great deal only to dwell on it later?...

Dillon Square Deal B in 380 Auto NIB for $150
FAL, eventhough it was a Century on a Imbel receiver, $350
Colt Commander with Kart barrel and bushing, $400
 
Worst deal....sold an all "Belgium" BHP for $400, wish I had it back.

Best deal......$950 for this Classic Gold Cup, one of only 300 made. Have seen them sell for around twice that.

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U.S. Rifle Caliber .30, M1 Garand. Danish with a 1963? VAR barrel and a 50 Cal can of 30-06 ball for $400.

Good friend moving his Dad's collection, I got in first and he gave me 'Best Friend' price. :)

No bad ones yet, but I'm new, give me time. ;)
RT
 
Best deal: $100 for a 30/30 Sears Model 100 Ted Williams lever action. The outside is slightly rough, and to this day, it's probably not worth more than the $100 I paid for it used, but wheeewww can it shoot. Open sights at 100 yds from a bench, I can outshoot my buddy and my dad with their 7mm Rem Mag BDL's and 3x9's all day long. Seriously. For some reason, this little gun just likes to shoot. More often than not, during deer season, I leave my .270 BDL at home and take the 30/30.

Worst deal: Selling my Beretta 92FS and 4 hi cap mags just before the '94 ban went into effect for $500, when I paid over $600 for it. Stupidly wanted to buy a motorcycle and needed cash. Had I waited a few months, I could have gotten $50 per mag during the ban hysteria (like the buyer of my gun did I'm sure). Lesson learned: NEVER SELL YOUR GUNS.
 
Worst deal: I bought a Tec-9 for some reason. It was a total POS Jam-o-matic hunk of junk.

Best deal: Traded the Tec-9 for a Contender NIB .223 with a 14 inch bull barrel. Most accurate hand gun I have ever shot or seen.

Best freebie: A Colt .38 Police Positive made in 1938. 98% original finish and very tight. Also a Model 37 Ithica 12 gauge made in 1941. Not much blue left but it is sound and shoot great. Got them both from a lady I work with. Her husband left her after 30 years of marrige for a 25 y.o. She got mad and got even by giving his stuff away. Also got several nice pocket knives asnd a cabinet full of booze.:p
 
My worst was paying $800 for a preban Bushmaster M17 bullpup, flash suppressor and all. It sounded like a deal, considering the pre/post price differences on other guns at the time. I got it from a friend, who got it at a show and decided he didn't want it. Turns out he got scammed by the dealer - when I started reading about the M17 development I got suspicious, called Bushmaster, and discovered that it wasn't a preban gun. Whoops. Fortunately, I was able to replace the flash suppressor with a couple barrel nuts and get rid of it woithout too much loss.

My best was a family deal - $700 for a NIB preban (really, this time) Daewoo K2. Now THAT is a sweet rifle.

Best deal in my family was gotten by my dad. He found a legal dewat (ie, plugged barrel but intact inside and legal to make functional) Type 99 Japanese LMG for a whopping $400. Now if only I could get him to reactivate it and buy a magazine or two...
 
My best deals:

A Mosin M91/30 in trade for refinishing a buddy's other M91/30. I have left mine as is - it shows character. ;)

A Mossberg M146B .22 rifle for $40 - it was a rusted ruin. Cleaned up nnice though, and today looks and shoots like new.

A Tanfoglio single-action .22WMR "cowboy revolver" in cheesy chrome with yellowed plastic grips. Looks like a fifties cap pistol! Great fun at the range - it's outshot several Ruger Single-sixes, POing their owners. :D
Good buy for $25! (It's the Grand daddy of today's Heritage Arms Roughrider.)

Worst deal - a J. C. Higgins 20-gauge bolt-acton shotgun, with too-light-to-be-safe trigger. Ah well, it's actually a pretty safe-queen. :rolleyes:

Good deal - a pre-ban M17S Bushpup for $800. I actually love mine! :p
Really good deal - a superb-shooting Winchester M75T target rifle for $300.
Far and away my most accurate .22 rifle - 1/2 MOA capable at 100 yards.
 
I bought a like new S&W Model 57, nickle 4" .41 Mag a couple of years ago for $255.00. On consignment at a local shop. Also bought a like new Inglis No.2 Mk. ! for $299.00. This was about a month ago at a local shop as well.
They had it marked as an FN Hi Power! Worst was when I traded an SKB trap gun for a Huglu 20 Ga. O/U. Biggest POS i've ever owned.
DRC
 
Best Deal? 1973 A like new Ruger 10/22 with Weaver Variable Scope for $50 less than a new Ruger was selling for at the time.

Worst? I bought a late import Star .380. It's not heavy enough to use for an anchor.

Geoff Timm
Who needs to work on his battery.
 
My worst deal was actually strung out over several months. I sold and bought the same beat up Colt double action about four times, losing $100 or so with each deal. I kept selling it for ready cash, then bought it again when it called to me like a lost puppy :D
 
Not actually a gun until I completed it, but I traded 5 used, finish worn 30 rd. AR mags for a FAL kit that has since been turned into a functional rifle.....:)
 
Best and worst on the same gun! Worst was I bought a pre-ban Colt AR for 1800 the month before the ban went into effect. At that time we didn't know how bad it would be. 8 years and 8K rounds later I sold the upper complete for $250, the coll. stock and a few mags for $200 and the lower for $500 cash + a Bushmaster A2 config postban rifle complete! It was a fair deal to the buyer since he wanted a pre-ban gun and I think lives in a state with the ban still in. It was killer for me since my Colt was a 20" A2 and I didn't use the short stock. Now I had an identical rifle with fewer rounds through it and enough cash to buy a pistol. Now that the ban is gone and my Colt would have been worth as much in this state as my Bushy, so I figure Bill Clinton bought me a Glock 34. Thanks Bill, have another cheeseburger.
 
Best for me was a few months ago when I bought a 99% condition S&W 2.5" M66-2 .357 magnum for only $175 from my favorite pawn shop. That made six S&Ws that I've bought from those guys, all well under book values, but none as low as this one. I'd like to think that I'm a special customer, but most of the truth of it is that all those buys had laid in their inventory for awhile. Is that a sign of the current economic times? Used to be how many used Rolexes are for sale.

Worst was selling my M1927 Hartford Colt (in near perfect condition) for only $450 four years ago. I didn't know it at the time, but it was worth at least twice that, and it was number 2653 out of the 10,000 Colt made for the Argentines seventy some years previously. If I'd kept this pistol, it would now be one of my center-pieces in a very fine 10 Colt 1911A1 collection, all different models, all 99%-100% condition. It was that good! And no, none of the ten Colts came from the pawn shop.

Best regards, Jack B.
 
Best: I've paid $299 for a NIB Norinco 1911, $399 for a NIB SA Mil-Spec and $499 for a NIB Colt NRM. Got a LNIB Ruger SRH .454, ported, for $525 shipped from Alaska, and bought a Rusky Mak at a gun show for $100. Also got a police trade-in S&W M66 for $239.

Worst: 2 days before the CA AWB went into effect I bought a Pro Ordnance Carbon-15 pistol for..uh...this hurts....$1399. I can't even get $800 for it now. :mad:

Now I've got over $6k sunk into a Uzi and supressor I haven't shot and don't have yet, but hopefully it won't take over as worst deal. :)
 
I purchase a S&W Model 13-3 3'' $175 very good condition , Colt Commander 1991A1 $360 with night sights ,full length guide rod and new metal trigger.
 
Worst: The NIB Llama .22 that I bought for a tackle box gun. Paid $95 for it sight-unseen through a buddy with a 'hobby' FFL (remember those?). Doubled a couple of times on the first mag and then blew a hole in the dirt 3" in front of my left boot's toe when I dropped the slide on the next one.

After an extended stay at Interarms, it came back with the lockwork STILL looking like it'd been fitted by a monkey with a wood rasp. Sometimes it'd fire at a harsh look, and sometimes you couldn't pull the trigger hard enough to get it to fire. I gave up, as I didn't figure that another six months at Interarms would do anything but finish off the warranty period.

Ended up selling it for a substantial loss to an acquaintance who thought that he could fix it.

Best: NIB S&W Performance Center No. 3 Schofield with presentation case, etc. for $5. The only raffle that I've ever won anything in. Still unfired; my only remaining 'safe queen'. Saving it for the day that I run across something I really want, but can't afford.
 
Good deals:

a Colt New Frontier SAA in .45 Colt for $301. This was when the list was about $571. I sold it and made about $200 off it. Had I held it I could have tripled my money, by now.

Finding a customized LW Commander for $650, that jammed. All it took was a adjustment to the extractor and it ran like a top. :)

Finding a .270 Remington 700 Mountain Rifle for $350, with spectacular wood, very unusual for a Remington. It would string shots horizontally, and I discovered a metal chip stuck on the back of one of the Bolt locking lugs. Fixing that it started shooting better, but still acted up occasionally.

Bad deal - I sold it, thinking the action was sprung, then realized it was actually my wiggly Hoppes Benchrest causing the problem, so I sold it for no good reason. Whoever has it in California is one lucky SOB :cuss:

Bad Deals:

Passing on buying an HK 91 for $450, back in the '80's. Not taking up a guy on trading a Uberti Rolling Block .45-70 for an UZI. (I had $200 in the Uberti). Later selling the Uberti for $250 - had I held it longer it could have brought $750 or so for Blackpower Silhouette.

Buying used Lyman dies - three sets, all had problems.

Buying used Contender barrels(two). Neither was accurate.

Buying a Kimber Stainless Gold Match, for list price, and finding it jammed and needed a trigger job.

And last, but not least, buying a SMLE #4Mk1 with a mint bore, and finding out the hard way that the bolt was broken and it had excess headspace:cuss:
 
Best:
Circa spring 2004, I traded in 10 Glock NDF 15-rd mag's toward a mint Sig P220ST. My cost out the door, $175. :D

Worst:
Circa 1994, I sold a mint Ruger Mini-14 with factory folding metal stock and 3 20-rd factory mag's for $275. :banghead:

Safe shooting (and smart dealing),

CZ52'
 
I have been fortunate a few times but a couple really stand apart and above.
My Ruger SuperRedhawk 454 Casull number 2 for $350.00
Bought number one when they first came out for $600.00 and was pleased.
Buddy had a go around with a Raging POS that went back and forth to Fla for service and finally broke down and bought a Ruger,problem was now he had a gun that would actually fire more than one or two rounds and he now was looking for something more tame.:rolleyes:

Winchester Model 94 in 25-35WCF for $250.00 Another friend was just looking to unload a few good guns before his scumbag son stole them and pawned them for drug money.

Colt 1911 in 38Super. $400.00 with several mags and a ammo can full of fodder at a yard sale,old timer that was looking to save his wife some grief when the time came...

Ruger Blackhawks,,3 screw 41 Mag and 357 Mag for $200.00 Each..in the boxes with ammo,holsters and original receipts.
:neener: LOL
Worst buy.
Davis 38Spl Derringer. About a 90# trigger and abysmal finish work.
Davis 32acp pos from the start,was a gun to carry but not to shoot.
Taurus 669 357Mag. was advertised as their "best available".POS spat lead and was horrid from about 20' and beyond.
..a few others too but these were the worst.
 
Best Deal: I picked up an almost new in box S&W 686 Plus for a little over $200 from a gun store that was going out of business. It had a sale price of $285 on the last day of the sale before the doors closed. From what I was told, one of the owners friends asked him to put it in the back when the sale started as he was going to buy it. When I came in the store, the owner was putting it the case. His friend backed out of the deal. There was only an hour and a half left before they closed so when I was looking at it the owner came up to me and said he'd knock off $80 if I bought it right now. SOLD!!!

Given: When my uncle unfortunately passed away I came into possession of S&W Mod 15-2 38 Special and his Mod 6 22lr. The 38 was his issue gun from when he was in the local PD. The thing is in such great shape I hardly ever take it out to the range. The blueing is seriously 99%. I doubt he ever took it out of the holster. Now the 22lr on the other hand is a complete cosmetic mess. Shoots awesome, but it has less then 30% of the original blueing on it.

Worst: Did an impulse buy on a Yugo Mauser and paid $200 for it. They can be had for a lot lower now a days. Hardly ever shoot the thing too.
 
Absolute worse, Getting a Llama .380 free, for christmas. REAL POS.

Absolute best, Trading that same Llama,(with 3 mags and holster) for a Tauras 85 with holster and 3 speed loaders :D :D .


Best buy, 125.00 for a 2nd gen SAA .357 with 5.5 bbl, in about 1995.

worst buy, Feather mini AT .22, 150.00. :(
 
Best? Every firearm I've ever bought.

Worst? Every firearm I've ever sold.

"I don't own any more guns"







--"well, I don't any less either".
 
Best deals:
I found a 1892 Winchester 25-20 WCF takedown at a garage sale for $300. I didn't know what it was worth so I offered him $250 because there was some light rust all over it and I couldn't even see light through the bore. I took it home and most of the rust just wiped off with some oil and there was some insulation plugging the bore, it cleaned up pretty nice. I traded it a few weeks later to a gun store owner that likes these guns for a NIB Ruger SS Mini-14 and and a nice blued 4" S&W 586.

I also recently bought a Mossberg 500 at a pawn store for about $65. I swapped the 30" tube for a 18" rifle sighted smooth bore and bought a black plastic pistol grip stock and forend on gunbroker for cheap and not I have a cool looking tactical shotgun instead of an old beater. I have less than $100 in it and I could sell it for twice that around here.

Worst deals:
Kel-Tec P-32. I thought they were the ticket because of the size and weight but mine never worked and it ended up costing me about $300 and a bunch of ammo just to get the picture that this gun was a total POS. I traded straight up for a used Beretta 21A. I know the 21A is not worth $300 or even $200 but it was probably worth $150 and at that point, I was glad to get something out of the deal. The Beretta has been tons of fun and it has been 100% with Stingers and is 99% with cheap ammo it likes.
 
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