I was reminded this week that my youngest firearm is a modern version of an 1892 design, and the fancy "modern" pistol (made on those new CNC machines with computers!) I used as my CCW for the first decade I could carry is now over 20 years old.
Cars are supposed to become antiques after 20 years, right? What about guns?
Generally, I think about old guns as beautiful relics of craftsmanship long gone. Glock's first wonder-nines are approaching 40 year old, and I just can't look at them like that.
I'm in the "it depends" camp when looking at what makes a gun old. Keep in mind, this is separate from the current, legal definition of an "antique" firearm here in the U.S., which is anything pre-1899.
First off, I will always fight the concept that all old guns, or old guns in general, are "beautiful relics of craftsmanship long gone." Due to circumstances of what I consider a previous life now, I've had a pile of old guns pass through my hands. We definitely suffer from survivorship bias in evaluating the quality of old Curio and Relic firearms. For every nice Winchester, Colt, Belgian-Browning or Smith and Wesson Registered Magnum, there were hundreds of Iver Johnsons, Montgomery Wards, Stevens and dozens of other inexpensive or downright cheaply made brands which escape me at the moment. As much as we bemoan the current perceived cheapening of manufacturing process, most of the old utility shotguns, cheap .22 rifles and break-open revolvers were also made with what was then the latest cost-saving measures. Stamped parts, soft steels in springs and small parts, not-metal pieces like trigger guards and butt plates; all of the short-cuts are there for those who know what they're looking at.
Secondly, a gun has to be OLD to be old. My recent production Colt 1911 is a new gun, even if Colt has been making them continuously since 1911. It has modern steels, is made on modern equipment to modern blueprints. That's a new gun. The Colt 1903 in my avatar, and my Savage 1907 .32 Automatic, are OLD guns. The Savage was made in 1911; the Colt in 1928. But a US Armaments "Colt 1903" isn't an old gun and has a long time to wait to be an old gun.
Now it gets weird with certain other models and manufacture dates. I have a Smith and Wesson Combat Masterpiece that by almost any definition is an "old" gun, being made in 1954-ish. I don't consider it to be particularly old, as it was made well after WWII and effectively with modern metallurgy. My grandfather's old Ruger 77 hunting rifle, which is mine now, is 50 years old, so certainly a C&R and old at this point in time. But I don't look at it and consider it anything but a modern firearm. Yet if I still had something like my dad's old Colt SP-1 Sporter rifle, it would be getting far enough along to start heading for old gun status.
