doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ever buy a gun because it is ugly or messed up?

I came within a inch of buying this gun because it is screwed up and would have been a nice gun with a little help. Problem was I have just bought my third Browning Super and have no interest in one more right now. I hope the first thing the new owner does is remove that extension.

http://www.gunrunnerauctions.com/listings/details/index.cfm?itemnum=947360463

Raised cheek piece on a Browning is just wrong. And that home made cutts-like extension needs to go. Then you would have a decent gun. Would have made more sense to buy this one than several others I have bought.

Ever bought a gun just to undo this kind of stuff?

"Rescue me" What could they have been thinking?!?

http://www.williamlarkinmoore.com/product_details.asp?id=2351

I've heard of people doing peculiar things because of love and obsession but buying something because it is ugly and messed up is perverse.

That's like marrying an ugly woman hoping you grow into it.....

looks like an old Bob Brister gun


JOhn Boyd

I think the question should have been, "Have you ever saved and ugly or messed up gun".
Why yes!
577x500 BPE Rhoda snap action, self-cocking hammer gun, with dry rotted and shattered wrist. Come-on a self-cocking hammer gun, I had to buy it.
12 Edwin Lang back action hammer gun with pitted damascus inside. There is a nice damascus pattern to learn browning on.
12 Patstone bar-in-wood hammer gun with SouthGate ejectors, weird stock dimensions until UPS busted it in the wrist.

They are waiting for me to get off my ... and fix-um.

Joe

Hmm.. I must plead guilty.

Kingsley - I am glad to see you have not fallen into the trap that woos many of us mere mortals. I guess you are made of stouter stuff than I am.

I have brought home rusted, abused, Ithaca Model 37's, an early Fluzie with flapping rib and broken stock ( Russ Ruppel helped me with that one). Another gem was an L C Smith Ideal Grade with broken ejectors and a replacement stock that must have been made with a hand-axe, which was followed shortly by a Lefever with a repair from about 1910 that didnt work then, and which the pawnbroker esentially gave to me. That one I finally gave up on , and sold to a guy who can fix ANYTHING in the stock realm, and he did.

These guns joined a stream of sad Colt Detective Specials, Agents and Cobras, forlorn S & W Model 10's, and Colt Government Models which were merely blocks of rust, all brought home like lost puppies to be bettered...

All of them in need of "rescue", bought cheap , and sometimes successfully transformed from "sows ear" into "silk purse". More usually of course, not. But it has always been fun and interesting, and I have learned a lot, and wound up with a few keepers, and always at least the experience. Usually the cost of the rescue has exceeded the dollar value. I have sworn off the practice...until after graduate school is completed, but....

I still have an NIG hammer gun awaiting a new , correct hammer, and late Ithaca NID "Star Variant" Field Grade with a demolished stock awaits me... as it has for almost 5 years. Someday, I'll get to it.

Regards

GKT

Yeah, but I quit right after I stopped trying to reform the strippers I was dating.

Sadly I suffer from this affliction as well. I frequently buy guns with "issues" though usually not too severe. I enjoy tinkering with them, and "reviving the dead" I have found that usually the cost far out weights the value but I buy them with the intention of keeping them anyway. I feel I am saving these beautiful old ladies from the scrap heap just as some do with old cars.

Of course! I believe they call these things "project guns". As stated, they are often money pits, but they can provide many enjoyable hours of interesting labor that are better uses of my time than TV watching. We've seen enough "before and after" photos here to know this hobby is anything but perverse.