So you're a "Gun Guy"?

[Buckshot]

..........This just poped into my head as regards a reply 350Mag made to my post on Military Rifles. Ie: Having a 340 Weatherby M1917 given to me to check out, and then getting it for free due to a cracked reciever ring.

I'm sure some of you have had this happen too. Someone finds out you're a "Gun Guy", so that makes you an expert right? On EVERYTHING firearms related since day one? Kind of like someone finds out you were in the Navy (or whatever) and they ask, "Did you know Bob Johnson?". Oh sure, I knew everyone, it's a real close knit group!

A former boss I had once said he had his dad's old pistol and did I know how much it was worth. With about that much information to go on. He did say it spit some lead. He finally brought it in and it was an old H&R top break in 38 S&W with the cylinder locking bolt half broke off. I hated to be the barer of bad news, but this ain't the retirement payoff you were hoping it was gonna be.

But sometimes it's paid off, like my co-worker basicly giving me all those barreled actions, or this busted M1917 sporter. I have a buddy who is a civilian volunteer at Redlands PD, and people come in with guns or ammo to turn in for various reasons. He said a guy brought in a old military rolling block. One of the officers took it and it sat behind his office door at the PD for a few months, and then he took it home.

A kind of similar thing is that in California, due to the gun buyback deals, they'd enacted a law that no firearms transactions could take place within X feet (I forget the distance) of the thing. "Gun Guys" realized the potential. Old auntie Maude has had old uncle Milton's pistol (Colt SAA, 38-40) in the dresser, and she can get a $50 coupon for groceries for it. Whatta deal! You can bet a "Gun Guy" would offer $100 for it. Guess it was cutting down on the guns getting turned in as they went through the line like a threshing machine!

You guys have/had similar deals happen?

................Buckshot

[beagle]

Once in a great while, the "gun guy" title works out for you and someone dumps something on you that's good.

As you say, most of the time they're looking to tell you "grandpa's old gun" is worth a million bucks when actually, it may bring $25 for a wall hanger or floor lamp.

I have lucked up on to some ammo that way and occasioanally, I'll get some powder from a shotgun reloader when he's in the moving business but usially, it's abum steer.

Rick, you're a lucky dog on the milsurps./beagle

[350mag]

Being the "gun guy" doesn't usually hurt. But I sure haven't gotten anything given to me recently like Buckshot. However I did get a call from the freight guy here in the vilage early Sunday morning wanting to know if I wanted to buy a 357 since he needed gas for his truck. At $3.70 a gallon it takes a lot of money to keep his truck running to haul freight from the landing strip down to the village. Anyway, he would have sold a stainless Taurus 357 for around $100 or so. So far in the past three years in this villlage I have spent $325 and picked up a Tokarev TT33, Remington 700 30-06, Husqvarna 30-06 ltwt, Remington 572 .22 pump, and a Dan Wesson 357. They all needed some work ranging from broken/missing parts to stock refinishing, but they all work now. Not too bad I guess. I could probably end up with more if I wanted to take advantage of some of the Eskimos when they get down on their luck and want to sell stuff off. I just don't feel right about it.
I'll be moving to another village for the next school year so maybe I can find some more interesting stuff if they get to know me as a "Gun Guy" there.
Ken

[Scrounger]

..........This just poped into my head as regards a reply 350Mag made to my post on Military Rifles. Ie: Having a 340 Weatherby M1917 given to me to check out, and then getting it for free due to a cracked reciever ring.

I'm sure some of you have had this happen too. Someone finds out you're a "Gun Guy", so that makes you an expert right? On EVERYTHING firearms related since day one? Kind of like someone finds out you were in the Navy (or whatever) and they ask, "Did you know Bob Johnson?". Oh sure, I knew everyone, it's a real close knit group!

A former boss I had once said he had his dad's old pistol and did I know how much it was worth. With about that much information to go on. He did say it spit some lead. He finally brought it in and it was an old H&R top break in 38 S&W with the cylinder locking bolt half broke off. I hated to be the barer of bad news, but this ain't the retirement payoff you were hoping it was gonna be.

But sometimes it's paid off, like my co-worker basicly giving me all those barreled actions, or this busted M1917 sporter. I have a buddy who is a civilian volunteer at Redlands PD, and people come in with guns or ammo to turn in for various reasons. He said a guy brought in a old military rolling block. One of the officers took it and it sat behind his office door at the PD for a few months, and then he took it home.

A kind of similar thing is that in California, due to the gun buyback deals, they'd enacted a law that no firearms transactions could take place within X feet (I forget the distance) of the thing. "Gun Guys" realized the potential. Old auntie Maude has had old uncle Milton's pistol (Colt SAA, 38-40) in the dresser, and she can get a $50 coupon for groceries for it. Whatta deal! You can bet a "Gun Guy" would offer $100 for it. Guess it was cutting down on the guns getting turned in as they went through the line like a threshing machine!

You guys have/had similar deals happen?

................Buckshot

All the "Gun Guys" I know would have offerred her $55...

[Jumptrap]

I never have gotten any great deals but once upon a time a friend calls me up and says "I have some old army ammunition here that Unlce Elb had and mom wants it out of the house, we're afraid it might blow up....it's real old and in a green can."

Uh yeah, I'll take it. Turns out to be a brand new can of 1957 M1 ball all in Garand clips in the cardboards and nylon bandoliers....factory fresh. Hehe, shot damned good in my Garands! I had to shoot it.....afraid it might blow up. HAR!

[waksupi]

I get fingered as a gun guy now and then. So far, all I've been given is an old .22 that won't shoot in 6 inches at 25 yards. I've though about running my own private "buy back" operation here.

[KCSO]

Not only a gun guy, but the local ordanance expert. I have been give mortar rounds, land mines and hand grenades. (Uncle Joe brought this back...) My best so far was the guy who brought in an old Colt 1900 pistol wrapped in a rag and said he wanted to clean it up and sell it. The gun turned out to be 1st. production run serial #24 of the original Colt semi auto. He offered it to me for $50 and I had it appraised for him at $20,000 and it was sold through an auction house in California.

But honesty pays he gave me a $50 reward!

[Greg5278]

350 mag it looks like you did well on the Dan Wesson 357. I have been looking for one. I have not done too well, but still gotten some interesting stuff. I got a Moss berg 395KB shotgun in a dumpster after a local garbage cleanup. No it wasn't used in a crime, the owner wanted to get rid of it without the bolt. I met him, and he gave me the bolt. I also got 2 Springfield 03A3 stocks with slings and hardware. I was given another bolt action shotgun, `and an Enfield action,a snd barrel without a stock. I have gotten plenty of ammunition, including some pre 1900 black powder shotshells. I can't believe the hysteria, when a relative dies, and they leave ammo in their possesions. Most people just want to get rid of for fear that is dangerous by itself.
Greg

[cabezaverde]

It has paid off for me a few times. An older lady, a widow in our church, called me after her husband died. Her son had taken all of Dad's guns, but wanted nothing to do with all the ammo and reloading supplies. I told her I would ebay what I could, but could not sell powder, primers, ammo etc. there.

She told me to take it all, sell what I could, and keep the ammo and whatever else. She wanted it out of the house. I ended up selling about $1000 of reloading supplies and equipment for her, she was grateful for the money.

Got a bunch of powder and primers for myself. In the ammo, there was about 10 bandoliers of unopened 19-0 something 30-40 Krag from the Frankford Arsenal. I did some research on the net, and a collector site offered me $100 per bandolier. Made a quick $1000, which I felt obligated to split with the widow.

Here is my gift for being so honest with the widow. 2 weeks later, I walked into the high priced gun emporium across the street from work, and there sits 10 more bandoliers of the same type of ammo. Rushed back to the office and sent an email to the site asking if they wanted more at $100 per bando. Real quick they said sure. Back to the gun store with an offer for $100 for all of it. Sold it for $1000 same day.

I had to pay the UPS, though.

[Willbird]

Mr.350 Magnum, If I were you when you went to the other village I would work on being known as a ladies man.....that likes guns

Bill

[felix]

House auction folks around here know me as one to pay wholesale for a gun, provided the gun appears new. I've gotten several 3 screw Rugers at about 150 average each. Used as night stand guns. Lucky? No, because I feel obligated to go through a deal once called upon from one of these folks, even if I don't want the gun. They know the gun has to be like new before they call, and so I will buy, and then resell at either one of several pawn shops around town. No real profit is intended or sought on my part. Gas money, maybe. ... felix

[350mag]

Mr.350 Magnum, If I were you when you went to the other village I would work on being known as a ladies man.....that likes guns

Bill
Bill,
Excellent idea! Do you think my wife would go along with that?
Ken

[carpetman]

I know a guy here that calls himself "Bearded Gun Trader". He use to have a lot of ads in Shotgun News listed as I think BGT or possibly BT. He once told me there are more buyers for $100,000 and above guns than for guns selling for less. He buys whole collections at a time. He will fly to the larger gun shows. He will not even go to the shows we have here---I too share his views on that. Seems the same bunch with the same overpriced stuff at every show. He does little local business as most sales are through the mail. He knows what will sell and what will not. He makes good money doing this and doesn't seem to work too hard to do it. I went through a period where if I thought it was a good buy,I bought it. I guess really still in that mode,but not as activly pursuing guns. Been burned and found some good deals. BruceB's recent birthday present reminded me of my .243. The wife had bought the hubby a new rifle for their anniversary. He was a handgun fan,but didnt care for long guns. They divorced---doubt her buying him a rifle was the reason---may have been????? He was moving so he gave the rifle to his son. He too liked hand guns but not long guns. Son had not fired the rifle and didnt think his dad ever did. I bought it for $225. Is Win mod 70 and it had a still sealed Tasco World Class scope,the gun box,the anniversary card and the receipt from Gibson's which had long been closed when I bought the rifle. Don't recall,but I don't think any ammo---guess neither one ever got that serious about shooting it.

[Herb in Pa]

An old friend of mine stopped by one day last summer and casually asked if I would be interested in either a Krag or a 1917 Eddystone, I told him I'd like one of each. Two weeks later he shows up with a 4 digit 1892 Krag modified to 1896 specs and a pristine Eddystone. He used to be in charge of inventory at a Veteran's association and told me they were on perminant loan to me!!

[BruceB]

The horrible routine of registration etc. in Canada brought me a couple interesting guns as "the gun guy", because folks didn't want to get into all the red tape. Some more-common items also arrived over the years (like an Ithaca M37 20-gauge, almost new, 28"-modified and vent rib for $100).

One interesting pistol arrived following several phone calls from an unknown fella who had a "found" pistol and was wanting to get it legally registered. After some discussion, he decided not to attract the attention of the fuzz in the matter, so one evening he called and said, "Go look in your truck." Yeah...in the truck was one of those famous brown-paper bags, and in the bag was a sadly-abused 7.65mm M1900 American Eagle Luger. It was badly pitted and generally trashed from one end to the other, but I knew a gent who collected these "pick-up" guns and he gave me $500 for it!

The other one that sticks out in my recollection was an unregistered 7.63mm M1905 Argentine Mannlicher pistol in VERY nice condition, which cost me all of $20. Presently they sell for well over the $1000 mark. I didn't get that much for it, for sure, (don't recall just how much it sold for) but I certainly did well on the deal once I had it all blessed by the bureaucracy.

[carpetman]

I recently saw something on tv that was true,but so ridiculous it was funny. Seems as though there is a company in Arizona that has a business called "Guns for Hire". They rent out guns for use in film making. A woman wanted her husband bumped off,so she looked in yellow pages and saw their name. She called and told them what she wanted. The guy told her that is NOT what they do. She was persistent and called back several times. Enough so the store owner contacted authorities. She made arrangements with an undercover cop. Was on film giving him the money,details etc. Her arrest was also on film.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I think it was in one of the Brownells gunsmith kinks books, but I read once where it was not the go to take advantage of a widow who was selling her dead husbands guns. I would like to know my wife was not gonna get ripped off if I went first. She has oreder me not to die before her as she does not want to have to clean up the garage!

Also I would be wary of buying illegal guns. Some guys are cool, some are not. The idea of not being able to keep guns because I got into trouble with them scares the bejeesus out of me. I get offered a lot of unregistered rifles, etc as I am one of the gun guys around here, but my job in law enforcement and my shooting is too important to me. We have one guy at work who actually makes it known he will accept 'free range guns' as we call them here. It is only a matter of time before he goes belly up. Bad news.

I like the Guns for Hire story.

Mick.

[Bob S]

Yup, I got a "gun guy" story :-)

When I reported into Strugeon Bay (WI ~ SUPSHIP) in 1977, the senior engineer told me he had "an old gun that he found in his grandmother's coal bin" in Traverse City (I think), and wanted to know if I could look at it. Some time later, at his home, he pulled it out. A Third Model Brown Bess!!! It had been converted to percussion, but the drum had broken off, and the hammer was missing. Two of the pins that hold the barrel were missing , and the stock had warped down quite a bit, and of course it was black and grungy. It was also loaded.

I cleaned it up, and pulled the ball and charge out of the barrel. The stock was the most gorgeous piece of walnut I have ever seen to this day, and after the crud was removed, there were darn few dings in it. I gently steamed the forestock and repinned it to the barrel. From Dixie, I got a repro pan, frizzen and spring, flint cock, and ramrod. The broken drum made a fine vent, it took some fitting to get the cock to fit the tumbler properly. Then I browned, rusted and carded the new metal parts to match the existing metal as close as possible. I got to hang it over my mantle for some photos before I gave it back.

Some time later, we went out to the Rod and Gun Club, and fired it with some loosely patched .720 RB's and about 45 grains of Fg. Kept 'em on the paper at 25 yards, and Bill was thrilled. So was I. Later, he went out and bought a T/C Hawken for a "daily shooter", and retired the old Brown Bess.

Resp'y,
Bob S.