[Zundfolge]

These guys do some real interesting custom work.

http://www.mobguns.com/index2.htm

Like Lugers and P38s in .45acp ... Snubbie CCW Webleys ... Baby Lugers ... Long Slide Colt 1903s ... other weird and wild stuff.

Looks pretty pricey too :banghead:


http://www.mobguns.com/001_GB/photos/Domini1.jpg

[Enachos]

I've looked at this website before too. Very nice stuff!

[svaz]

They do have some artistic stuff. Some time back they had a wicked looking Beretta 21A and a gorgeous Colt 1903. Priced for the collector, not the shooter, me thinks.

[winchester '97]

For the money these are pretty amazing. If i could afford it a long barrel luger or p38 reworked in .45 would be high on the list. Basically if your loaded and want a pistol thats classy as hell this is it lol.

[Joe Demko]

Out of morbid curiosity, what kind of money are we talking about?

[Zundfolge]

Out of morbid curiosity, what kind of money are we talking about?

Well the Webley pictured went for $2800 on Gunbroker ... the .45acp P38 is listed "Starting at $10,000" the Baby Lugar says "Starting at $4500" The to break .38 S&Ws start at $2400.

So their prices are somewhere between high and astronomical ... of course if the quality is there, they're probably worth the prices.

[Joe Demko]

We're still talking about guns made a century ago, right? These are all basically refinished/refurbished antiques?

[Jim Watson]

Yup.
Most of them look like somebody leaned on the buffing wheel a little too hard. Most of the rest look like somebody leaned on the buffing wheel a lot too hard. A few look close to period finish, but not many.

[Jim K]

They say they will customize new guns but the bulk of their work is in "restoration." I was not able to get the site to work so I could look at their .45 Lugers and P.38s but a number have been made up over the years, usually by cutting two pistols lengthwise a bit off the center line, and then welding the two bigger halves together. The Webley is obviously a standard Mk VI, with the barrel cut, the front sight welded back, then all prettied up (if you call that pretty!).

But those are not restorations by any reasonable definition. A restoration seeks to return the gun to its appearance when factory new; those guns are "guns that never were" made up for folks with more money than common sense. IMHO, not worth the money and not collectible.

Jim

[SharpsDressedMan]

"Art" guns like theirs may not be based on common sense, but then the results are some very "uncommon" guns. I give then an "A" for originality and the artpieces they create. I can't afford them, and would rather buy a slew of old, original guns for the money, but they are nice to look at.

[ilikepancakes]

Hey if you're going to collect art, better guns than paintings :)

[Oyeboten]

Jim Watson aptly observes -


Yup.
Most of them look like somebody leaned on the buffing wheel a little too hard. Most of the rest look like somebody leaned on the buffing wheel a lot too hard. A few look close to period finish, but not many.


To which I might add, on the Webley for one, they would have done well to find someone able to actually make and fit Stocks...leaving aside Checkering them.


The silly 2010 k-mart 'hat' which is nothing like Hats of prior eras, the trite stale 'old blue eyes' music ( for an 1890s S&W??? or a Model 1903 Colt .38 Pkt? a 1915 S&W 'M&P'??? A Webley? )...the whole thing of really mixed era metaphors and confused allusion...eeeeesh...no thanks...

Horrid...depressing...


Mob?


Like no one else owned or carried Hand Guns???


Sad thing too...some of those Guns were probably pretty nice, authentic, unmessed with, and honest, before these bozos got ahold of them.


Overpriced sub-par 'restorations' for bored uninformed inexperienced rich people.


All in all...:barf:

[rswartsell]

Take a '60's Mod 36 flat latch, put a high polish blue on it for beauty then ruin the appearance with a "new vintage locking system" whatever that is. It looks like a cheap aluminum replacement window on Monticello. Add black rubber grips, then ask 2,200 for it. If that's not enough, as a capper call it the "Black Sambo High Polish".

From this and the fact that site reads as if composed by a marginal illiterate, I suspect that somewhere behind this enterprise you will find an idiot.:barf:

P.S. It is a pretty Webley though and I am unsettled by the no warranty expressed or implied all sales as is, all sales final, firearms should be inspected by a qualified gunsmith stuff. Does this only apply when you supply the gun? Not clear. Caveat emptor.

[Zilmo]

Jim Watson aptly observes -





To which I might add, on the Webley for one, they would have done well to find someone able to actually make and fit Stocks...leaving aside Checkering them.


The silly 2010 k-mart 'hat' which is nothing like Hats of prior eras, the trite stale 'old blue eyes' music ( for an 1890s S&W??? or a Model 1903 Colt .38 Pkt? a 1915 S&W 'M&P'??? A Webley? )...the whole thing of really mixed era metaphors and confused allusion...eeeeesh...no thanks...

Horrid...depressing...


Mob?


Like no one else owned or carried Hand Guns???


Sad thing too...some of those Guns were probably pretty nice, authentic, unmessed with, and honest, before these bozos got ahold of them.


Overpriced sub-par 'restorations' for bored uninformed inexperienced rich people.


All in all...:barf:
But how do you REALLY feel?

[Nushif]

I like the look of them. Very clean lines. IF I had a way of getting rid of all the markings on my guns I'd do it. (Serial Numbers notwithstanding)

[DT Guy]

I'm guessing that the only guns they choose to 'restore' are pretty rough to begin with-it makes more sense to take a rough example than a clean one if you're going to chop it apart.

They strike me as the pistol equivalent of Gibbs Rifles, and I'm almost ashamed to admit I liked those, too. :)


Larry

[bhhacker]

The great thing about this country is a thing called free enterprise :P Even dummies can run businesses.

Im not a fan of these guns either but I dont mind modifying older weapons. It seems like a lot of people in the gun and car scene consider anything but restoring an older item blasphemy.

ill tell you what though. If I could turn a profit doing what this guy is doing, id do it too.

[rswartsell]

Further reading of the "legal" tab of the website finds that the guns are not intended for use with live ammunition and CYA language against any recourse against them at all.

For these prices the real dummies are the ones writing the checks.

[Oyeboten]

I'm just glad I did not have to see what they had been doing with regard to 'Indian' Motocycle parts, which supposedly led to this.

Or, probably, I had seen it, at the time...which is even worse.

An individual electing to decide the details of 'restoring' the finish on an old Hand Gun, for their own posession, is one thing...whether anyone else in particular finds the result to their taste or approval.

Modifying old Guns, likewise.

Off-the-shelf 'named' re-dos, especially in this case, is something else.


The Extant nominclature-stampings on the Webley strongly suggest this was probably a pretty minty or at least very well preserved example, which was re-finished, and, likely this is the case with many others.


Webley Revolver = 'mob' Gun???

Who as an Organized Crime figure in the United States carrried a Webley???

No one, that's who.

I guess I can feel grateful not to see any Colt 1911s, New Services, or big-frame S&Ws.


They really seem to know nothing about Guns, nothing about HIstory, and, nothing about 'mobsters' either.

John Dillinger was a 'mobster'??? And he is known for being synonymous with the Colt M1903 .32 ACP Pistol?

Why even have a name which capitalizes on so fatuous an association, as 'mob guns'?


There was no such thing as 'mob guns' any more than there were catagorically 'mob' Toth Brushes, 'mob' Typewriters or 'mob' prosthetics for lost limbs. There were the range of consumer products which were available to anyone, and, usually, stratified by affluence since some products cost more than others. Nothing more.


Oye...


Everything, in every way...eeeeeeesh...


Lol...

[Nasty]

I agree...the buffing is terrible. Flats need to be polished flat, but that takes skill, time and effort.

They look to me to be rescues. We see these things all the time at gun shows and in yard sales. Old, wrecked, beat up, rusted and ready for scrap value. Some guy figured out that sawing off bent barrels, leaning hard into a buffer and setting up a home chrome tank was easy enough to pull off and did it.

He probably pays pennies for the ruined firearm and then does a bit of cosmetic stuff (badly) and then waits for someone with more money than sense and sells at stupidly high prices.

I've seen the same thing done with real estate.

No wonder there is a no shoot clause!

[SharpsDressedMan]

Most gun either get used, or seem to be for safekeeping.....stored in a safe for someone else in the future. If you keep guns as an investment, that makes sense. If you like to shoot and use guns, I guess it's best that you don't plan on storing them for future owners. Someone out there is going to be upset if you take a nice old gun and, God forbid, use it. Myself, I really don't give a rat's butt if some collector gets my hand-me-downs with a little more wear and tear on them, or cries when he sees the "custom" gun I chopped for my own amusement. "Bo" Randall, famous classic knifemaker, was said to be totally unimpressed by collectors of his knives. He apparently found true USERS of his knives much more interesting, and it satisfied him ot no end to know his knives were being used.

[Nushif]

Like Is aid, I don't much like the metric ****-tons of markings on guns, so the smooth lines appeal to me. The luster not so much, but I'd be willing to pay good mney to get rid of the huge letters on my guns.

[NMGonzo]

i like them

bbq-gun-r-us

[SundownRider]

Let's see the internals and then see if they can get the same prices. A new coat of Rustoleum on my grill didn't change the fact it was a rusty ol piece of junk.

[jeepmor]

It's not a MOB gun without a Thompson in the lineup.

[Demitrios]

That Webley is beautiful. It looks like it's wearing a tuxedo now.

[D_Burchfield]

They look pretty...useless to me.

[Joe Demko]

The more I look at them, the less I like them. Even more so for the website itself. This is still America, though. Even if I don't like them and wouldn't pay anywhere near those prices for one, more power to him if he manages to make a buck at it.

[searcher451]

Why anyone would want to do that to a perfectly functional P.38 or Luger is absolutely beyond me. I can understand it, I guess, if the gun were poorly stored and was infested with surface rust or pitting, and you pick it up for a song and dance (or, better, it's given to you). But to take one that's in good shape and pimp it out? No thanks.