Are you a collector or a shooter?

jags said:

I buy em to shoot em.

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i hate safe queens

Both. I have a gun collection that is mostly US military property marked firearms. I also have a collection of guns- various AR's, Glocks, hunting rifles and shotguns. Stuff that I actually use.

Sniper66 asked:
Are you a collector or a shooter?

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Shooter.

Every gun I own was acquired after (usually) months of time spent assessing why I wanted it, what i intended to do with it and how I was going to pay for it. Thus, every gun was acquired to:

• Harvest animals to feed myself and/or my family (I may own a catfish farm, but that doesn't mean I like to eat fish).
  
• Kill nuisance animals that threaten crops, livestock or the dam on the family farm.
• Protect myself and/or my family.
• Learn how to shoot, train in new skills or maintain proficiency with the skills I already have.

The few times I have bought a gun that didn't work out for some reason or another, I will get rid of it. And when I get rid of a gun, I almost never sell it; I usually find someone who needs one to give it to or someone to whom giving the gun will buy goodwill out of all proportion its value.

After I learned to shoot and had pretty much stopped using my Marlin 60 (always hated that tube magazine), I used the stock for practice in refinishing hardwoods. I removed the cheap generic brown stain from the stock and applied tung oil, buffing between coats. The result was an almost amber color. Only my mother thought it looked "nice". I gave the rifle away to a business associate suggesting he use it to teach his daughter to shoot as my grandfather had taught me. That's exactly what he did. Giving away that "ruined" Marlin turned that man into a client for life.

I'd put it this way: a "box and docs" has ZERO additional value to me as a buyer. There are all kinds of "cool old guns" I like and lust over... but not to put under glass and stare at. I like to SHOOT.

ATLDave said:

I'd put it this way: a "box and docs" has ZERO additional value to me as a buyer. There are all kinds of "cool old guns" I like and lust over... but not to put under glass and stare at. I like to SHOOT.

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i like my tz 75 a cz 75 clone trigger pull is say 3 lbs only 325$ at a pawn shop this is a online photo of another that looks just like it
i put grips like this on and boy does it shoots really straight and recoil is very light do to being all metal

note recoil here how light it can be video time 1:12 even shooting one handed not bad

I consider myself more of a collector but do enjoy shooting. I hate cleaning guns though.
I also enjoyed hunting at one time and basically was the beginning to me collecting guns. But I always liked guns since I was a kid!

Primarily a shooter. Started out a hunter and a target shooter. Bought guns I always wanted and could still afford and took them to the range (both indoors and outdoors), or went hunting with them. Did a lot of buying and selling over the years and probably have some older models that might be considered collectible but I still use them anyways.

First bolt gun was an no.4 mk 1 enfield, then a t99 arisaka, a 1917 us, and then I got to like restoring bolt action milsurps. I restore them to issue condition more or less and shoot them on occasion and reload for them. Some are collectible but my primary focus is on history, development, sights, furniture, adaptations, etc.

It is a lot slower and more expensive to restore than it used to be. I am now restoring several 19th century milsurps and parts are hard to find cheap. Probably change in near future to .22 lr bolt actions just for kicks. Civil war era and earlier restorations would only be wallhangers for me.

Semiautos just don't interest me as much although I have a few. Treat them more as tools.

Started hunting as a kid. Started reloading .256winmag at 12 in preparation for my first deer hunt. Since then i have been a reloader. I accumulate tools, components, books, etc. Once a collection of caliber specific stuff has grown to a certain point I start considering buying a gun to go along with it. Sometimes it's backwards like my 6.8spc, but I bought that upper to strip parts and use on a 223 build, but then rebuilt the upper, then built another lower to go under it.

I only have 1 gun I don't shoot and that's because it's broken. If it sits still it gets sold. I'm at the point now that I need to figure out what to do with 308 brass, and am approaching critical mass on 44 mag again. Of course there are calibers that don't interest me, but those are rare.

A little of both. Some are "special" and some are shooters.

Anything I collect I shoot, I feel compelled to pull the trigger on anything I can get my hands on.

Every gun I own serves a purpose. One gun is a family heirloom. I guess I keep that as a collector although it is a very nice shooter. Everything else is bought to fill a specific need or as a backup for that need or as a progressively better version of a gun that fills a need (like carry pistols). I have kept some of my old carry pistols because they shoot too well to let go. Actually there is only one in that category I guess. A Sig P220 that is just ridiculous accurate.

I keep a lid on the number of guns I own. I own one safe and I don't want another. Don't have room for one. I want to store what I'm not using in the safe without overcrowding. I've kept the number of guns I own to around 20 for a very long time. I only keep what I will want to shoot mostly. I have guns setup for various tasks (night varmint .22, day varmint .22, hunting .22, long range varmint. .223, an SKS that I used as a SHTF rifle which may be more possible where I live than most places, 2 AR's for the same purpose now with one set up for day and the other for night and so on. My handguns include a bear stopper because we have lots of bears where I live and you just never know especially when I invade their space on the farm, a bedside model with a laser and night sights, a truck pistol with high capacity, a pocket pistol for carrying with light clothes, and a backup for anything that might get broken plus the Sig that I keep just because it shoots so well.

I shoot all of them when I can but my health is getting worse and I'm getting older. I have shot a lot in my life and I still have way more ammo than I will ever shoot. My son knows what to do with what I have should something happen. He will get what he wants and so will my daughter and the rest will be sold. I have given one heirloom gun to my daughter and the other will go to my son.

Yes, I am.

I'm a shooter,who haven't shot all of my guns yet.

I see guns in different ways. Some are tools. Some are just for fun. Others are for collecting.
The tools are for duty and defense.
The fun ones are for shooting for the joy of shooting.
The ones for collecting are collected for different reasons.
I was a hunter, but after hunting men, hunting game isn't the same. But I still love to shoot ground hogs.
I like to collect guns, but my biggest problem is lack of focus.
I like to shoot and my job gives me the opportunity to shoot 4 to 5 days a week.
So I would say that I am a shooter that would like to shoot more.
I'm also a collector because I have a few guns, that have no reason to be at my house other then I like them.

Not sure, I'm either a collector that shoots a lot or a shooter with a really nice collection of guns.

boom boom said:

First bolt gun was an no.4 mk 1 enfield, then a t99 arisaka, a 1917 us, and then I got to like restoring bolt action milsurps. I restore them to issue condition more or less and shoot them on occasion and reload for them. Some are collectible but my primary focus is on history, development, sights, furniture, adaptations, etc.

It is a lot slower and more expensive to restore than it used to be. I am now restoring several 19th century milsurps and parts are hard to find cheap. Probably change in near future to .22 lr bolt actions just for kicks. Civil war era and earlier restorations would only be wallhangers for me.

Semiautos just don't interest me as much although I have a few. Treat them more as tools.

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most of my semi autos have hammers double action similar too revolvers i like my 40 cal Taurus pt100 af clone of a Beretta 92looks like this
but they have the decocker safety video time 4:20
on the frame much better setup

Both. I started out as a shooter, then I decided to try to collect every rifle used by the United States military in WWII, which then spread to every rifle used in WWII, which then progressed backwards to WWI, the Spanish American War, the Civil War, and oddly even the Franco-Prussian War....... I shoot them all.

I guess I'm in the minority here, being a dyed-in-the-wool collector. At age 72, I haven't been out shooting literally in years. Shooting just doesn't interest me any more. But I keep adding guns to my collection, having no intention of ever shooting them. That being said, all of them are in shooting condition.

AlexanderA said:

I guess I'm in the minority here, being a dyed-in-the-wool collector. At age 72, I haven't been out shooting literally in years. Shooting just doesn't interest me any more. But I keep adding guns to my collection, having no intention of ever shooting them. That being said, all of them are in shooting condition.

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Hopefully, I can get to this point in my life.

I'm in the shooter - accumulator camp.
I buy to own and shoot. A gun that can't be shot due to collectability or value won't be any fun to me.

Now, I do have a couple of rifles in the safe that I haven't gotten around to shooting yet, but it's because of time and opportunity for the range trip, not because of any interest in keeping them "unfired". They're milsurps anyway, so who knows how many rounds down the pipe already.

As many here, it's an accumulation, not a "collection". There are some items to match a theme, but they are serviceable (shootable) examples of the type. For example I wanted a GI M1911 and M1911A1, found them at a reasonable (for me) price and got them. The M1911 is from 1918 and the A1 is from 42 or 43, so I am happy to have my piece of history. And they shoot very nicely.

Well, I had a bunch of Lugers military and commercial and Mauser rifles as an inheritance. Sold them all off to help pay for hip replacements.
Now if I see a nice LNIB pistol or revolver I might be tempted. Other than that if I can't shoot it for fear of reducing the value I'm not interested.

mstreddy said:

There are some items to match a theme

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The theme is all-important. A "collection" has to have a theme (or themes), or it's just an "accumulation." In my case, I decided early on to collect U.S. military weapons. Later, this dovetailed neatly with my interest in historical reenacting. (Sometimes I wondered if the reenacting was just an excuse to collect more weapons.) But the inevitable "reenactor burnout" occurred and I was still left with the weapons. Fine by me.

You can start with one theme and branch out into related themes. For example, as part of my U.S. military collection, I just had to have a "U.S. Property" marked Savage No. 4 Enfield. Then I added a couple more, including a Long Branch Canadian one. (Still debating whether to get any British-made ones, but I don't like them as much.)

I needed someplace to mount my .50 cal. M2HB, so I ended up getting a military jeep. That sparked an interest in military vehicles generally. (Been involved in that hobby since 1983.) And of course a military vehicle needs a proper military radio, and so forth.

Each weapon has a whole panoply of related equipment: bayonets, web gear, uniforms, etc. Plus the reference books to describe all this stuff. Pretty soon your collection overwhelms your entire house.