Buy or run?

I have a chance at a roughly 100 year old single shot 16ga for a reasonable price. It is beautiful, but it is beautiful because of a pile of work that has been done on it as a gunsmith school project. Barrel has been shortened, polished and reblued, reciever has been color case hardened along with trigger, hammer, and opening lever. Wood has been sanded and refinished, nice but not nearly the same quality of work as the metal bits.

So at $100 or so, do you buy or walk?

I’m inclined to buy because it’s nice, and I like a 16ga but don’t currently have one. I know it’s going to kick like a mule on steroids, but I don’t see a scenario where I would shoot it more than a handful of times in a day. Thoughts?

I’m working on the seller. He told me he’s in no hurry. Bad thing is that it’s out of state and I WILL be paying an FFL holder to transfer, but at least it’s not a pistol that has to be shipped to my state. I just drive a few miles.

Well the fat chewing is over. The deal is kinda done. Seller and I just have to figure out when we can meet up to seal the deal. A coworker is a “kitchen table ffl holder” so that’s another cog in the works, but long story short it’s gonna be $100 all in. It’s not THE gun that bounced around in my family, but it’s one just like it, or at least it was before the gunsmith student “purtyd it up”. THE gun was stolen and traded for drugs in 2003. It was absolutely trashed, and likely got worse pretty quickly.

So this gun is a house branded single barrel made by Crescent. THE gun was a crescent branded crescent. This gun is cut to just over legal length. THE gun was cut longer because somebody blew the barrel up and the salvaged what they could, but it’s actually fairly close. The biggest difference is in wear. THE gun was held together with a heavy leather strap that slid back over the forearm and barrel and had a snap latch on the buttstock. THE gun was so worn out that it would open when fired, and the leather held just enough of the pressure to keep the gun from breaking open. This gun is nowhere near as worn.

It’s not the very same gun, but it’s cheap and it’s realistically the same aside from the rollstamp on the barrel. Kinda sparse on finding the old crescents that are in decent shape, especially a 16. I feel that this one may end up going to my dad... he learned to shoot a shotgun with THE gun.

mgmorden said:

Meh - if I based on purchases on already having something that did the job I'd never be able to get anything new .

In my opinion, like the others said - if it's in safe working order I'd buy in a heartbeat. $100 is well within "impulse purchase" range.

Click to expand...

I finally got it home today. Ripped it apart and found serial numbers and confirmed my suspicions. The gun is a 3 digit serial and is in fact made by Crescent. Running around the house with a short shotgun had me feeling like I was playing some sort of real life video game. The work done on the gun is hugely impressive when examined closely. There was no need, but by darn this want was a good one. It’s already been claimed... by a person who still has yet to fire a gun. My 8 year old saw it and asked if it was hers so now the buttstock May shrink by about an inch and a modern recoil pad may have to be fitted. She was amazed at the simple beauty and was absolutely blown away when I told her it was about 120 years old. She may not be mine by blood but this girl has my heart and a taste for classics.