Do Boomers consider themselves lucky regarding guns?

jpricewood said:

I always get a bit jealous when I hear older guys say they bought a used Smith revolver for a couple hundred dollars, found an old Colt at a garage sale. . .

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I think the old guys usually leave out the fact that "a couple hundred dollars" was a couple week's pay "back then".

In inflation-adjusted terms, I'm pretty sure firearms were cheaper than they'd ever been for 3-5 years prior to the Panic.

There was no Golden Age. In 1950, the "Middle Class" family owned 1.3 cars, lived in a 1300sf home with 2.5 children, and didn't have air conditioning. In buying power and luxury, that same family would be well below the poverty line today.

edwardware said:

.3 cars

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Yeah....I owned a Mopar once.

I agree though, I started buying guns in the 90s and the prices were staggering. Especially a rifle. One can get an ugly accurate rifle for 1/4 of what we paid for beautiful rifles that had to be shipped to a gunsmith to even come close MOA.

Same for everything. A new v8 camaro was 15k back in the 90s. Minimum wage was under 5 bucks. I grew up poor and working in the hay/ tobacco/ pines/beans etc etc. People didn't have the expendable cash for name brand toilet paper. Much less 50 guns. I spend more a year in tools and guns than my parents spent on foolishness in their life time

I consider myself lucky to live where I do. I can walk in a store and walk out with a new gun, without waiting for anything. I wasn't really aware that folks in other states can't do that until I joined this forum.

I feel lucky that I was able to Buy an M1 Carbine and a Garand through the Civilian Marksmenship program at great prices and buys guns much easier than today at what seems like really low prices though at the time money had a much different value. Lots of war surplus firearms were available too.

Bob

Both of those plus many other old discontinued guns are anomalies. I paid 400 bucks for my winchester m1 carbine and that was plenty back then. ROSES used to have crates of surplus guns ranging from 35 for some old sks to 75 for nicer guns. Dig through and take your pick. Like a Nagant revolver. I saw those sit on shelves priced at 75 bucks. Terrible gun. Now they are high

Same for cars. Look at a Bronco 2 today. 15 years ago I had people calling trying to get us to haul off Bronco 2 for the scrap price. Lol.

When I was a younger man - cars were lucky to get 60K-80K on them without needing significant / expensive repair, there were virtually no commercial red dot sights, magnified optics were abysmal compared to today's offerings, AR's in the commercial market were virtually unknown, the only doublestack pistols you could find were P35s and S&Ws, there was no such thing as concealed carry (even if open carry was more prevalent), and the average consumer probably had two/three choices for sporting rifles or defensive handguns in their local store. About the only thing that was plentiful and cheap were the milsurps. Yeah, the GCA68 and the closing of the machine gun registry in 1986 were changes for the worse culturally, but the impacts of those on the market itself - your ability to have access to a wide selection of quality firearms - was negligible. Today *is* your golden age, in terms of hardware .

Be happy, and work to make sure that your children get to have it better than you did, because the real negative changes aren't in hardware - they're in culture, and the acceptance of firearms as tools of modern society.

I’m a young boomer and my dad was a bit of a gun collector but he liquidated before I came along, both guns and motorcycles.

As for “good deals” yeah, I was into 16 gauge SXS American made and there were some deals back in the 80’s but not the top end stuff.

As long as I can remember the ads for. pre 64 Winchesters and Colt SAA were in the back of my outdoor mags so guys my dad’s generation were the ones that got “good deals”.

When I was younger I bought 2 rifles, 7mm Mauser and .303 enfield from the back of a magazine for $40 each. Minimum wage was $2.10 an hour if I recall correctly. Was in high cotton when I got a $4 an hour job at Chevrolet. So it is all relative. Savage shotguns were under $100 and my Marlin (Sears brand) 30-30 I think I paid like $75 for

Each successive generation rues that they cannot 'go back', I include my self in this. When I was a kid, I remember the 'barrel 'o surplus' in many guns shops and hardware stores, but they were gone by the time I could buy them. Shortly after I turned 18, (1981) I bought a brand new, in the box Wingmaster 870 for the princely sum of $225. I washed a lot of dishes to pay for that gun, many hours of work. I'd give any appendage to be able to buy a brand new Wingmaster at that price today. My 870 TB I bought last year (ironically made in 1981) was a steal at $400. I'd be buying them all day at $225. (Well, the TB was $280 in '81-I couldn't wait that long to accrue the $55 difference.)

rbernie gives sage advice above. ^^^

The word "Nostalgia" is based on the Greek words for home,(or homecoming), and pain. Think about it...

Yeah, I'm a "Boomer" and maybe it was a "Golden Age" in some aspects but we were busy with the Draft and the Vietnam War, inflation and let's not forget the Gun Control Act in 1968. So some of us failed to notice.
Also those sporterized milsurps that are derided so much now were in their heyday back then.

Plus, if we'd saved all that "cool stuff" from back then there's be so much of it that it wouldn't be rare today.
YMMV

I think good guns were always pricey relative to the economy at any time.

If there was a "golden age", I would say it was for milsurps in the 90's, before the importation from certain countries was cut off.

I wasn't wealthy, but $100 or less for a brand new semi auto battle rifle (SKS), and $79 and $89 for top quality bolt guns (Swedish Mausers) were definitely bargains, even at that time. Same for quality Swiss rifles, and many Mausers from South and Central America.

Certainly for surplus ammo at that time, relative to name brand commercial ammo. Obviously, that age has passed.

jpricewood said:

I wasn't old enough to buy guns until Obama was already in office... I always get a bit jealous when I hear older guys say they bought a used Smith revolver for a couple hundred dollars...

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I don't think you were looking in right places. Good shooting grade Model 10's were frequently in the $200-250 range during BO's reign. You could buy 500 rounds of Federal Champion .22 LR at Walmart for $14.97 the week before Sandy Hook in 2012.

huntsman said:

I’m a young boomer and my dad was a bit of a gun collector but he liquidated before I came along, both guns and motorcycles.

As for “good deals” yeah, I was into 16 gauge SXS American made and there were some deals back in the 80’s but not the top end stuff.

As long as I can remember the ads for. pre 64 Winchesters and Colt SAA were in the back of my outdoor mags so guys my dad’s generation were the ones that got “good deals”.

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Yeah but too a winchester in the 50s was 200 bucks when a Mauser was 30. If one wants a rifle that costs 10x what a normal rifle costs he can still buy a nice rifle.

They don't make them like they used to....because few would pay 10x for a beautiful winchester rifle that doesn't outperform a 100 dollar savage.


Growing up I asked my uncles and grandpa and dad why they didn't buy old Colts and Winchester and such (and old nova/mustang/chevelle/ etc etc) . They always answered "because you can't eat those". They had money for food. That was about it

.455_Hunter said:

I don't think you were looking in right places. Good shooting grade Model 10's were frequently in the $200-250 range during BO's reign. You could buy 500 rounds of Federal Champion .22 LR at Walmart for $14.97 the week before Sandy Hook in 2012.

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The day after Sandy Hook you could still buy an AR for $300. That's when my younger son bought his-he had to stand in line, we got there at 7:30 AM, (opened at 7) and he got the 3rd from the last one. They were sold out by 8.
You can still find them on sale for $400, and build for a little less, but each successive "fear event" sends more to the gun store, and prices higher.

As a bona fide Boomer I miss the pre-tactical days.

When I was young my grandpa told me that he couldn't sleep after he took out a loan for his first house.
I asked how much his house payment was, he said $68.00 a month.
I didn't say anything but I must of had a strange look on my face because he looked me in the eyes and said,
"$68.00 is a lot of money when you don't have $68.00"
I'm a boomer and hind sight is 20/20.
There were lots of guns I wish I'd bought but when you don't have the money you cant, no matter how cheap they are!

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In the "golden age" you could order a Thompson Sub gun and all the magazines of any kind you wanted through the mail for a few bucks.

That was back when Americans were free and money wasn't.

Boomers endured the full duration of the AWB, and lived without the benefits of the CCW movement (shall issue, constitutional carry, stand your ground, castle doctrine, etc...)

Jack Ryan said:

That was back when Americans were free and money wasn't.

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Yep. Right around the time your wife couldn't vote and alcohol was illegal and Rosa Parks wasn't allowed to sit anywhere on the bus she wanted.

Lol. Freedom gets thrown around a lot and we have certainly gone backwards sometimes but we have gained things as well.

I grew up shooting dad’s Colt match target but the Colt I really wanted was a Diamondback .22lr nickel 4”. Money wise I was working towards it except Marriage put the kibosh on those plans. After marriage and kids I was lucky to afford a $200. SXS

None of us can see the future.

None of us can travel back in time.

Of course I never realized that $259 for a brand new Colt Commander or $179 for a brand new S&W Model 19 were prices I'd never see again in my lifetime -- those were expensive guns at the time for a young E-3 more concerned about finding a girl friend who didn't mind a guy with short hair (that was not fashionable back then) and never missing a party.

Shall-issue concealed carry wasn't a thing then, unless you lived in Indiana or Washington. I spent too much time in California, where it was "no-carry," ever. The agency I worked for back then as a reserve didn't even want reserve deputies to have CCW off-duty or licenses. As mentioned, we went through the awful '90s and the egregious AWB and ten-round magazines (yeah, I once paid $120 for a pre-ban 13-round Glock 23 mag).

It wasn't all rainbows, unicorns and butterflies.

It wasn't 'til my late 40s when the kids got out of college that I could actually buy guns I wanted without having to save up my spare change and take in bottles and cans for months...

But yeah, I'm lucky now, looking back, because I did come of age in the 70s and 80s -- the golden age of cars, guns, music and, uh, women that dressed and acted as women.

Old Dog said:

yeah, I once paid $120 for a pre-ban 13-round Glock 23 mag).

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I remember guys paying 100+ for Ruger 10/22 mags. And they were steel lips and butler creek. Didn't even work well. Lol

Personally I was carrying a Beretta 96. Was my only duty/ccw gun. A post ban mag carried 10 rds. A "high capacity mag" carried 11. So I wasn't paying big money for that 1 round. A box of 100 RD of white box was 11-15 dollars for that .40

And ive never heard "golden age of cars" and 80s used together. Lol. Sub 200HP v8s getting 12 MPG were the norm. Even the camaro/mustang didn't break 300 HP till the 00s. Now a well optioned Camry can get it

crestoncowboy said:

And ive never heard "golden age of cars" and 80s used together.

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70s, bro. But the guns, music and chicks good stuff did bleed over into the 80s... (except for disco)

Im sure in 30 years when im in my 70s some will think this current era is the golden era just for the variety available