Even now, are guns expensive?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ru4real

Ru4real

Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2017
Messages
1,608
Location
Utah
How does the gun you bought 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago price compare to a gun bought today?

In 1994 I bought a Winchester M70 Classic, DBM, 7mm Rem Mag with controlled round feed for $550 which is $996 today with inflation. I’d buy it again today if it were available.

In 1998 I bought a Kimber Target II Limited stainless in 45 ACP for $750 which is $1235 today with inflation. I wouldn’t buy it today because so many better options are available for $1000. Been a great gun, though.

Yesterday I bought a Savage Axis II compact in 243 with a Bushnell scope for $470. The 243 barrel will come off and I will put on an ER Shaw barrel in 358 Winchester for $250. Twenty five years from now, would I buy again?

Yesterday I also bought a TC Venture II in 223 for $550 and it is getting an Athlon 2.5x15-50mm illuminated reticle scope $480. I’m betting it will be lights out to 500 yards, but again, time will tell.

How about you?
 
The current value of almost every gun that I've bought in the past 30 years exceeds inflation when that original sale price is punched into an inflation calculator.

The difference above inflation is definitely greater for the guns that are no longer in production, yet the guns still in production still exceed inflation by quite a bit. Not hard to imagine considering what's been going on for the last 12 months.
 
Last edited:
Adjusted for inflation prices of new guns, aside from the recent gouging, are on par or less than in the past. Used guns that may have some collectible or intriguing aspect, they are what they are worth to you.

But, I picked two Rem. 700s for $99 and two Savage Axis II including rebate for $79 and $29 I think it was. That kind of beats the old days.

I am not one to wax nostalgic for the good old days that were not so good. These are the good days, the day you have is a good day.
 
AZAndy said:
I wish the value of older S&W revolvers had stayed an insider's secret. Now even a plain old Model 10 has gotten a bit out of line. :)
Click to expand...

Makes me think of revolver manufacturers and current values. Seems like Ruger revolvers have climbed into S&W pricing territory. Yet, I stumble on a classic Charter Arms of the 1970s and it goes locally for well below an inflation adjusted value right now.
 
Mostly guns are as affordable today as they were years ago, There have been recent surges in price for particular items. I sold a Remington 870 Wingmaster 12 ga with 30" full choke barrel in very good condition for $500. As the weeks rolled by my regret for selling it emerged. So I started a search for one to replace it and could find nothing. A comparable model on GB sold a few weeks ago for $800.
 
Sniper66 said:
Mostly guns are as affordable today as they were years ago, There have been recent surges in price for particular items. I sold a Remington 870 Wingmaster 12 ga with 30" full choke barrel in very good condition for $500. As the weeks rolled by my regret for selling it emerged. So I started a search for one to replace it and could find nothing. A comparable model on GB sold a few weeks ago for $800.
Click to expand...

Old school made metal and wood sure seem to go for more than modern made metal and polymer, in some cases.

I ran across a basic single shot Winchester 37A the other day for $380.00 locally. I bought one in similar condition in 1997 for $100.00, of which I probably overpaid.
 
I think most guns today are on par with prices past, maybe less. I can recall having to budget much more conservatively to afford a few I bought 20-30 years ago because I was making considerably less.

Where guns today become expensive is when you start adding options that weren't available then.
 
Inflation and income didn't keep up well. But I can afford a proper firearm. Can't complain at all.

Expensive cable TV is a disaster. Turn it off to improve your shooting budget. Cut out watching pro sports. Play the sport, or cut free from it completely. Stop spending on fast food, restaurants, pizza. Lay off the cheap fake leather $10,000 option package on your truck and you've got all the budget room in the world.

And there's more quality firearms out there. 1/2moa precision rifles are down to $1500. There's a much better variety of quality pistols out there. Top quality AR's can be built for under $1000. The pistols that existed only because of LEO institutional inertia, have mostly disappeared. 3 dot sights are finally disappearing on premium pistols. When you buy a top quality barrel for anything, you actually get a top quality barrel, every single time. Holsters have an unlimited variety. This is the best time to be a noob. Or at least it was.

223 has been too expensive for a decade now, though.
 
I paid $210 for a P89DC in 1990, that's $420 in today's money.
I paid $330 for a GP100 in 1995, that's $600 in today's money.
I paid $400 for a mini14 in 1991, that's $800 in today's money.
 
The gp100 ($850) is the only one that's cheaper back then.

My Ruger P95 is only worth $100 tops. I'd trade it for three Glock mags if I didn't use it to train new shooters (to hate DA/SA pistols).

Mini's and AK's are (were) way down due to the low AR prices.
 
Well a Marlin/Glenfield Model 60 MSRP was $44 in 1972. Based on inflation that's $296 today. Before the covid thing you could still buy one for under $200. I'd see them in late summer, before hunting season on sale for $169. Same with the Ruger 10/22, MSRP was $56 in '72. street price around $40. Pre covid you could still find them occasionally before hunting season for just under $200.

I'm kinda old and am shocked at the prices of new guns and that was before covid. Like everything else it's a matter of supply and demand. A couple years ago supply was high, demand was low and prices were low on most guns.

Bottom line, whatever inflation does there is still lots of other outside influences on the market.
 
A more complete calculus is [price paid then] times [adjusted CPI] divided by [present replacement cost].*
If your shooter comes out of that with a value greater than 1, you are 'ahead'; less than 1, you are 'behind.' With the understanding that, either way, you own a gun, and are thereby enriched beyond mere cash value.

Using the broad sorts of math, we are about the same in terms of values. We are far better off than, say 150 years ago when firearms were a month's salary or more.

So, we are probably better off now than in times past. Sure, the old mail order ads for GI 1911 for $25 make today's price look all out of whack. But, a spendy new car was $3000 at that same time, now. A fully-loaded Silverado lists for near $70K, which is more than a few STI or Korths.

_________________________________
*If we were being full-on pedantic, we'd have to apply comparative purchase power to the past value as well as the present value, inflationary econ gets squirrel.
 
Robert said:
One must remember that while the guns of yesterday may seems crazy cheap, we were also making less money. So all things considered, they tend to be about the same in relation to income and inflation.
Click to expand...

Yes this and most likely we are also making more money marginally now. As in, we have gotten promoted or taken a different job with higher pay.

When I read the OP my first thought was, well of course I would buy the same gun 20 years later at a price commensurate with inflation during that time. I make more money now. That is to say I make more money compared to the rest of the world now than I did then. It would today use less of a percentage of my income than it did in the past.

I eyball $1000 dollar guns nowadays and just think the price would sting a little bit. I wouldnt buy a 500 dollar gun in 1994 because I could not afford it and still pay living expenses........and I was 12. I was only speaking in 1st person for clarity in the paragraph above.
 
Most of the differences in prices from the early 90's and 2019 seem to be due to limited availability, either back then or now.

Bushmasters with semi-auto BCGs were over $1000. AR's were not very common. AR's had a reputation for being expensive, accurate and fragile, like a sexy imported sports car that needed constant maintenance.

Chinese and combloc surplus guns were flooding the market and inexpensive. Nobody would pay $1000 for a semi-auto AK back then, but the AK had a reputation for being indestructible and reliable. We had no internet back then so reputations just stuck.

Pythons were selling for about $700, and on display for sale at most LGS.

But more common guns like the 10/22 were priced about the same, roughly $200, and Glocks were going for about $500.
 
Economist use what is called the Big Mac index a Big Mac cost $0.45 when it was introduced in 1967 it is now $3.99 they say that it is a fairly accurate representation. If that's true then a gun that cost $100 in 1967 should be just a little less than $900 now
 
Lots of ways to look at it, there are inflation calculators online.

Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar's Value from 1913-2021 (usinflationcalculator.com)

Another tool I've used is to look up median family income for various year. Can easily be googled. For example in 1976 when I graduated from HS was $12,690. That is total income from all sources. In 2019, most current year I can find. it was $65,712. That means the average family earned 1/5 in 1976 that they earned in 2019. A typical family would have to work the same number of hours to buy a $200 gun in 1976 as a $1000 gun in 2019.

FWIW, I paid $175 for my 1st rifle in 1974. It was a Rem 700 ADL 30-06. I had the guy at the gun shop mount a 3-9X32 scope on it and install sling swivel studs (they didn't come from the factory then). With a leather sling and one box of ammo it came to $250.
 
chicharrones said:
Makes me think of revolver manufacturers and current values. Seems like Ruger revolvers have climbed into S&W pricing territory. Yet, I stumble on a classic Charter Arms of the 1970s and it goes locally for well below an inflation adjusted value right now.
Click to expand...
Shhhhh! They'll be next if we're not careful!

Every so often, a big shipload of cool surplus stuff will hit the shops, and that's about the only time I see any real bargains. Like those Beretta 81s recently-- I bought two (if a gun is 200, and the magazine is fifty if you can find one in stock, then what the hey, right? Plus now I have parts if I ever need them.) Or the Beretta 51s before that (bought one, decided I didn't want to add yet another chambering to my reloading setup, sold it.) Or the Star BMs (didn't buy one for the same reloading reason, but they seemed cool.) I'm just waiting to see what's next!
 
Zerodefect said:
Inflation and income didn't keep up well. But I can afford a proper firearm. Can't complain at all.

Expensive cable TV is a disaster. Turn it off to improve your shooting budget. Cut out watching pro sports. Play the sport, or cut free from it completely. Stop spending on fast food, restaurants, pizza. Lay off the cheap fake leather $10,000 option package on your truck and you've got all the budget room in the world.

And there's more quality firearms out there. 1/2moa precision rifles are down to $1500. There's a much better variety of quality pistols out there. Top quality AR's can be built for under $1000. The pistols that existed only because of LEO institutional inertia, have mostly disappeared. 3 dot sights are finally disappearing on premium pistols. When you buy a top quality barrel for anything, you actually get a top quality barrel, every single time. Holsters have an unlimited variety. This is the best time to be a noob. Or at least it was.

223 has been too expensive for a decade now, though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, many folk's incomes took a hit as more and more working class folks have jobs in the service economy, the gig economy, or run automated machines that require a lower skill set.

Adjusting for inflation, I made more money in 2002 at age 37 than I do now at age 56, even though my paychecks now are "larger" numerically. Of course, I work in the commercial business world where paycheck stability is pretty much nil. Which means I've had massive pay cuts in lean times and had to work my way back up.

The biggest reason I have more guns now is I've spent three decades acquiring them and I've lived below my means enough that I haven't had to sell guns to pay the bills (yet).
 
AZAndy said:
I wish the value of older S&W revolvers had stayed an insider's secret. Now even a plain old Model 10 has gotten a bit out of line. :)
Click to expand...
I got one a few years ago - and it seemed they almost instantly double in price when I started looking for another one. Wish I started wanting them 10 years earlier, if I knew then what I know now - I'd have a whole collection, but - happy to have my 10-7, for now it will have to stay lonely for a brother, but - maybe some day the family will get extended.
 
Noisy, chic mufflers for trucks? What do those cost?

Tell young guys with guns to skip that fashion and save for when ammo prices finally spiral downward. That truck will never handle like a Porsche or BMW.
 
Bought my 1st "NIB from gunstore" S&W Model 19-3 in 1977 from Meltzers in Garfield NJ. At $193, it was about a week's take home pay. A new Model 19 would probably still be a week's take home, give or take. Joe
 
Used guns took a big leap in price during the Clinton years, folks were hanging onto guns and prices went up. Good used gun prices never really seemed to go down much since. Might be my imagination though. The second part, not the first.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

G
  • Locked
Am I a gun nut now?
2
Replies
39
Views
2K
Brian Williams
Brian Williams
M
  • Locked
What guns have you traded/sold off for other guns?
2 3 4
Replies
92
Views
3K
Jonah71
J
6
  • Locked
Guns: an investment or money pit?
2 3 4
Replies
79
Views
3K
R.W.Dale
R
W
  • Locked
Walmart Rifles
Replies
3
Views
1K
jercamp45
J
M
  • Locked
Shameless Gun Buyer
2
Replies
28
Views
2K
aerod1
A
Back
Top