If "hind sight is 20-20" What firearm do you kick yourself on for not buying?

A) A ZPAP, the latest Serbian variation of their AKM. And so nice with new walnut furniture. At least the primary metal components are Serbian.

These reportedly have a better-shaped buttstock, far less prone to "cheek slap", with the proper, typical hold and cheek weld.

I saw a BLR in .358 Winchester first gun show I ever went to.

I’ve never seen a a cartridge/platform since that has more panache.

Ruger Red Label O/U shotgun. Seems to me when they came out they were $695 + I just couldn't justify that since good pumps were around $300. Anyway, drooled over them for years and the price just kept goin up. Was at a gun show last Sun (Cambridge, OH) and saw a beautiful 20 ga Ruger Red Label for a mere $1900 now that they stopped makin em + parts are unavail. Man those things are pretty, just NOT $1900 pretty!

Bill Ruger tried to make a poor man's Perazzi, and while it was a decent gun, it was still overpriced, and not a Perazzi. That said, I've always fancied the Trap model, which are fairly rare.

LOL, which one? Most recently, it was a very clean, brushed stainless CZ 75B. I should have bought it on the spot, but instead I went back the next day. Unfortunately, the LGS had pulled it from the used gun case to list on gunbroker, where it went for several hundred more than the original price.

I did buy it but I should have bought all, and I mean ALL the surplus HK P7s.

I remember 15 years ago at a gun show, a guy was selling privately a $75 357 blued revolver. I think it was a Charter Arms or Taurus. It was really beat up, but the guys said it worked. I passed on it and then thought about it and decided to go back and find the guy and buy it. I mean, $75, what did I have to lose. When I went back, it was gone.
Yeah, I regret that, even today. Maybe it was busted up, out of sync, piece of junk, but it might of been a diamond in the rough..

Another one I missed out on was USFA. I really wanted a copy of Keith's 7 1/2 inch flat top target in .44 Special. I was buying and selling a lot of guns at the time and there was always something more urgent - I made the mistake of assuming USFA was always going to be around...

Gun show about 25 years ago. Guy had a pristine S&W 24-3 Lew Horton .44 Special with a price tag of, if I recall correctly, about $250. It wasn’t exactly what I was hunting for that evening but I was intrigued enough to go back for a second look after I’d strolled through the rest of the show. In that time, he’d raised the price a $100 because someone told him it was a Lew Horton. I should have snapped it up at either price. I don’t know what I was thinking about.
I started attending the local gun show religiously about 1989 when it was still in it’s golden age. Prices were way lower than retail, military surplus firearms were abundant, and the tables were absolutely groaning with guns of every description, instead of the flea market crap that characterizes this show today. I bet I walked by scads of nice PPK’s, Colt 1903’s, minty Swedish Mausers, S&W Safety Hamerless and 1917 revolvers, and who knows what else. Things that probably didn’t even register with me because I wasn’t looking for them at the time and I had no idea that I’d search in vain for nice, affordable examples later. Foolish youth!

Colt Python 4”. Oh, and a S&W 27 “Dirty Harry” model.

Most of my old age wisdom is what I should have avoided or not done.

Not really that much for me, I wasn’t really into guns when the real screaming deals were to be had. I would probably have picked up a few more Sig P225/P6s when they were so cheap so I’d still have one, and there was a good shape Colt Trooper I could have flipped for a nice profit I passed on.

But really not much for me.

Oh, not a long ago deal but I did see a nice shape Sig 7.62 AR with mags, magpul BUIS, Vortex Strike Eagle that I passed on for a price that was pretty stupid low. I was at the shop buying something else so I didn’t have gun money but that would have been a nice pickup once I got home and priced everything out

A cased original William Billinghurst Civil War snipers rifle with all accessories including false muzzle, moulds for front and rear bullet sections, swage, patch cutter, starter, powder tube, loading and cleaning rods and long tube scope sight. Local old gunsmith had it but I couldn't come up with the $500. Sold a few years ago for $30K. But as a poor teacher in the mid seventies.....oh yeah, bore was perfect and it would shoot.

Springfield Armory Range Officer 9mm.

In 1981 I had just worked an eight week rotation building a pumping station at Johnson Bayou, LA, had more money than sense and went into a pawn shop/LGS in my home town to look and bought a brand new Colt Trooper MkIII, if I remember correctly the price was $259 (the writing on the receipt faded away completely long ago). Sitting beside it in the display case was an equally new Python, but I didn't want to pay the extra for it. I could have easily afforded it that day, but sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. I also remember going into a discount store in Jackson, MS many years ago and they had SKS rifles in a rack for $79 each.

I had an opportunity to buy an original Pedersen Device for $5,000. Too much money for me in those days (circa 1975). Instead I got a Thompson for $750 (plus $200 tax).

Walmart had Savage Axis rifles on clearance at a time when Savage had a $50 rebate. My cost, after rebate and STEEP discount was about $5 per rifle, plus or minus a few nickels. I picked up 2, one in .223 and one in .270 Win. There were 4 more left in stock at that store that I didn't buy because I really didn't need them. I called a couple friends and told them of the deal and left them in the store. My friends are morons and didn't go get them. I'm a moron for having friends that don't appreciate a screaming deal and I regret not buying the rifles, because, um, well, you know..... FIVE DOLLARS!!!

Pre-lock S&W 629 Mountain Gun.

Artillery Luger with snail magazine and flat stock for $4000.00.
I had that much in found money at the time.
(I have three categories of accounts: general, retirement and "found money" from unexpected sources.)

If "hind sight is 20-20" What firearms do you kick yourself on for not buying?

Click to expand...

All of them.

I'm still kicking myself for not buying a nearly perfect S&W Model 19-3 4" 357 Magnum for $750 a year and half ago. I was at the LGS to do a transfer on another revolver I just had bought online. Now, I'll check the local shops first.

I very nearly bought two different nicely-engraved US Firearms Single Action revolvers, at an LGS, at two different times. One had extensive coverage, and the other had a tastefully small amount of coverage. The artistic side of my brain tells me to kick myself for not buying at least one of them. The pragmatic side of my brain tells me that it would have been foolish to spend that kind of money.

I kick myself more, for having let so many firearms, that I had bought, get away from me, especially during the Nineties, into the very early 21st Century. I worked much overtime, in those days, and was able to get so many nice firearms, but tended to trade when buying a new one, and also tended to “thin the herd,” if I accumulated what I saw as too many.

It used to be so easy to buy really nice pre-keyhole S&W revolvers, so, it never occurred to me how precious and difficult-to-find/replace that they would become.

Class IIIs in the '70s.
M-14, HKs, Grease gun, 16s,
Most expensive was the full pistol grip stock, FA M-14 at 400$
M1, Carbines, 1911s all cheap at the time.
Actual barrels of surplus '06 ammo...sold by weight!
Nail scoops to the scale...geez I shouldn't have started on this...

Easy


DAN WESSON VBOB 9mm a few years back

Full auto Thompson sub gun.

Full auto AR16

BAR