Quick poll

I usually am, especially if they are running their mouth about how great their gun is.

I feel a little angry about it too because the person with the "better" rifle gets to own it and isn't able to know how good that rifle can really shoot.

I once had an old timer bow guy tell me that it didn't matter what bow a person used. Spendy or cheap as hell. Said the same job could be done with either. I sort of carry that around with me.

Kind of like De Niro in Ronin. "It's a tool box. Put the tools in the box."

Soooo... No. The rifle value is of little concern to me. I expect that experience will win out over wallet weight 100% of the time.

I am, on the other hand, amused by people who think the opposite.


-T.


EDIT: It occurs to me that I may not understand the spirit of your question. I voted no, but based on my response above, you may view my answer as yes.

When everyone on the firing line has a rifle that costs $3,500 or so, you pretty much quit worrying about trivial crap like this...

Precision costs money. That last tenth of an inch costs a buttload.

I'll shoot groups at 200 yards with you for money.

Doesn't really amuse me. I realize that most of those guys with the high dollar rigs only shoot right before hunting season. I don't expect them to do well.

But when you have a dedicated shooter with a high dollar precision rig, you can bet he can shoot. Of course, dedicated means several times a month, if not a week.

bob

dollars spent has nothing to do with skill or talent

I voted "NO"; as many times over I have seen simple, less expensive
firearms out shoot the high dollar [bragging rights type] of firearms;
and this holds true for both rifles and handguns~!

First of all, I just don't understand this obsession some people have with being or buying the cheapest.

Right now my Savage is pretty darn accurate for an out of the box gun, but it's certainly not in the league of the custom BR guns. It currently shoots in the .3's and .4's, to wring the last bits of accuracy out of it would probably cost another $1k or more, Hart/Krieger barrel, better stock, 2-6 oz. trigger.

I did outshoot a guy a few weeks ago with a 6.5x284 F-class rifle (at 100 yards), he was having a really bad day. I wasn't amused, I felt really lucky, it may well be the only time I ever outshoot him.

I used to shoot IPSC way back in the day, and I liked to tell myself the big difference was "those" guys shot fancy pistols, and I was shooting a stock out of the box Colt GM.

Truth be told, "those" guys could have swapped guns with me and still cleaned my clock. They knew how to shoot. I still don't.

On that rare day that I do outshoot anyone, I tend to keep my mouth shut. Tomorrow the shoe will most likely be on the other foot.

Or handgun.

I think looking down on anybody because they have something better than what you are shooting is the same as looking down on them for having something worse than what you are shooting.

My father always buys the cheapest tools and machines. He buys the cheapest because he feels that it works exactly the same as the more expensive things.

I disagree, but I also would never look down on my father because his philosophy on enjoyment of value is different to me.

I don't care what anybody else shoots because I don't concern myself with other peoples' performances. I only care about my own performance.

I agree with Boomerang.

Well i think its pretty sad when someone canT shoot something thats 5 feet infront of them. However if someone acts like they are better and they aren't i will be sure to show them that i am their. superior

Oops, sorry. Thought you said "amazed".

Fun question. Way back about 1968 when I was 16 years old I was at a private range with my best friend sighting in for deer season. We had each just bought new rifles and had started handloading our ammo. He a Winchester mdl 70 .270 and me a Remington 700 ADL in .270. We had low end scopes, I think I paid $36 for mine. Anyway we were at the bench and "Joe riflemen" shows up with a spendy rifle and scope combo. Can't recall what he had at this time but he began berating our "pipes" as "pieces of crap". When we walked to our targets out at 100 yards our "pipes" had created some very nice groups (not sure what they would have measured) and "Joe Riflemen" got real quiet while we looked at his group that was all over the paper. My friend and I still laugh about this. We still shoot our old "pipes" and I know thru the years I have managed some very nice groups and collected a lot of game. I'm sure "Joe Riflemen's" rig was capable of shooting better than he was but it was not to be that day.

AKCOP..That's a great story and true. It's not the instrument but the player. I remember way back Harry James stopped by a local club and some of us got him up to play.

One guy blamed his "beat up trumpet" on his bad playing. James asked to try it and made that old piece of scrap sing! I'd have like to been at the range that day with you and your friend!

Twice this has happened to me, both times were at the same range, one day was on the pistol range, the other was on the rifle...

Pistol: Back in 2000, I was shooting my Makarov for the second time. Next to me was someone who was late 30s early 40s (I was 22 at the time) and he had more dollars than sense. The revolver guys around here will do better at naming the model, but during the first ceasefire, we got to chatting, and he was bragging about his factory tuned S&W .44Mag. It had a mid-length barrel, 6"ish? stainless finish and some flavor of red-dot sight. The rest of the details are kinda fuzzy, but he was shooting next to me and when he closed the cylinder, he did the whole movie, flick-wrist-close-cylinder move... Fortunately, despite some other bad habits, he had adequate muzzle discipline!!! Anyway, I made a comment about it would be a shame to damage the alignment on such a fine firearm through rough handling. He told that my commie pistol may be sensitive, but his revolver was built hell-for-stout. This guy showed all the symptoms of lack of training which was sad because he was nice enough to not fit squarely in the "range jerk" category but bull headed enough to try to teach himself without benefit of something more manageable. Anyway, down to the nitty gritty: at one point he wanted to see who could group better at 10yards. We ran some silhouettes out there and I was impressed with my (then $100 Bulgy) since all 6 shots (We each shot 6 since that was his capacity) were in the black upper torso in about a 12" group with 2 c.o.m. He had 2 hit the paper, one on the white and one on one of the shoulders. He was wondering how my little commie gun could shoot so well and it wasn't factory tuned, and still had iron sights. I shrugged it off to getting lucky... As I said, nice enough guy, just needed some training on how to properly shoot...

Second time was the same range about a year or so later when I was taking my 91/30 Tikka to the range for the first time. It wasn't a busy day, I think 2-3 people on the firing range, and I was looking forward to busting up my shoulder. Also on the rifle range was a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) who was shooting a Model 70 and was dialing in a new scope he got for it. When I show up at my station, and without being asked, he starts bellowing on about horrible Mosins are and that he's wouldn't expect a $50 rifle to shoot well, etc, etc... I tried explaining it was a Tikka, but to him all Mosins were M44s... Anyway, so I'm just the dumb kid so I get ready to shoot and have a fun time just putting holes in paper, I wasn't shooting to attain any given group, just to have fun making loud noises and in effect, plinking... Anyway, before I leave he's still trying to get his scope set up. He keeps shooting and his bullets are hitting way off to the right and hitting around one of the wooden target rack supports a couple of feet from the target. He cranks the windage to trim it out, but it doesn't move ANYWHERE NEAR far enough to compensate for being misaligned!!! I identified the problem almost immediately, and even asked "May I make a suggestion?" I was dismissed as a young punk who couldn't know anything since I was shooting what was in his opinion a low-class gun. Anyway, he had a Leupold base on his gun, at least he had the right base set!!! He had "tightened" the right hand screw all the way to the base plate, set up the ring, then "tightened" the left hand screw to secure the ring. I'm sure he figured it out eventually, but not while I was there! Basically, the time I was there I was the only person hitting the paper, and I was doing so with open sights.

I quite going to that range not too long after that and joined a club near where I live/work becuase of crap like that...

As a side note, my M44 will hit the paper too I just didn't take it out that day. I am the weak link adversly effecting the accuracy with most of my guns.

okay... all of my guns


Wow, sorry for the disertation guys!
I hope ya'll have a great Thanksgiving!!!



Czar

Nope. Mine's usually one of the most expensive on the range...

Most of the people that shoot where I do all have about the same amount of money wrapped up in guns. So we are pretty much equal

What is fun though is when the guy with the spendy gun runs yours down or chuckles and then you out shoot him. Life can be good at times.

Did a shoot once long time back to qualify for a Grande from the CMP. I told the guy over the phone when I signed up "This will be interesting to me as I can out shoot all my buddy's" He laughed at me and made some statement to the effect "you'll find out huh ha ha ". About 60 guys there some with nice Lyman target open sights some SWAT guys and me with a Mini 14 with homemade open sights and reloads in a coffee can. 120 rounds later at the end of two days shooting I had the highest score there, not by much but highest. So, I walk up to the guy and say something and he wouldn't acknowledge I was even there and never spoke to me. I did sign up to join the "club" but they never called so I never went back.
What a jerk, but 30 years later I still feel good whenever I think of it all. Wish I could still see as good as back then.

Nope. Mine's usually one of the most expensive on the range...

Click to expand...

At least tell me what it is.

Not so much amused that it's expensive, but...

the fact that some people think just because it's expensive it will make them shoot better. I have to admit, I try not to buy 'junk'....I will go for quality every time, but it's kind of funny when down the way you notice that the guy is eying your target and getting pissed off cause you're doing better than him....
Had one guy slam his stuff together, and storm out of the range.....weird. Didn't pay him any attention until he did that, but hubby said that he had been watching me shoot, and seemed to get madder and madder about something......

One time when I went to the range, there were two other guys there. One guy was using a decked-out custom race gun, and another was using an old beat-up gun.

The guy with the custom gun had groups half the size of the other guy's, and was just a better shooter over all. He was a real operator.

Later, I complimented him on the gun. He said, "Yeah, I just really love the sport, and as much as I go shooting, it's worth it to me to just bite the bullet and go ahead and buy the best you can get."

**********

It's always funny to see how it's always assumed that the guy with the high-end gun must only take it out twice a year, and the guy with the low-end gun clearly has to be a master marksman in disguise.

There are places where if you pull out a nice gun, people assume you don't have any skill. It's like a weird counter-culture arrogance over the cheapness of one's gear; a quixotic romanticizing of the underdog.

There are crappy shooters with crappy guns, operators with race guns, crappy shooters with race guns, and operators with crappy guns.

A friend of mine shoots local level competition skeet and trap - they call it something else but not being a shotgun guy I'm not exactly sure what.

I went to a few competitions with him. He uses either an 870 pump or one of the Browning auto's depending on the mood he's in that day. The Browning is a $1000 shotgun and the 870 - well - it's just an 870. My friend regularly finishes in the top 3 and often enough wins.

We both get a kick out of that when the guys he beats are shooting those $20,000 shotguns and he beats 'em with the 870. It's especially funny when the $20K SG guys can't figure out that his victory has more to do with skill than the gun.

it tickles me on the inside especially, as posted in some of the previous threads, when the person with the hyper expensive rifle talks a good story and then has to prove it later.
It's as if they expect cost of equipment to take the place of acquired skill . . . viola, instant Carlos Hathcock or Adelbert Waldron III.