Attrition

[hovercat]

Fire, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes. Theft, leaky roofs, neglect, gov confiscation and boating accidents.

Out of perhaps 100,000 of a particular model firearm made, a certain number disappear each year. Do any of the learned minds here have an idea of percentages? Obviously when an object becomes truly rare different rules apply, since great granddad's flintlock fowling piece is rarely boated across the lake to the duck blind.

Thank you for helping.

 

[Jim K]

Well, it was. Very few guns were made to put in museum displays; most were used, and often used hard, either by sportsmen, police or the military. In general, more guns were made for military use than for any other purpose, but they also have the highest attrition rate. Still, because of the vast numbers made, ex-military weapons will usually be found in the greatest numbers.

Probably the highest attrition rate in commercial arms would be for shotguns. Usually considered tools rather than quality guns, they were (and are) often neglected, thrown into the back of the closet rather than displayed with the "good" guns, and junked when they no longer function.

Jim

 

[W.E.G.]

This is why it is the responsibility of each of us as we age to be CERTAIN that suitable new homes are located for our personal accumulations before the task is dumped in the lap of somebody who is neither competent or inclined to perform the task.

 

[Dr.Rob]

While you'd think it would be less likely to find a Weatherby rusted shut with neglect over say a Ted Williams rifle sold by Sears... that's not always the case.

Some people just don't take care of their stuff. Nature is cruel. Disasters happen. Putting a real number on the attrition .. that's just not possible. Older weapons that used corrosive priming and moisture drawing powders have a far higher attrition rate, as any degree of neglect could result in damage, and they were often used in less than sterile circumstances without modern cleaning and preservation methods.

Which is why there are more functional AK's around than Brown Bess Muskets.

Mountains of military hardware gets destroyed after a conflict, or sold off by the victors to various allies to slumber in hidden armories (think German War surplus to Israel, Iraq, etc) Not to mention how much hardware gets 'used up' in conflict or left on the field.

Civilian losses due to neglect probably pale compared to conflict losses or disaster.

 

[Ron James]

It would be impossible to arrive at a valid attrition rate on firearms, because no one keeps score. Good example, When the Hunt brothers cornered the silver market in the early 70's tons of silver coins were melted down. The same thing happened recently when the silver market skyrocket. Among those coins were many rare mintage, and of the rest many of them are now rare and scarce. That brings up a question, which ones? Only those that were rare or scarce before the melt down still bring any type of premium on the collectors market. Same with the guns, no one knows how many or which ones have fallen by the way side, only those that were scare and rare before can be accounted for with any accuracy. There were 4 scaled down Mauser .380 ACP Lugers made, only two ( 50% ) are known to still exist, where, oh where are the other two. Just my take.