Do you own guns you never wanted?

[.38 Special]

Sure. I used to be a pretty "serious" gun trader, and took in all sorts of stuff that held no interest for me. The great majority of them got traded off without ever being shot or even really looked at.

Those days are long gone, and the only "never wanted" guns I still have are all inheritances - guns I would never have bought off the shelf, but which hold enough sentimental value that they won't ever be gotten rid of.

 

[C.R.]

I have gotten a couple I was not really looking for in leu of rent , but they fit with the other guns I own so I will hang onto them.

 

[gwpercle]

I never had any interest in owning a 9mm Luger handgun ... I am a 1911 45 acp person .
About 7 years ago I'm sitting at kitchen table in my Dad's house ... he walks in and say's ..."Here you take this , I don't have any use for it any longer and it needs to be shot and cleaned once in awhile " and he hands me WWII era Walther P-38 , a rough cyq that had been imported & refinished by Klein's Sporting Goods and Dad mail ordered it in 1960 ... It lived in his sock drawer as his home protection / night stand gun . He had a Colt 38 Special now so didn't need the P-38 ...
So after shooting and reloading for nearly 50 years I had a new caliber to start playing with ...
I had two sets of 9mm Luger reloading dies a C-H and Lee set picked up over the years ...
Ordered a new NOE bullet mould and I was set !
Gary

 

[Jimbo80]

I have quite a few. Most were deals that were too good to pass up like a IMI DE 50 AE for $400. I figured they would be easy flips or trade bait but end up keeping most of them.

 

[lightman]

Never wanted might be a little strong. But I have inherited guns twice in my life and I ended up owning a few that I probably would not have bought on my own. They were passed down to me and will be passed on down to other family members.

 

[Speedo66]

I've mentioned this before. While working in NY, another officer in a different building was retiring and called me to ask what forms we needed to fill out when we sold guns. He was going to sell two guns to a gun shop, said they were going to give him $50. Each? No, for both.

I don't even know what he has, but I say I'll take them and I'll do all the paperwork for you. Fifteen minutes later I'm there and now the proud owner of a High Standard Victor with the box and all factory papers, and a Colt Det. Spl. which I really didn't need or want.

While I'm looking at them back at my desk, another officer walks by and sees the Colt. Say's he's looking for a 6 shot snub nose, I say make me a low offer. $75, so High Standard for free, plus $25, and he got what he wanted for a decent price. Good day all around. This was back in the late '80's.

Silly me much later sold the High Standard, what was I thinking?

 

[Bob Willman]

Somewhere in the middle 1960s a friend from school was back home for a visit. Knowing I had a few guns, he said a friend in Missouri has a 38 he wanted to sell and would I be interested. I told him that the next time he came back home bring it along and I will take a look at it. No price was discussed. Several weeks later I went to the mailbox and found a shoe box tied up with string that was coming apart with newspaper showing and postmarked from Missouri. Inside the box was a black holster containing a British Enfield revolver in 38 S&W with a note that he wanted $25.00 for it. I still have it. Actually I can't remember ever selling any gun that I have owned.

NRA Benefactor Golden Eagle

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I bought 3 GI bringbacks, guns I wasn't really interested and didn't actively pursue, but the price was right, they got the cash, I got the guns.

 

[Rshooter]

Cannot say I did not want it when I bought it. A Tarus PT22. Did not want it after I found out is a jamomatic. I still have as I am not willing to pawn off a piece of junk on someone else.

 

[jak67429]

Not that I didn't want it, just not the way I got it. I have a Springfield m1a nat match I inherited when a friend passed away. I do have a sterling 16 ga Damascus twist double barrel barrel my kid found at a garage sale and decided I needed it. Only gun I own I haven't shot.

 

[WestKentucky]

That’s an interesting way to put it.

Seems appropriate under the circumstances. I’m not going into THAT on here though. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, sometimes bigger prizes than they seem.

 

[Rockrivr1]

When my Dad passed he left me his small gun collection. It was mostly old junk that’s sitting in my safe now as I don’t think they are even worth the effort to sell them. Who needs a bolt action no name 12 gauge smooth bore shotgun nowadays?

 

[.308 Norma]

My brother-in-law (I guess he was technically my wife's brother-in-law) contracted macular degeneration and lost his eyesight 20 some years back. He gave me his 3 long guns: an inexpensive Remington bolt 7mm Rem Mag, a Browning BAR 30-06, and a old Belgium made Browning "Light 12" shotgun with a cracked stock. It wasn't that I didn't "want" them, it was just that I would have never bought any of them for myself.
I ended up trading off the Remington bolt for something else that I did want at the time, and I gave the Browning BAR 30-06 to a good friend who was in need of an elk rifle. However, I replaced the cracked stock on that Browning "Light 12" with a synthetic one, and that shotgun has become my favorite pheasant, chucker and sharptailed grouse gun of all time.

 

[J-Bar]

Who needs a bolt action no name 12 gauge smooth bore shotgun nowadays?

Offer it to the farmer/rancher whose land you want to hunt.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

I bought a Carcano to get the cleaning rod to complete another. Turns out the one I bought was nicer. Then the dealer I did the transfer through calls me up and says “So, since you like these…” and offered me another for a price I couldn’t refuse. So I took the cleaning rod off that one… I set out at the beginning to own 1 carcano TS carbine, I now own 3, one of which is refinished and missing its cleaning rod. Mission accomplished, sorta?

Lol, bought a Turk Mauser once because I already had the matching bayonet.....

bought an old Chinese Tokerav from one guy 2 or 3 times and sold it back to him, I’m not sure I ever even shot it. He always bought it back with his tax refund

I once traded off an Astra A600 for some other shiney object I can't recall. The Astra sat forelornly unsold in the case for 6 months. I felt sorry for it and bought it again- still have it.

 

[Capybara]

I scored a nice deal on a Makarov and a P64 last year. Problem was seller only would sell them in a package deal including a CZ52. Problem was I had bought a very nice mint condition CZ52 a few weeks before. Who needs two CZ52s? But I scored the Makarov and the P64 for
way under market and even the CZ52 for $200 under market and it's a nice one. So not a big deal, I'm hoping to trade it to someone for a CZ82, which I used to have, loved it but had to sell it in a divorce. Or maybe I should dual wield the CZ52s to look like an action hero?

 

[Scooter22]

No. I liked and bought them to begin with. I just don't remember which ones. It's fun to find them again though. New gun for for free.

 

[Bartojc]

When my dad passed he had a half dozen or so guns. No one in the family wanted anything to do with them at the time. I took them just to make sure they were not still in his empty house at the time. Firearms to my father were tools and were treated as such. They weren’t much to look at, but we’re mostly functional.

Fast forward 10 years and I still have them all. I’ve not fired any of them with the exception of the Remington 870 he bought new upon his retirement ( his one and only new firearm purchase). There is a model 94 Winchester in the mix that I’m mildly interested in. Don’t have a need or a want for the others, they just take up space. Hard to part with them knowing there they came from though.


Jeff

 

[armedwalleye]

A couple. A Springfield XDs two tone. Ex brother in law needed money. He’d been a little unstable and I thought I’d rather have a gun I didn’t want but could afford than him have one he could potentially do something stupid with.
Bought a .22 from a guy whose house I was working on, he wanted to get it away from h8s unstable kid.
Bought a 3 barrel combo kit from a guy at a garage sale. Casually asked my standard line...guns, traps old coins.... he comes out of the house with 5he single shot 3 barrel combo, I think a .22, a 20 ga and a .243. 2 barrels still in the plastic. Wanted a hundo. Couldn’t say no. It was his kid’s and the kid owed him money.

 

[Riomouse911]

I have a couple I was handed down that I would never buy myself, but I am hanging onto because the ones who gave them to me are still alive and I would hate to tell them I got rod of the gun they gifted me.

An unknown name .410 single shot with an unfinished stock my Uncle gave me.

My Dad gave me a couple; A Win 1894 “Golden Spike” Commemorative that is well used and abused. Looks like crap.

Two Ducks Unlimited banquet guns; a Beretta A303 and a Rem 870 20 ga. Wonderful shotguns but they are too nice to shoot or take hunting so they just sit in the safe.

An unfired Rem 700 BDL in 7mm Rem Mag. Great gun, great caliber, but it is left-handed…and I’m not.

Stay safe.

 

[valnar]

I've never bought a gun that I didn't want initially, but I did sell a couple that disappointed me after the fact.

 

[Smaug]

I have a couple I inherited, and one that I've since moved on.

• From a great uncle, a H&R "22 Special" - a break-top 22LR revolver, 10-shot. DA trigger is horrible, SA is not much better, and its timing is screwed up. I keep wondering if it's worth sending to a gunsmith to fix. Uncle used to shoot stray cats in his backyard with it. That gunsmith trip is in the "Someday/Maybe" category.
• From a different great uncle, a Remington 788 in 6 mm Rem. He bought it to shoot beavers and groundhogs on his wooded property. In the end, he decided his trusty Marlin 39A was adequate. It had an ugly stock with the varnish flaking off. I refinished it and now it looks slightly better, but you wouldn't mistake it for something nice. I can only get off about 3 shots with reasonable accuracy (4 MoA?) until it needs to cool for at least 20 minutes. My Ruger 77/22 in 22LR will easily outshoot it at 100 yards.
• From another different great uncle via the previous one, the old family shotgun, a Stevens pump from the early 20th century. That generation used it to put food on the table when they were poor sharecroppers; dove, rabbit, pheasant, squirrel. My paternal graddad was one of nine kids, so there were a lot of mouths to feed and not much money. I never shot this one; was afraid to. It seemed in OK shape, but probably should've been checked out by a gunsmith prior to shooting it. Long barrel, I'm not sure if it was full choke or what, but didn't have any provision for choke tubes. I wound up giving it to that uncle's son; it was more appropriate for him to have it than me.

The one that I DO treasure is my granddad's single shot 22; a generic one that someone cut the stock on to fit my 12 year-old granddad. I'm going to have my daughter (10) shoot it on our next trip to the range. It has a peep sight and is pretty accurate. I'm told that hundreds of squirrels met their demise because of this gun.

 

[mope540]

My grandfather gave me a Mossberg 185 shotgun. I wasn't interested in anything 20 ga., or a bolt action shotgun to be honest, but I kept it until he passed away a short time later. Gave it to my uncle.

 

[Mauser fan]

About 8 years ago my best friend was going through a very nasty divorce and he gave me an H&K USP40 Compact. I told him then that didn't want it but he insisted that I have it rather than his ex-wife. He then told me it is to be your retirement gift. I still have it and it is very accurate as long as I do my part. I'll keep it and never give it up. Truth be told I have never really been one for handguns but it doesn't mean I don't know how to use them.

 

[HPJeep]

Yeah I recently inherited a bunch of Glocks. The kicker is that I never warmed up to that platform like I have for other platforms.