Hand Picked C&R Firearm. Is it worth the extra money to do this?

[Rockrivr1]

I'm looking to get a C&R CZ-50 from an online distributer and they offer to "Hand Pick" the best model out of five. Is this really worth the extra $10 to do? This will be my first C&R purchase so I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not.

 

[Zen21Tao]

Handpicked is a toss of the dice. What it means is that the representative grabs 5 models and chooses the best looking one out of the 5. Sometimes it makes a difference sometimes it doesn't (see example below). But, considering that the alternative maybe taking the first one grabbed off the shelf, hand picking could be worth the money. If its only $10-$20 then it I wouldn't think twice about using it.

The gun club I belong to did a group buy on Mosins from SOG about a year or so ago. One of the members bought one seperately using the "handpicked" option. The one he received was no better or no worse than the others received. They were all in great shape. This was a case where the "handpicked" option didn't matter at all. Just remember, not all cases are like this.

 

[DonP]

Hand Picked winner!

I ordered my K-31 Swiss and added the $10 hand pick charge.

When I opened it I found a perfect Tiger Stripe hardwood stock on it with no major damage or scratching and close to 95% finish on the metal. It's a real show stopper at the range.

Maybe I lucked out and just got one of the order fillers on a good day.

Bottom line, it was worth it for me.

 

[Bruce333]

IMO handpick isn't worth it for a handgun. Especially if they are saying all the guns are of the same general condition. With a rifle you can sometimes get a better stock with handpick, but you are still only paying for them to chose from the 5 (or 10) that are next up on the shelf/out of the box.

 

[Dr.Rob]

A C&R collector buddy of me tells me he ALWAYS pays the extra few bucks... and it usually pays off.

His C&R collection is pretty impressive.

 

[Bruce333]

My question to people that use the handpick option.

How do you know it paid off if you never see the other guns they had to pick from?

 

[leadcounsel]

I've ordered a total of 10 SKS rifles using my CR license in a batch of 6 and a batch of 4. I've never had the option of "handpick" from the places I've ordered.

I can say that in the batch of 6, there were 2 rifles that were visually much more appealing than the remaining 4. And in the batch of 4, 1 of them was clearly nicer than the others.

So, my conclusion is that if the distributor was grabbing these 2 rifles from these 10, I would have likely gotten the better 2 of them, cosmetically speaking.

For an extra $10, is it worth it? Depends. I would say that if you are ordering $100 rifles, adding 10% for cosmetics (which can be subjective) is NOT worth it. Save the $10 and for every 10 rifles you buy treat yourself to another one on your savings. If it's just for shooting and not for collecting, not worth it. But if you're buying $500 CR guns, then $10 would be a smaller percent of the total, so then it may be worth it.

It may not be worth it if the guns are all "very good condition" but it would also be worth it if the guns range from "good to very good" condition.

 

[Firethorn]

I bought my SKS 'handpicked'. The dealer ordered a number of them, and mine was the only handpicked one. It was in substantially better condition.