In and out of shooting/collecting and gun sale regret

[Birdmang]

So I haven’t posted in a while and haven’t been involved in much shooting sports or collecting since leaving a job at a gun store around 10 years ago, but I love signing into the highroad and looking at my old posts and attachments and seeing what I had, what I sold, remembering how much I sold it for and then going on gun broker and seeing Polytech legends and HK 91s selling for thousands more Ha!

Anyways,It feels good to be shooting again and you can’t win them all right?

 

[wiscoaster]

Life runs in cycles. Glad to hear this cycle wound up with you back here.

 

[Speedo66]

Life runs in cycles. Glad to hear this cycle wound up with you back here.

I had a cycle where I sold a pristine High Standard Victor.

What the hell was I thinking? lol

 

[Barbaroja]

Material possessions are fleeting. The memories you make are the only thing that really last. Glad to have you back.

 

[Birdmang]

Material possessions are fleeting. The memories you make are the only thing that really last. Glad to have you back.

I remember how it felt to dump a 20 round HK91 mag from the hip.

 

[1KPerDay]

Hindsight is 20/20. We all wish we could go back and buy X or not sell Y. That’s life. You did what you thought was best at the time. Welcome back

 

[CapnMac]

Hindsight is 20/20. We all wish we could go back and buy X or not sell Y. That’s life. You did what you thought was best at the time. Welcome back

I'm in a reasonable comfort zone--barring the ones 2008-2012 took from me, which still annoy.
The only things I sold were those that really did not "fit" me.

Did not Buy, is a bit more complicated.
Right now, that's three.
1. Owner of my LGS, while at a gun show, offered me a P210 for all of $350. And I had the money. But was being stingy.
2. Same LGS Owner (we were pretty tight) offered me a then new Valkyrie 'Suomi' in 7.62x25 with a drum and a coffin mag, for $375 out the door. Had the money, and more. Just talked myself out of it for not "adding a caliber."
3. Was at the Ft Worth gun show after a long day, and I was tired and grumpy. Personal sale dude--who appeared be as grumpy as I--had a few interesting shooters on his one and only table. Dude was busy wasting Grumpy's time waving a S&W revolver about emitting words and saying nothing. Which meant I just couldn't get in and ask the dude about the Colt 1903 with a $475 price tag on it. Money would not have been a problem, if I could have pushed windbag out of the way, and found out more about the pistol.

And, that's it. And, really, I'm ok with that.

 

[Reinz]

Welcome Back Birdmang, glad you’re shoot’n again.

 

[1KPerDay]

Did not Buy, is a bit more complicated.
Right now, that's three.
1. Owner of my LGS, while at a gun show, offered me a P210 for all of $350. And I had the money. But was being stingy.

Oooooo that smarts....

 

[CapnMac]

Oooooo that smarts....

Yeah, he'd taken it in trade, and needed to move it. I'd help man the tables for a while, too. I can't remember if it was Swiss marked--may have been Bundespoliztei. Or a Dane.
But, yeah, kick myself on that one.
Even if it were a clean dog I could have gotten $350 back out of it easily. (And this was the early-mid 90s, before internets, GB, and the like.)

 

[spraay]

and you can’t win them all right?

You're still posting and still shooting, so I'd say you're winning.

 

[redneck2]

Uhhhhh......those are nothing compared to the cost, loss, and regrets from my two ex-wives.

I’d trade every gun I’ve ever owned a hundred times over if I’d have never been associated with either of them.

I had a brand new, factory ordered 1973 429 Super Cobra Jet Mustang totally loaded. Factory ram air. Heavy duty 4 speed, Detroit Locker 4:10. It would be worth over $250,000 today. Don’t whine about a $1,000 gun.

 

[Steve S.]

Regrets are a teaching moment; repeating a regret is a blunder. Stick around as all here have the same passion. My passion has been lifetime, no break in the action. Firearms are art to me, I simply have to have then around.

 

[bannockburn]

There was a time when I just got tired of the whole buying/selling/trading scene. Prices were going up on most guns (except of course for the ones I was trying to trade or sell), and it was getting to be more bother than it was worth.

So I stopped making the rounds of the gun shops and shows and got into another "hobby" instead: photography. And I enjoyed it a lot as it allowed me to use my creative and artistic side, without all the wheeling and dealing associated with guns.

I did this for a couple of years until I saw some new guns come out on the market which perked up my interest once again. Nothing like the first time around but with a much more deliberate and studious approach to acquiring guns.

I can also remember seeing reasonably priced P210s but typically I didn't have any money to buy them. Took a pass at a gun show on a S&W Super Skeet shotgun (even came with a spare barrel for field use, because I wanted to check it out first (pre-Internet days). It was priced under $300 and they were listening to offers. Came back the next day and of course it was gone.

 

[230RN]

I never parted with a gun that I didn't regret sooner or later.

One was a Colt M1917 which I picked up in the late 1960s for something like $65 with a double handful of half-moon clips. I quickly installed a grip filler, wondering why double-action revolvolators had such crappy grips.

I did a lot of experimenting with that gun, including using Skeeter Skelton's loadings of 12 gr 2400 in Balloon Head cases. Heck of a load, but I consistently found unburned powder in the bottom of my holster.

It was a nice tame gun with regular .45ACP ammo, and one of the first things I noticed was the recoil was much milder than from a 1911.

Subsequent investigation indicated this was because the lighter slide of the 1911 picked up a lot more energy than the full solid mass of the 1917.

That, by the way, was how I got married to "Hatcher's Notebook" with its detailed analyses of recoil.

It was a good gun, not in the best shape bluing-wise, not one you'd use as a Barbecue Gun or a Sunday-go-to-meetin' gun, but good and solid and threw lead pretty much where I wanted the lead to go, especially if I used the right Kentucky Elevationage.

I traded it in for something "better" and it was a couple of years before I started to regret getting rid of it.

I sure wish I had it back now... even more than some other and "better" guns I've traded or sold.

Terry, 230RN

Not real pretty, but she sure knew what to do.

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server5...62/_HHP0649__14402.1498764217.780.442.JPG?c=2

Pic credit in Properties --great photo, by the way.

 

[d2wing]

My list on guns I wish I still had is a few, 1100 LT20, Garand, Remington 788. and more. Cars, still wish I had kept my Red 68 Camaro. Girlfriends. Not going there. Right now I am thinking I should have kept my reloading set-up.

 

[P5 Guy]

I had a brand new, factory ordered 1973 429 Super Cobra Jet Mustang totally loaded. Factory ram air. Heavy duty 4 speed, Detroit Locker 4:10. It would be worth over $250,000 today

Worth a quarter million only if you never drove it. What a shame to lock a 429 Super Cobra Jet in an environmentally controlled garage never to lay rubber to asphalt?
Some folks can do that with firearms, but that ain't this guy.

 

[hso]

All collecting or hobbies ebb and flow with time for most folks.

 

[WisBorn]

I have traded off a few firearms that I regret, but the one I regret the most is a Winchester 1886 in 45-70. It was a limited edition with a tang safety. The gun shot really well and came to my shoulder like it was built for me.
It will be hard to replace being a light rifle with a short tube and limited edition.

 

[BWS]

I traded a #41 Smith for a new R700V 6mm... back in the early 1980's.

It was a very nice pistol,shot it well but it stayed in the safe. Still have some 22's and rarely use them. The 6mm on the other hand,is one of my favorite cast bullet rigs,and is out on the loading bench as this is written.

So,no regret whatsoever.

 

[Lennyjoe]

Welcome back to the shooting sport. Back when I began buying my own firearms, I was on a limited budget so a purchase had a purpose. I’ve bought and sold over the years and regret a few of those transactions. But it all came with an experience and a memory. Now I’m not as limited financially so I’m buying what I want, sometimes for a purpose and others “just because”....lol