jolly roger
Member
FIE Titan 25 is the cheapest gun in my collection. Got it free from sister in law who was scared of it. Goes bang every time I've shot it and accurate too for a pea shooter...go figure
Saturday Night Special collection suggestions
- Thread starter Dr. Sandman
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OneFreeTexan
Member
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- Aug 7, 2004
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Where is the SNS website?....please.
PJSprog
Member
I have a friend who bought a used Llama .357 back in the mid-'80s. I think he paid maybe $120 for it. Second trigger pull resulted in a broken hammer. It seemed like a fairly well-made (if not heavy) revolver, so he took it to a gunsmith who was able to get a new hammer for it. That one didn't break until a couple of months later. I know I've heard and read people praise those as good guns, but my experience has been otherwise.
(He saved his money and bought a new GP-100 after that.)
(He saved his money and bought a new GP-100 after that.)
Monac
Member
Thanks, mxl! I'm interested in these cheap revolvers, although I don't actually collect them, and I had never heard of the ones made by General Precision. I've mostly seen the Clerke's and the Kimels.
After the Gun Control Act of 1968 went into effect, some West German companies making these cheap guns tried to keep the business going by enlisting American companies to "manufacture" these guns using mainly German parts. (I think the frames had to be made, or finished, in the USA.) General Precision might be another one of those. None of them seemed to last very long; the quality seemed to be even lower than the German originals
After the Gun Control Act of 1968 went into effect, some West German companies making these cheap guns tried to keep the business going by enlisting American companies to "manufacture" these guns using mainly German parts. (I think the frames had to be made, or finished, in the USA.) General Precision might be another one of those. None of them seemed to last very long; the quality seemed to be even lower than the German originals
jim in Anchorage
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It just needs a barrel of blue and gold.
The bible of defining a SNS-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vF66CsYEnc
sgt127
Member
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- Apr 29, 2003
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- 2,116
MCgunner
Member
i've owned a few of 'em. First handgun i ever owned was a Hawes, cheap single action with a zamak frame. In fact, for me, one of the definitions of "saturday night special" is ZAMAK. I do have a worn out Erma LA22 which has a lot of zamak, still shoots, but not real reliable. It's a P08 Luger look alike in .22 LR. It was my second pistol ever.
I had an RG .22 revolver, POS, more dangerous to the shooter than the shootee. I owned a RG26, a blow back .25ACP that actually was reliable, though not very accurate. It kept me away from a knife wielding mugger once. I had a Davis P380, was a brick in a pocket, but pretty reliable and accurate.
My only such gun at the moment if you don't consider the Erma is a zamak POS Phoenix Arms HP22. It's reliable and accurate, but I've had to repair it with a dremel a few times and had to send it in for a new slide when it cracked. I swear, they rob cheap ball point pens for the recoil springs.
Of course, I bought it when they first came out because it was cheap. I still have it, it still shoots after all the grinding on pounded zamak parts. It'd be a good gun to sell at a gun "buy back", but they don't have those in Texas.
I had an RG .22 revolver, POS, more dangerous to the shooter than the shootee. I owned a RG26, a blow back .25ACP that actually was reliable, though not very accurate. It kept me away from a knife wielding mugger once. I had a Davis P380, was a brick in a pocket, but pretty reliable and accurate.
My only such gun at the moment if you don't consider the Erma is a zamak POS Phoenix Arms HP22. It's reliable and accurate, but I've had to repair it with a dremel a few times and had to send it in for a new slide when it cracked. I swear, they rob cheap ball point pens for the recoil springs.
Of course, I bought it when they first came out because it was cheap. I still have it, it still shoots after all the grinding on pounded zamak parts. It'd be a good gun to sell at a gun "buy back", but they don't have those in Texas.
Speedo66
Member
The reason the Walther and others were banned was not because of quality, but rather size. They put a restriction of the size of imported guns, had to be larger than a certain size not to be considered a Sat. Night Spec., go figure.
Walther had a nice little pocket .22 semi, the TCP, that was restricted to LE because it didn't fit the size parameters.
Many manufacturers set up production here, or partnered with other manufacturers like Walther and S&W, to get around the imported size limitations.
MICHAEL T
Member
Galesi .25
Astra 200 Firecat
Beretta 950 Jetfire
Cz/Vz45
You way off in left field. If You think these are SNS The Beretta is one of the finest , little 22 or 25 made. I have several and that $275 wouldn't but 1 of them . I also have the Titan 25 .and gee It works and pretty accurate. I have a Astra 22 short. Astra rebranded it . With Colt name and Colt sold a zillion of them in 22 and 25..
I have a 5 shot S&W SA top break 32 short from 1882 Is that a SNS . I have a S&W top break Lemon squeeze 32 from early 1900's Both are fully shootable . I have been known to drop one in pocket running to general store down road .
Ive had several Iver Johnson Top break revolvers. Nice pistols .They had the hammer transfer bar .Long before was fashionable. Just because was a top break doesn't make it a Sat night special .
The Walther PPK missed size by 1/16 " in 68 gun act. So PPK/s was born and imported . When price became a issue . They then begin making in US Ranger in AL. made them Sold as Interarms Walther PPK/s When they stopped S&W started the butcher job on that great pistol . Not just the ugly beaver tail .But many changes inside . Result a total recall . and a approx. 1 year of fixing the mess . They made. The Interarms Ranger is considered the next best to the German guns.
Astra 200 Firecat
Beretta 950 Jetfire
Cz/Vz45
You way off in left field. If You think these are SNS The Beretta is one of the finest , little 22 or 25 made. I have several and that $275 wouldn't but 1 of them . I also have the Titan 25 .and gee It works and pretty accurate. I have a Astra 22 short. Astra rebranded it . With Colt name and Colt sold a zillion of them in 22 and 25..
I have a 5 shot S&W SA top break 32 short from 1882 Is that a SNS . I have a S&W top break Lemon squeeze 32 from early 1900's Both are fully shootable . I have been known to drop one in pocket running to general store down road .
Ive had several Iver Johnson Top break revolvers. Nice pistols .They had the hammer transfer bar .Long before was fashionable. Just because was a top break doesn't make it a Sat night special .
The Walther PPK missed size by 1/16 " in 68 gun act. So PPK/s was born and imported . When price became a issue . They then begin making in US Ranger in AL. made them Sold as Interarms Walther PPK/s When they stopped S&W started the butcher job on that great pistol . Not just the ugly beaver tail .But many changes inside . Result a total recall . and a approx. 1 year of fixing the mess . They made. The Interarms Ranger is considered the next best to the German guns.
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evan price
Member
From Wikipedia:
Any of the imported vest-pocket 25 autos were put into the SNS category. Often unfairly, because a Baby Browning or a Jetfire Beretta were finely crafted instruments.
H&R revolvers had been in that group too, but the ones I've got are, while crude, reliable shooters for a price point.
There's always High Point. We can always find someone to bash High point.
Any of the imported vest-pocket 25 autos were put into the SNS category. Often unfairly, because a Baby Browning or a Jetfire Beretta were finely crafted instruments.
H&R revolvers had been in that group too, but the ones I've got are, while crude, reliable shooters for a price point.
There's always High Point. We can always find someone to bash High point.
The Bushmaster
Member
Jolly Roger...The FIE Titan Tiger .25 ACP also makes a great "boot gun"...With the right clip on holster.
thecarfarmer
Member
I bought a really cool little FN1906; my daughter lusted after it... what could I do?
Wanting another little .25 "pimp popper", I got a Raven-type gun; it was so disappointing to behold after owning the FN that I shortly sold it.
If I ever run across another old FN, or the corresponding early Colt for a good price, I'm in!
Bill
Wanting another little .25 "pimp popper", I got a Raven-type gun; it was so disappointing to behold after owning the FN that I shortly sold it.
If I ever run across another old FN, or the corresponding early Colt for a good price, I'm in!
Bill
The wikipedia calculator is full of crap. $1 in 1962 was the equivalent of 1/35 of an ounce of gold or .75 ounce of silver. It was also the equivalent of 1/20000 of a new house in Huntington Beach CA.
Directly exchanged for those items today would be 35 X for gold, 26X for silver or 30X for real estate. . We wont even get into stocks. Averaged out thats 30X. That $13 pistol would be $390 in now dollars which is what a new crappy gun goes for. No difference.
larryh1108
Member
I guess we have different views of what a crappy gun is. You can get some decent guns for $390 today.
I recently purchased a SAR 4.5" 16+1 polymer-framed, SA/DA B6P.
I wanted a cheap gun to keep in my car. I purchased the pistol for a total of $241.43 from Sportsman Guide. I've put mixed magazines of Perfecta, WWB, Blazzer Brass, Federal Aluminum, ZQI 123gr "NATO" Wolf 115gr steel-cased ammo and Tula BrassMaxx through it, haven't cleaned between range trips and it just runs like a champ.
I've heard good thing about the Taurus Millenium G2 / PT 111 and that can be had at times for $199.99
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=779876&highlight=G2
You can get some decent guns for a lot less than $390 nowadays.
I wanted a cheap gun to keep in my car. I purchased the pistol for a total of $241.43 from Sportsman Guide. I've put mixed magazines of Perfecta, WWB, Blazzer Brass, Federal Aluminum, ZQI 123gr "NATO" Wolf 115gr steel-cased ammo and Tula BrassMaxx through it, haven't cleaned between range trips and it just runs like a champ.
I've heard good thing about the Taurus Millenium G2 / PT 111 and that can be had at times for $199.99
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=779876&highlight=G2
You can get some decent guns for a lot less than $390 nowadays.
Your ignorance is showing. Big time.
The Canik TP9SA and C100 are built to NATO standards, which means a 50,000 round endurance test. They are NATO certified. It is also an ISO 9000 rated factory.
So...your credibility takes a nosedive.
Ash
Member
If a $13 revolver becomes $390, then the $125 Western Field 30-06 would be almost $4,000.00 in today's money.
I doubt that.
I doubt that.
The CPI that the the wikipedia thing uses is terribly flawed. It doesn't take into account real estate, education ( 30X difference !!!) precious metals, commodities, durable goods etc. Some things like food stuffs havent increased in price comparatively much in the last 55 years due to increases in efficiency of agriculture and production and that is a large part of what the government uses when establishing the CPI. A $13 Saturday Night Special gun in the early 60's was equivalent to 13 hours of labor to a minimum wage worker but the minimum wage if adjusted for actual inflation was considerably higher than it is now. It wasnt dirt cheap. Depending on which measure you use it could be as cheap as $150 but realistically $13 in 1962 was more equivalent to $300 of buying power in 2015.
If , instead of buying a $13 gun in 1962 I bought 13 ounces of silver I'd $260 today.
If, instead of buying a $13 gun in 1962 I bought 1/3 of an ounce of gold ( on the black market as gold ownership except jewelry and some collector coins was illegal ) I'd have $400 today.
That $13 would buy 5 barrels of crude oil.
A year of Harvard tuition cost $1500 in 1962. Its $45,000 Now !
Some manufactured goods were priced outrageously high compared to modern standards and some were cheap. Food was way more expensive than it is now with milk for example costing a dollar a gallon in 1962. As the CPI is slanted towards daily living costs instead of actual costs of investment grade materials or hard goods it makes it look like its 10:1 or less but thats really not the case. Some guns WERE over priced. Some were cheap. Even if you figured that $125 gun took 125 hours of minimum wage to buy and did a direct 9:1 comparison adjustment that is still well over $1100 equivalent for what today would be a $600 gun.
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Monac
Member
If a Raven .25 used to sell for about $35 in 1970 or 1975, and a Cobra or Jimenez .380 sells for about $175 to $210 now, that strikes me as about right. I usually think of the prices of many things as having gone up by a factor of 5 or 6 over that time.
The Raven was probably a better gun in terms of reliability and durability than a Cobra or Jimenez, but that's mainly because cast zinc alloy is more suited to a really small, low power cartridge like .25 ACP. If a cheap .380 works at all, it's a better gun for effective self defense, IMO.
Inflation isn't just a change in prices, which can happen due to supply, demand, or changes in the quality of the product (you can no longer buy a car that is comparable to the cars of 1970 or 1975 in either safety or durability, for example). The price of silver has gone up like a rocket and fallen back down at least twice in my lifetime, for example. Inflation is a change in the purchasing power of money itself. It's usually measured using a "market basket" of products to avoid the problems inherent in using any one thing.
The Raven was probably a better gun in terms of reliability and durability than a Cobra or Jimenez, but that's mainly because cast zinc alloy is more suited to a really small, low power cartridge like .25 ACP. If a cheap .380 works at all, it's a better gun for effective self defense, IMO.
Inflation isn't just a change in prices, which can happen due to supply, demand, or changes in the quality of the product (you can no longer buy a car that is comparable to the cars of 1970 or 1975 in either safety or durability, for example). The price of silver has gone up like a rocket and fallen back down at least twice in my lifetime, for example. Inflation is a change in the purchasing power of money itself. It's usually measured using a "market basket" of products to avoid the problems inherent in using any one thing.
Cars today are an order of magnitude more durable and safety than those of 1975. They were heavier in 1975 to be sure but that does not mean durability or safety. Show me a 1975 chevy with 300K original miles on the original engine or transmission. 80K on a set of heads before it started drinking oil was the norm. A modern Honda does 300K miles without a second thought and passes 2015 safety standards and gets 40 MPG. Apples and Oranges.
The price of silver and gold don't go up and down as much as you think. Its the value of the dollar in relation to those commodities that goes up and down. A strong dollar buys more and a weak dollar buys less.
Monac
Member
You are completely correct, yugorpk - cars today are MUCH better than the cars of 1970 or 1980, which was the point I was trying (badly) to make. Technological change can make trying to judge the general rise in prices (or fall in the purchasing power of money) difficult.
Reloadron
Contributing Member
I guess some of this comes down to how we choose to define "Saturday Night Special".
Gun Control and Economic Discrimination: The Melting-Point Case-in-Point is actually a pretty good read on the subject. During the early and mid 90s when we had our little brick and mortar gun shop in Bedford , Ohio guns like the Raven, Lorcin and other cheap guns were considered Saturday Night Specials and for the most part were garbage guns. I never bothered to sell them. Dealers cost on the 25 ACP guns was about $33 EA. Local law enforcement liked to visit our shop as we only had good stuff. I did carry a full line of firing pins for the cheap guns. Dry fire a few times and you will break the pin. Pins cost about a buck apiece and took about 3 min to replace. I charged $10.
Anyway, the link is an interesting read. As to me calling many of these guns "garbage guns" that would be just my opinion and we know what they say about opinions. I do confess to having a Davis Derringer in 32 ACP unfired in the box and have no clue where I picked it up along the way.
Just My Take....
Ron
Gun Control and Economic Discrimination: The Melting-Point Case-in-Point is actually a pretty good read on the subject. During the early and mid 90s when we had our little brick and mortar gun shop in Bedford , Ohio guns like the Raven, Lorcin and other cheap guns were considered Saturday Night Specials and for the most part were garbage guns. I never bothered to sell them. Dealers cost on the 25 ACP guns was about $33 EA. Local law enforcement liked to visit our shop as we only had good stuff. I did carry a full line of firing pins for the cheap guns. Dry fire a few times and you will break the pin. Pins cost about a buck apiece and took about 3 min to replace. I charged $10.
Anyway, the link is an interesting read. As to me calling many of these guns "garbage guns" that would be just my opinion and we know what they say about opinions. I do confess to having a Davis Derringer in 32 ACP unfired in the box and have no clue where I picked it up along the way.
Just My Take....
Ron
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