What is it about older guns...?

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Not to rain on peoples parade, I too like old guns, cars and houses, but for one thing the old stuff that remains today was usally because it was the very best and most expensive off its day.

Most gun owners only owned a couple of firearms and for their day they were quite expensive. Automobles today are far ahead of anything made in the past, it is not uncomon to find cars with 150,000 to 200,000 miles on them with no major repairs ever and that was nearly unheard of in the pre 1990's. Every military in the world would have killed for a glock or M-16 in the 1800's. Old homes are hard to beat wonderful woodwork geat floors lots of style but only liveble after you bring them up to date and they always need work, I grew up in a large two story home built in the 1880's it was beautiful and had style.

The way peolpe afforded that style and craftmanship was 1. you were usally well off 2. you did not have 3 tvs, 3 dvds players, a stove, washing machine, microwave, computer, 3 cars, warher and dryer ect..... If you cut out all that and you can afford great craftmanship today oh and also don't plan on living past 55 so you wont have to save up for retirement.

God bless the good old days but thank God you don't live in them anymore.
 
I'm with you. I have many more old guns than of recent make. You can feel the quality difference.

In fact, I was thinking of starting my own post before I saw this one, but I'll just say what I was going to say here instead: I honestly cannot understand how sport gun companies stay in business. With so many used guns floating around that are perfectly suitable for whatever shooting sport you're into, why do people buy new guns that aren't even made as well? For example, if I wanted a hunting bolt action rifle, I would never buy a new Browning, for example. I would look for a nice pre-64 Winchester 70, or an old Browning "High Power" rifle built on an FN Mauser action. If it needed a little work, I'd have it done, and I'd end up with a much better and classier rifle than anything I could buy new today. If you wanted to go cheaper, you could buy a old Husqvarna Sporting Mauser. Even if it needed some work to get it up and running the way you want, you'd still have likely spent less than a third of what a new Sako 75 would cost, for example.
 
For me its a since of connection to history , if I hang on to the weapon long enough and pass it along to my kids or theirs I figure its a way to immortality . Think about it , when ever you handle an old weapon you've purchased haven't you wondered about its journey into your like ? The scenes in history its passed through and the people who've handled , fired and cleaned it ?
 
What The Real Hawkeye said.

There really is not much made after the 1960s I would want even if I were exceedingly wealthy. At least a significant number of them are not quite as disposable as most new cars, TVs etc, but there are so many really superb rifles, shotguns and handguns going from there back to the latter 1800s that all things nearly all things new have little or no appeal.

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