What was your dumbest firearms related purchase?

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"Dumbest? Or just impractical?

COP .357 Magnum four barrel derringer

I don't regret this at all (always wanted one since I saw it in BladeRunner... about a hundred years ago.) but I've only shot it once and may not again... trigger pull is terrible"

One of our new deputies just bought one of those off a retiring deputy last fall, and actually took it to the range and qualified with it as an off duty weapon. Go figure. Almost every single round keyholed on him.
 
Werewolf, that's SOP for every dealer I've every dealt with. With the issues that you have to deal with regarding transferring firearms, it's not worth it for the dealer to exchange it.
Click to expand...

I've got to disagree....

The only issue is to do a transfer back to the FFL and then give me a new firearm. Another 4473 and NICS and all done. It's just paperwork. So because they don't want to fill out a few forms and make a call they just lost a $6000 a year customer. It ain't gonna break 'em.

As for normal procedure - I believe you - I've been lucky I guess in that in 30 years of purchasing firearms and accessories I've never gotten a lemon - got a few I wasn't happy with but they were built to spec and the weapons just didn't do what I thought they should - thus my problem not the dealer's. Got rid of 'em or had a gunsmith fix 'em.

If the stovepiping problem cropped up after I'd fired a few hundred rounds thru the thing then I would have considered it my problem. But it didn't - happened somewhere between round 10 and 20. I had the thing just 3 days before I took it back. HELL MAN! Even car dealers will take a car back within 3 days. It didn't help that the sales guy I dealt with was a prick to boot.

So being normal procedure is just something that gun buyers have accepted. Well I'm not going to. As soon as I get my rifle back I'm going to file a complaint letter with the Better Business Bureau as well as slam H&H every chance I get - and since I'm the gun guy at where I work I get asked a lot where and what someone should buy. I'm going to fire off a letter to the store owner too. It won't do any good but it'll make me feel a heck of a lot better.
 
A Ruger P97 sight unseen...NIB...it pretty much self destructed.

A Taurus 605...Kicked so hard it split the grips and my hand. OUCH!!!

The dumbest thing I regret selling? A Colt King Cobra that I had traded EVEN for a Bersa .380. I sold the Cobra for 350. Neither one of us knew a dang thing about guns and I had a GP100 that turned out to be hot that I bought from a GUN SHOP. I didn't know the GP100 was hot and figured I didn't need 2 4inch barreled .357 mags sitting around.

:banghead:
 
QuarterBoreGunner,

This was one of the very early blued ones they imported, quality was not as good as the stainless ones.
 
IIRC the Kimber Polymer double-stack .45 had a frame that was made by BUL in Israel (or at least the first generation did) and they had some real problems with functioning. Can’t recall exactly what the problem was now… dag nabit. But I do recall one that we had to send back to Kimber for a customer at least twice.
 
1. Stoeger Arms .22LR Luger. The frame looked like it had been hand ground from a hunk of potmetal and it jammed every 3-4 rounds. I bought it new, cheap, when I was 16-years-old and didn't know an open breach from a locking bolt.

2. Colt Police Positive Special bought from our county sheriff. Nice gun, but a week after I bought it the sheriff showed up in my driveway with my money back. Turned out the gun was hot. Good thing I bought it from the Sheriff.

Most of my gun stupidity involves selling, not buying guns.
 
1. Stoeger Arms .22LR Luger. The frame looked like it had been hand ground from a hunk of potmetal and it jammed every 3-4 rounds. I bought it new, cheap, when I was 16-years-old and didn't know an open breach from a locking bolt.

2. Colt Police Positive Special bought from our county sheriff. Nice gun, but a week after I bought it the sheriff showed up in my driveway with my money back. Turned out the gun was hot. Good thing I bought it from the Sheriff.

Most of my gun stupidity involves selling, not buying guns.
 
Streetsweeper 12 ga. Worst 400 bucks I ever spent. No magnums, no service friendly, no reliability. Not worth as much as a beat up old mossberg.

----------------------------

But now its worth quite a bit more then 400 dollars.
 
I sold it for 625.;)

And yes, I did tell him it had problems. He had StreetSweeperitis though and insisted he could get it to work. Gimmee a two hundred dollar pump any day over that thing.
 
Another complete POS gun I forgot about was a High Standard .22 Magnum revolver. It was a good-looking gun, medium framed with a Vaquero-style grip, and it looked like it had hardly ever been shot. I discovered this was because the brass expanded so badly in the cylinder that you literally had to tap on the ejector rod with a hammer to remove the spent brass.
 
Someone mentioned the words fast and cheap. This seems to be the common thread with all the posts I read.
"I have to buy something right this minute and don't have much money".

Been there, done that.
Cheap guns are better than cheap scopes. The cheap guns I bought at least worked.

THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH

Plenty of my own experience causes me to laugh when I read the many threads that start out: What is the cheapest way for me to _____________ ? Probably the most common one is "What is the cheapest way for me to get into an AR15 ?
You are about to enter another dimension, there is a signpost up ahead that reads: Disappointment Ahead.
Then when it doesn't work, the AR15 is a POS.
Think about it. This implies that they arn't looking for a gun, they are looking for a price. Put another way, how many shortcuts can I take for this amount $ ?
 
I am going to make an observation here. This is certianly not intended to flame any one.

I notice that when somone starts a thread like this one, someone else always coms in with somthing like:

"I bought this (insert make/model) it never worked from day one. It allways (insert favorite stoppage). I went back and talked to the jerk behind the counter (translation, I started shouting my fool head off as soon as I walked in the door) and he refused to exchange the gun for a new one! I will never buy another (insert favorite gun) from that (insert favorite explative) again. In fact, I will bad mouth him and tell every one I know that this (insert store name and explative) is worthless and refuses to go past what the written and industry standard warranty. They are nothing but (insert another explative)"

Now, some of us have made some really lame and dumb purchases here (even I am guilty of this), but buying a broken gun, unless you knew it was broken is not a dumb purchase, it is simply a case of "sh** happens" Any one that that assumes that massed produced machinery will never fail or have the occasional faulty product leave the factory lives in a world of un-realistic expectations.

We would all love it if the stores in question would replace everything that was faulty or give us refunds when the slightest little thing went wrong, but alot of times they are not able to do so, weather it be lack of funding, lack of knowledge or simply thier policy. Besides, who would you rather have work on your gun, the guy at the store, or the guy at the factory who knows every last milimeter of the weapon in question?

Additionally, if a person came in to my store ranting and raving, I would be inclined to tell them to take a leap and be thankfull that they choose womone else to direct thier abuse at. I will wallways take better care of the guy that has a problem and is polite vs joe schmuck that storms in cussing up a storm and calling me everything but a human being.

Again, this is not directed at ony one person, but simply somthing I find amazing.

A little respect and understanding goeas a long long way.
 
THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH

444 wrote: "THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH."

True, but there are some screaming good deals that come close. For example, Ruger's P89 and P95 are exceptional values. They are not good choices for serious competetive shooters and they are a bit too large for most people to use as CCW, but for someone looking for a reliable, inexpensive plinking gun for cans and paper targets, they provide a reliable, functional gun at a reasonable price.
 
Dumbest gun related purchase:
A range bag large enough to carry ammunition to feed about 4-6 handguns. By the time I filled it with my handguns, enough ammunition to keep me out of trouble for an afternoon, cleaning kit, etc etc, the thing was too heavy and awkward for me to carry it without banging it into something.

I have to second the belt pack/fanny pack that screams "I managed to tie a suitcase to my waist". It would not conceal a 4" K frame at all yet I bought the stupid thing while thinking along the lines that I'd be able to get the 4" barrell into the 3" bag.

Say, where's that classified section.......:evil:

I've been fortunate that I've stayed away from 'economy' firearms. Before I buy a firearm, I try to learn as much about the make and model before I buy it. So far it has worked.

-Jim
 
I think I've got the stupidity award well in hand:

A lifetime ago I trusted a gun dealer and walked out with a 6 1/4 lb. sporterized Mauser conversion in 30-06; the bastidge topped it off with a 3-9x Banner scope and drop-kicked my sorry @ss out the door for $85 (in 1973 USD).

Not knowing any better, I was content to shoot 4-6" groups at 100yd. with FGM, and had one hell of a sore shoulder. Aah, to be young again and know what I know now....
 
It seems to me that "dumbest" purchase would necessarily involve substantial cost, rather than buying some $10 item that wasn't useful.

I have always bought guns I liked, and never been sorry, with one possible exception. I had John Towle build me a .458 pistol on a Wichita action. It just wasn't fun to shoot, I've still got it, but only because I haven't gotten around to selling it.

In 1992, though, I became temporarily brain dead and got caught up in the idea that all the Bush-banned imports would only rise in value. I bought a Chinese Dragunov which I had no desire to keep or shoot for--get this--$3500.

Sold it unfired a couple of years later for $1800. Never again speculated on guns that didn't excite me.

JR
 
I once bought a case of .41 magnum Carroll reloads. Still have it, minus one box. Another good one (I was about 16 at the time) was a Ram Line folding stock for my Marlin model 60 .22, which now lives under some junk in the attic.
Another blinding stroke of brilliance was a Norinco M1A clone, which came with a bunch of magazines that looked like standard capacity, but were blocked to five rounds.
 
Carroll Bullets, inc. of Stafford Springs, CT. They do commercial reloads that pretty much every indoor range around here has since banned by name because they are excessively, mind bogglingly, clean-it-with-a-power-washer-after-shooting, foul.
So it went about like this:
Me: "Have any .41 Magnum ammo back there?"
Clerk: "Sure do! Why don't you take the whole case? I'll give you a great deal."
Me: "umm... ok."
So I pay the man, and tell him I'd like a point on the indoor range for an hour...

And then I pretty much just went home and cried.
 
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