Why do we care what our guns look good?

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bushmaster1313

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Why do we care that our guns look good?

I am as guilty as the next for wanting my guns to look good.
But aside from the obvious resale issue, why do we care?

IMHO, it is a combination of enjoying good looks for good looks sake :),
plus a healthy dollop of not my not wanting others to think that I do not know how to take care of my guns.

What's your excuse?
 
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Same reason we care about how we look, our car looks,house,etc...
Good looks sake sprinkled with impressing others..
I appreciate beauty no matter what the object is as well,a nice design is a nice design..

My $.02
 
I'm the same way when I first get a gun. When I first got my XD40 I babied the hell out of it, but now that I carry it on a daily basis for work and CC I love the fact that it looks like it gets used.
 
Subjective as all get out.

Lately I've been thinking that old blued guns with the finish worn off from holster wear look really good. :shrug:
 
A few weeks ago I was rearranging my gun safe; I stacked some of the long guns near a wall. A brand new Sig Sauer 556 Patrol was positioned near an M-1 Carbine that my father had brought back from Korea, and which I had inherited. As I was otherwise occupied, I heard the unmistakable clatter of one gun sliding into the next; the carbine had slid into the Sig, and left some shiny but very superficial scratches in the pristine black "pretty" of the Sig. That's a $1300 dollar rifle, and it was brand new!
And while those scratches were totally superficial, the shiny metal glared in stark contrast to the rest of the gun.
Yeah .... I didn't like it at all. Now, as the gun is shot in the future, it will no doubt get wear marks over time.
Anyway, once I stopped kicking myself .... a little bit of coldblue touched the shiny marks up almost perfectly.
The carbine? Well, it has "character" you might say. Some dings in the wood, the parkerizing is a bit worn along the barrel. But that's how it came .... and I wonder sometimes what stories those dings would tell about some unknown serviceman in late WW2 or Korea ... how'd they get there?
So the WW2 gun .... entirely different.
The Sig has no backstory. But the carbine does.
Now I like both guns .... but they're just different ... you know ....;)
 
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I never feel bad about honest wear. I have plenty of old firearms and I never do much more than clean them. I'm not big on refinishing, just clean her up. When a situation like the one Tommy brought up happen, i freak the hell out.Oh no, my 10% blued Turk Mauser got a scratch. I realize it's ridiculous, but I still get cranky.
I guess I look at it this way: If a firearm I have came by it's finish (as terrible as it may be) through regular use I have no problem. If I did something stupid I feel like a bum. Negligence vs. wear and tear.
 
I liken my guns to my trucks. I want them both to look nice, so I clean them and maintain them. However, they are both meant to be used. Wear & tear is to be expected, and looks normal. It's blatant abuse that makes a gun or truck look ugly.
 
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I would say that it is less of a matter of "looking good" than "looking uniform."

For example, I see both a brand-new, Magpul accessorized AR-15 and a worn, beaten-to-Hell Mosin-Nagant as "good looking guns."

However, should someone, God forbid, attempt to Magpul accessorize the Mosin, I would cringe.

Why?

Because each gun is anchored to a particular part of our psyche. You see the AR and you think Chris Costa. You see the Mosin and you think the Great Patriotic War.

Just my two cents. Personally, I have "preferred" brands of everything from rifles to pouches. I like Daniel Defense and Eagle Industries not because they are "tacticool" but because I have use their products before and know that they WORK. As for wear and tear on my weapons and gear, I don't give two s___s about it. My weapons and gear get used, not abused or babied.
 
My old war rifles i prefer if they have some battle scars gives them charactor. My new rifles i prefer to keep pristine as possible think for me its just a matter of a guns history and charactor as many have said as much themselves so far in the thread. I kinda like having a beater or two around to hammer around in a tractor or pickup and not worry bout scratching thought to, but i still try to not scratch or mar them just the same.
 
The only "looks" I am concerned with are functional, ie, no rust, no excess crud or dirt, no damaged parts.
 
I care about how my guns look because I'd like them to look well maintained ...
No reservations of that kind though with either my LCR or Glock.
 
I guess I find the premise of the question silly. I take care of my guns for the same reason I take care of anything I own....I bought the gun (or whatever) because I like it. If I like somehting, why wouldn't I take care of it? I don't see this as being any different than asking why someone changes the oil in their car or truck. I'm not going to cry over a scratch on my rifle's stock, but I'm not going to drag it behind the truck either.
 
pride of ownership
and that a clean (not pretty) gun is a working gun.
If you want to see somebody who is concerned about a working gun, go to basic, you will spend all day cleaning it and your DS still won't be happy, as for pretty, that is just our ego, cause we are proud to own it.
 
Strange question. Pride of ownership, good stewardship. I work like a dog and anything I buy is a physical representation of the amount of toil I expended to acquire it. I care for it the same way I care for my home, my car, my tools, and my clothes. You can tell a lot about the character of a person by the condition of their possessions.
 
I like the colt .45 from WWII it looks better than some of the newer models IMO.
 
I care for my guns because I love the looks on peoples faces when I tell them my gun is x years old and it still looks new...
 
Because statistically speaking, I will probably never have to rely on my guns to defend my life.

But I still have to look at them every single day.
 
For the same reason as a person cares about the condition of their car, house, whatever - its how (most) people are I think - you pay god money for something, you want to maintain and look after it.
 
A woman spends 45 minutes doing her hair and putting on makeup, and more time choosing an outfit, figuring out which accessories to use with the outfit, picking out shoes and matching purse, gets dressed, and heads out the door with... an ugly dirty gun? Not!
 
my current "collection" only consists of 1 pistol (soon to be a 2nd added) and one shotgun. neither gets babied, so i don't have a problem with looks.

now, one day i may invest in a few safe queens, which i would prefer retained their original luster. for my EDCs, i could care less about looks. function is all that matters.

like mentioned before, all of my current firearms are tools. i don't care that my lawnmower has scratches and dings. my backyard looks like yankee stadium! now the second it starts to act up or cut poorly, the "ugliness" will become an issue! :)
 
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