Hey everyone, a friend asked me a question and I didn't have a truly good answer. He has a decent number of guns, in the teens, many for hunting, some for the range, some just because. He has a few that he only shoots maybe 1x or 2x a year, and then it's only mostly because he "hasn't shot them in a while". He has a few that were "I have to have that" at the time, but now he's keeping them just because he wanted them, and they'd be very hard to replace now. Nothing exceedingly rare or valuable, just ones he wanted.

Anywho, he wants to know if I thought he should sell the seldom used ones, and combine some into fewer, nicer ones? I.E., 30-06 bolt gun, SKS with 1,000+ rounds (that he has a hard time using the iron sights on), and a .223 bolt gun, Combine them into a nice AR10 that he could easily put an optic on, use it suppressed, and use it both for Whitetail and Zombie hordes?

 He doesn't have any specific guns he's after, just asked me what I'd do, and would like to hear opinions.

tl/dr jerks: Keep 15+ average guns and save slowly to buy cool guns, or dump average guns to buy a few "Ooh, ahh" guns right away?

Thanks from an honorary 13'er.

I sold/traded 5 lesser 1911s to finance an Ed Brown and Wilson Combat.

No regrets.

Dump then upgrade

I sold off all the guns I didn't have much practical use for (Mosin-nagants, Mossberg 590SP, Ruger .357 revolver, plus a couple shitty ones P3AT, Walther P22).  I miss a few of them, but not most.  Better to have a few guns that are useful and dependable, unless you have the $$$$ for all of them, but I make $12.25/hr.

No upgrading till you can use iron sights.

I told him he'd probably get more enjoyment out of having less, nicer guns that he got more use out of, than a safe full of stuff that he only has an occasional use for, but it's also nice to have a variety. I'm on the fence myself, I'm not sure what I'd do personally.

This is the answer you seek.

Keep guns and buy more.

I did that a few years ago. No regrets here.

I've purged my collection several times over the years, generally ending up with better stuff.  When I was poor I bought poor guns.  When I had more money I bought better guns.

Wait...  You mean you make $125,000 a year right?  This is ARFCOM.

I understand, however, it's not an issue of skill, it's an issue of older eyes, and astigmatism. Same with me, I used to shoot 10 meter airgun, single hole 5 shot groups with aperture sights. Perfect circles of old are now blurry stars, so I feel his pain.

I generally agree with this.

I understand optics are resilient as fuck these days, and the likeliness of ever having to actually USE your firearm is very slim, but if you do have to use it and your optic takes a fucking dump on you?

Don't need to be able to qualify as expert or anything like that, I just think one should probably be minute of man to at least a 100 yards with irons before they go on and invest in and rely upon optics.



ETA:


Well that changes things. Dump and upgrade

No, but based on some of the expensive gear posted on here I guess they are making twice that much, or have a shitload of credit card debt, LOL.

OK, thanks for the quick answers guys, I'll let him read your thoughts.

 As far as iron sights, we're both similar, Peep sights are still usable, and I personally still like them, just not as sharp as they used to be for me. May be worse for him.  I'd never rely only on optics on a gun I'd "use".

Absolutely do it. Variety is the spice of life. If he doesn't enjoy them anymore, sell to someone who will and pick up something nice.

The way I see it, I don't have guns to sit back and admire.  I don't sit and buff them and take pictures and show them to people.  I shoot them.  I have what I want to shoot, plink with, carry for self defense, hunt with.  If it gathers dust, I trade it towards something I'm gonna shoot.  Life is too short to not shoot what you got.  Some people like to collect and look at them.  I'm not one of those people.  I have a couple of "old" guns that were my dads.  I keep them for sentimental reasons, but I still shoot them too.  He told me before he died, you take those guns out and shoot them, and I do.

I dunno. I don't believe in selling guns. Just save up if you want a newer nicer gun.

Fair point. But to me guns are tools. My biggest problem is If I have a gun sitting in the safe thats not getting used I see it as money not in my hand.

I don't even sell my tool tools.

This

 

This

I got over my fear of selling guns, and it's working out quite well.  Eventually I'll be down to a couple quality SBRs, my first homebuild for travel to non-NFA states, and a 308 AR.

You can (should ) only shoot one weapon at a time.. You might as well buy quality stuff.