Russ otten

I got a little 30-30 from a fellow at work that needed the money. It was a Revelation (made by Savage, sold thru Western Auto). When I took it to have it reblued, the gunsmith offerred me $240 for it, as is. It's now my favorite brush gun.

Russ

Charley

Walther P-1 for $145.

oldelkhunter

Ithaca SKB 20 gauge O/U that I bought for 200 bucks. At the same time I could have bought Colt Sauer Bolt rifles for 249 dollars and didn't do it.

m.t.hands

i bought a rem 870 12 ga. that would "fire every now and then" for 25$, took it home removed the trigger assem. removed one piece of straw and the thing shot flawlessly, sold it a year or two later for 150, was also given a m77 ruger w/ leupold 3.5X10X40 vari x III in 7mm mag by a widow that i helped move, i was not expecting anything and she said your dad says you hunt could you use this gun it was my husbands and i'd really like someone to get some use out of it,
unfortunatly the gun was stolen[&o], and i was younger and didn't have good insurance, they gave me there maximum of 500$[:@]

and my worst deal almost, women runs an add in local paper list five guns for 600$, one was a 300mag ruger no1, call here and ask here if i could come and look at them. i'm sorry i sold all of them earlier, all of them for 600$

fatsbucknut

got a Anshultz .22 w/ leupold, a Kimber .221 fireball w/ leupold, a really old Winchester .22 and an older Winchester in .22 hornet w/Lyman scope. all for a truck that was worth about $500.

8mm/06

In 1984 my father in law told me he would GIVE me his 1928 featherweight, take-down Savage Model 99 if I would fix his Winchester '06 pump .22. He showed me the .22...it was horribly rusted from being in a case in the damp attic for years...and the stock's finish had gone gummy from the moisture. I had a local gunsmith send the metal works to Europe where they still knew how to blue guns with a high silica content in the steel,...and I did the stock refinishing myself. It took 10 months to get the gun back from Europe (it was actually sent back 2 X b/c of the white streaks that kept coming out from the silica) but when I presented it to him he cried. It was prettier than when he bought it from the hardware store when he was 12 in 1928 (for $12.50 btw). He did give me the Savage, and when he died in 1989, my mother-in-law gave me the .22. And I cried.

Night Hawk 223

8mm/06 , that was a wounderfull story thanks for sharing it.

but my best deal was when i bought a llama 1911 copy new for $250 in mate black and polished the slide up on it. and was going to get the slide reblued but i was at the range about two weeks after buying it i shot about 100rds though it and the guy next to me asked if he could shoot it i said shure and handed it to him with 2 louded mags after he emtied both mags he asked my if i would sell it to him i told him i just bought it. he pulled $500 out of his pocket and i went home 1 gun short and thwice the money i paid for it. the next day i went and bought a new beretta 96 ss

WA7MM

5 years ago a set of four 1911's with an intrincate engraving commemorative of the 50 years of WWI. Consecutive serial numbers, in mint condition with a Mahogany/velvet box for solving a friend's brother problem with the IRS.

The legal work took only 3 days, I wasn't gonna charge any fees for my services, but my friend brother insisted in giving me the guns. It took like 3 1/2 seconds to convince me!!!!!!!!!

I have never look into how much the set can be sold for, but a guy at the range told me a few months ago that it should be around 5 to 6 K.

Not planning on selling them anyway!!!!!

BDHUNTR

I have a few, but my best?

My dad owns (owned) a Remington Model 700 BDL 7mm Rem Mag. He bought it new the year after the cartridge was introduced. In the mid-Nineties I was in the middle of glass-bedding and stock-refinishing a few rifles of mine and I asked him if I could redo his. The stock was factory finished in that high-gloss, polyurethane-looking material, and it was scratched and yellowed. In addition, Dad said that he was having problems with the rifle, as the firing pin would not strike the primer all the time.

I stripped the bolt and cleaned out years of old grease and grime, glass-bedded the action and free-floated the barrel, and stripped off the old finish and put a nice, Tru-Oil finish on it. Then I installed a Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad. Although the stock has the early BDL impressed checkering, the walnut is beautiful with some nice figure. I guess in the early Sixties nice walnut was cheaper than cut checkering.

After putting the rifle back together, I removed the old one-piece scope base (which was black-painted aluminum) and installed two-piece Leupold rings and bases, remounting the original Leupold 7.5 x (I think) 33 scope-it has fine crosshairs rather than Duplex reticles.

I picked my dad up on the way to the range to test-fire it. We stopped at a gunshop, where I told him to go buy a box or two of Federal Premium 150-grain Nosler Partition cartridges. He went in, came back out with the ammunition, and a card. Inside the card read, "I have had this rifle a long time, and it has never looked as beautiful as it does now. I know in my heart you will use it more than I ever did, and it makes no sense to wait until they bury me for you to have it and hunt with it. I'd rather see the joy on your face now than after I'm gone."

Wow....that's about all I could say. I told my dad I would make him and his rifle proud, but that for now I would be it's custodian, keeping it ready until he decided to take it out into the field again.

It shot about a 1.5" group @ 100 yards, but subsequent handloading with 150-grain Nosler Ballistic Tips and 175-grain Nosler Partitions have shown this rifle is capable of MOA or better.

Now, in 1996 I went on a black bear hunt in British Columbia. I took my Ruger M77R .338 Win Mag as my main bear rifle, with the Big 7 as a back-up. Hunting with the .338, I missed a bear at around 300 yards or so on my first day, then saw no shootable bears for the rest of the week. Waking up my next to the last day, I started to put the Ruger in the softcase, but hesitated. Something didn't feel "right", and I took it out and pulled the Remington out of the hardcase and replaced the Ruger with it. Adding a box of the 175-grain handloads I went back out for what might have been my real "last chance" for a black bear.

At about 11:00 AM I had my chance. Believe it or not, I blew the first shot, making a snap shot in haste. But the bruin stopped to look at what had caused the noise, and I settled those fine crosshairs of the fixed Leupold scope between the shoulders and squeezed, all the while praying to both God and my dad to make this shot true.

That 175-grain Partition slammed into that bear like the hammer of Thor, driving it straight into the ground. It never moved, and it squared an honest 5 feet and weighed about 225 lbs.

THAT was definitely the best gun deal I ever made! Now all I hope is that I can finally take my dad on a nice hunt where he can take a decent whitetail with it. That would make me happier than the bear!

Brian

LeftyBuckmaster

my best deal was when i got a savage 22 and a savage 410 for free when my uncle went to the nursing home