Buying a gun

[westley]

So, if you take good care of a miroku or browning; how many shots does it take before it starts to be worn out? When you buy one of these guns they say it will last you a lifetime. Hope that is not meant as wall decoration...

I had a 40 years old Miroku 3800 SW Trap gun. It was used as a 'club' gun for some 17 years and with Corporate events and tuition most weekends, that gun must have fired countless thousands of rounds. It was a tad loose on the hinge pin, but you had to remove the forend to detect that. In all that time it had 2 new mainsprings and 2 new firing pins plus a top lever spring. I did the work myself. I also removed the varnish and oil finished the woodwork. The gun was still in use and going strong when I left the running of the club to others. I paid £450 for it as an almost new gun and before I left the club, it was valued at around £500 - £600. Hope that answers your question.

I had a 40 years old Miroku 3800 SW Trap gun. It was used as a 'club' gun for some 17 years and with Corporate events and tuition most weekends, that gun must have fired countless thousands of rounds. It was a tad loose on the hinge pin, but you had to remove the forend to detect that. In all that time it had 2 new mainsprings and 2 new firing pins plus a top lever spring. I did the work myself. I also removed the varnish and oil finished the woodwork. The gun was still in use and going strong when I left the running of the club to others. I paid £450 for it as an almost new gun and before I left the club, it was valued at around £500 - £600. Hope that answers your question.

Just as an adage, I recently acquired my 3rd new gun, as one of those was an air rifle and the other a new Beretta 301 semi auto (1980 ish). This is over a shooting career of nearly 60 years. Let someone else buy it new and suffer the 'big' drop  ! 

 

[Les53]

I don’t care about a guns age. So long as it functions correctly and you like it , who cares? I’ve just put a deposit on a gun built in 1974. Not bad condition given its age, I know the guy who owned it from new. Yes it’s showing signs of it’s age, but it is totally original, not butchered in any way. Some may call it a classic. 

 

[PhilR]

I don’t care about a guns age. So long as it functions correctly and you like it , who cares? I’ve just put a deposit on a gun built in 1974. Not bad condition given its age, I know the guy who owned it from new. Yes it’s showing signs of it’s age, but it is totally original, not butchered in any way. Some may call it a classic. 

I've still got my 1970 Browning A1 skeet gun, 51 years on and it's still being used, albeit not for skeet but it's accounted for an awful lot of gamebirds, pigeons and corvids. 

 

[Les53]

I've still got my 1970 Browning A1 skeet gun, 51 years on and it's still being used, albeit not for skeet but it's accounted for an awful lot of gamebirds, pigeons and corvids. 

B25’s are probably becoming a rare sight at clay shoots these days. The one I have a deposit on is a C3 trap. 

 

[Freddypip]

I think B25s and a few other older guns will loose value & appeal as steel becomes more & more likely. Many will need to be reproofed or simple cannot be used with steel.

 

[Les53]

I think B25s and a few other older guns will loose value & appeal as steel becomes more & more likely. Many will need to be reproofed or simple cannot be used with steel.

Gonna cause a lot of problems! Steel is also prone to ricochet a lot easier too, or so I’m told. It’s also lighter than lead, so god only knows what will happen. There are millions of guns out there that may not be able to take steel. Many are probably very costly bits of kit too. But Bismuth is still an alternative to lead, but not as cheap, so maybe guns that can’t take steel could take that instead. But it currently costs a fortune, but if it became more widely used maybe prices would drop. Who knows. 

 

[MartynB]

First of all steel shot isn’t steel as such  , it’s iron really . There is no issue shooting standard steel shot through any 70mm chambered gun as long as the chokes aren’t excessive .  

There is absolutely no need to reproof a gun for which you can purchase a standard steel cartridge , assuming that you are aware of choke advice .  Now comes the issue of Superior Steel Shot , and the Fleur de Lys proof mark , will your 3” chambered  clay gun , without the Fleur de Lys mark , blow up ?and the same barrels a few years on with the Fleur de Lys Mark not  blow up ? ... make your own mind up . 
For clays you wouldn’t be firing off heavy superior steel anyway , so if lead ever gets a total ban there’s no need to shy away from a 40 or 50 years old classic quality shotgun .  

For game I’ll reserve my judgement for a time that I’ve tried a box in the field , but I’d fire standard steel through my  non proofed 38 trap with the right Teague chokes without a second thought . 
 

 

[Luke_(NL)]

Lead isn't even allowed in my neck of the woods. That said, it doesn't cause the stated problems: If you are shooting at distances and objects where ricochet is an issue, that's either pretty poor course setting or a performance issue. 

At well over a pound twenty per cartridge for Bismuth, the argument for keeping the family heirloom gun as your go-to gun without shooting lead doesn't make sense economically for moderately enthusiastic clay shooters. Compared to prices for steel cartridges you're effectively burning up a pound every time you pull the trigger, so I'd keep the damascus barreled SxS or gold inlayed B25 on the mantle in favour of something more sensible for shooting steel. One could justify the purchase of a very fine steel-proof gun compared to the savings over the course of a single year...  

Whether or not a gun is "steelproof" is a whole different can of worms entirely, here perhaps more so as we don't have a proof-house. Steel does require more open chokes and with market-demand for interchangeable chokes, the 1/2 - 3/4, and 3/4 - full guns tend to stay on the shelves here anyway at any given price.    

 

[Les53]

Lead isn't even allowed in my neck of the woods. That said, it doesn't cause the stated problems: If you are shooting at distances and objects where ricochet is an issue, that's either pretty poor course setting or a performance issue. 

At well over a pound twenty per cartridge for Bismuth, the argument for keeping the family heirloom gun as your go-to gun without shooting lead doesn't make sense economically for moderately enthusiastic clay shooters. Compared to prices for steel cartridges you're effectively burning up a pound every time you pull the trigger, so I'd keep the damascus barreled SxS or gold inlayed B25 on the mantle in favour of something more sensible for shooting steel. One could justify the purchase of a very fine steel-proof gun compared to the savings over the course of a single year...  

Whether or not a gun is "steelproof" is a whole different can of worms entirely, here perhaps more so as we don't have a proof-house. Steel does require more open chokes and with market-demand for interchangeable chokes, the 1/2 - 3/4, and 3/4 - full guns tend to stay on the shelves here anyway at any given price.    

So if 3/4 & Full guns stay on the shelves, what do your trap shooters use?

 

[Luke_(NL)]

So if 3/4 & Full guns stay on the shelves, what do your trap shooters use?

As everyone here shoots steel, 1/4 - 1/2 or 1/2 - 3/4 or so I think. Interchangeable chokes are 9/10ths of what's out on the ranges though, if not more. I could be mistaken, but I don't think most manufacturers recommend shooting steel through barrels choked IM or tighter.

I'm not an ardent trap shooter, so I couldn't really comment on the why of needing anything as tight as 3/4 and full with steel cartridges. I do okay on the occasional round using IC and M, but that's not saying a lot.    

 

[Les53]

As everyone here shoots steel, 1/4 - 1/2 or 1/2 - 3/4 or so I think. Interchangeable chokes are 9/10ths of what's out on the ranges though, if not more. I could be mistaken, but I don't think most manufacturers recommend shooting steel through barrels choked IM or tighter.

I'm not an ardent trap shooter, so I couldn't really comment on the why of needing anything as tight as 3/4 and full with steel cartridges. I do okay on the occasional round using IC and M, but that's not saying a lot.    

I don’t know anyone over here who uses steel for clays. It seems to only be used by guys who shoot over wetlands, for wildfowl I guess. 

 

[Luke_(NL)]

I don’t know anyone over here who uses steel for clays. It seems to only be used by guys who shoot over wetlands, for wildfowl I guess. 

The use of lead shot is fully banned here, so we don't have other options in the Netherlands. Lots of people say they'd still prefer to shoot lead, but that debate is a few threads in and by itself. 

 

[El Spavo]

How much are cartridges costing you? Already established the clays are cheaper, wondering if steel is more expensive if that's why grounds have balanced their charges to avoid not being used.

 

[Luke_(NL)]

Depends on the shop, the brand, load and size but for the standard 24/7 steel ones we pay about 18 / 19 eurocents a piece if you try and source them cheap. That means buying them per thousand, usually. For 1000 cartridges, E 185 ish isn’t unusual, which would be the equivalent of 159 GBP / 1000. 

At the ranges where you can buy the cartridges separately from the clays they are a bit more expensive, but not far north of E 50 per 250, so 170-ish GBP / 1000.

Of course there a plenty of options if you want to spend more money  

More to the point of the thread, I do believe prices for guns are a fair bit steeper here. Both new and on the second-hand market, which is pretty limited here.