I know someone will say you can never have too many guns.

But how many guns are too many - if one is not collecting. I need to cut down on my guns or start selling some of my guns.

But after 75 they start adding up - run of space in gun safes. Storing and caring for them is a of of work. Scoping the guns starts to get expensive.

I need to stop buying a gun every time I go to my gunsmith. I dont hoard anything other than guns and books and I can get electronic books (i still like paper).

I bet a lot of people of AR have the same problem.

Mike

So, invert your affliction. Obsess over owning as little as possible. Sell everything, buy nothing. You should be mobile anyway with Global Warming and Zika closing in on ya.

I understand. There reaches a point where you now have everything that you wanted..so where is the quest + mystery? I have sold off guns just to be able to continue the quest. I do not do that with my books though. Without the paper they have no soul.As I have mentioned here before,I have the (only one that I know of) complete 17 volumes of Richard Buton's "Arabian Nights" published I believe in 1860. There were only 1000 copies printed,I have #60.

I know the feeling!! I was getting close to 100 when I decided to thin the herd so to speak...

First stuff to go, was anything of collector status. Stuff that my kids would have no clue about the value, and that the pirates would try to steal from them for cheap..

Next was anything I have multiples of, or haven't shot in a long time..

Problem is, I still keep buying stuff.. so I'm kinda stuck at around 30, but I'd like to get down to about 20 or so...

I'm workin on it.......

I like battle rifles. From bolts to .308 semi autos.

I don't like cleaning guns and generally dislike anything handy - gunsmitthing, home repairs, auto repairs.

So I buy these guns and don't shoot them cause I don't want to spend 2-3 hrs on YouTube learning how to fieldstrip and clean a G3 or fnfal clone.

I feel like an ak man stuck in a ar world. I like simple easy stuff. Revolvers over pistols.

Mike

I had a friend that did'nt like cleaning his AR either,so on manuevers he just never shot it.Problem solved for him + he never got caught.

Yup......... like many, I do not have bottomless pockets. Decided to sell all the rifles and shotguns I did not actually use and put the money towards going on hunts on my bucket list.

I now have two shotguns and a half dozen rifles in centerfires cartridges. They cover the broad spectrum from coyotes to elephant.......... not that I have saved enough yet for elephant.

I actually do not miss all of the others. The reduction has also allowed me to get in a supply of tested and proven reloading components for the cartridges I do use and I should be good to go now until my wife lights the funeral pyre.

I have entirely too many. For some, the thrill is gone and they need to find new homes.


I think that is the key. When the thrill is gone. When they no longer get you excited about using them or showing them off.

I've downsized several times only to replenish. I worry about leaving too much burden on my heirs, them selling off my collection for too little, etc. But this is what I enjoy, it's my money and I won't know what happens later anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by fla3006:
I've downsized several times only to replenish. I worry about leaving too much burden on my heirs, them selling off my collection for too little, etc. But this is what I enjoy, it's my money and I won't know what happens later anyway.

That's where I am. My son and brothers will get mine, and whether they get 20 or 200, I'm not loosing sleep over it.

Still cheaper than women.

I'm not so worried on the guns issue as I raised my sons as shooters + they would keep them;+ at least know their value. My books however is another story.I have a lot of 1st ed. signed copies by living + dead authors as well as the ONLY full 17 volume set of Richard Burton's "Arabian Nights",circa mid 1800's.Only 1000 printed,mine is marked #x0. I admit that after I'm gone it won't matter but I'd hate to see my boys get screwed.Along those same lines,my ex calls up one day a few years back + says that since we were married for 20 years (even though we have been divorced for 20 years) that she feels that she should get my social security money.Now this woman has never worked in her life + I supported her all those years + when she took off she left the kids with me (thank God) + I raised them by myself.My 1st reaction was to get really pissed (she could still do that)then I figured,what the hell,why not? I'd rather she have it than the fed. Oh no,she can start drawing on it now even though I'm still alive.I have been told that it will not affect my own S.S. withdrawls but I've been lied to by the government before.

I have a cabinet full of guns I don't use, and probably never will again, but it's hard to let them go.

Why? Because each has a memory attached. The two rifles my sons and I took on our first safari to RSA in 1996. The .458 Win Mag my youngest son used in Zim in 2002 to kill his Cape buffalo. The 7x57 I used on a hunt in Texas that was filmed and broadcast on a hunting show years ago. Several shotguns that I used on dove hunts with my sons when they were kids. Other shotguns I used on the skeet range in leagues with boon companions, some now passed on.

I'll never hunt Africa again, due to finances and health, deer hunting is sparse near where I live, I haven't been to the skeet range since we moved here over two years ago--I don't think I've fired a gun in over three years.

I don't have any true high-dollar stuff--my Steyr .458 with a 1990s-era Vari-X III is probably the most valuable, and I doubt I could get two grand for it.

Still, what will become of my collection after I'm gone? Although my wife is my heir, she'll let the boys have any guns they want, but even the two I took to Africa are busy with their careers and don't hunt at the present, and my third--the oldest--is always short on cash and would sell everything as fast as he could, for about half the true market value.

What to do?