What's the best, most sure-fire (pardon the pun) way to tell if a supposedly NIB bolt rifle has truly never been fired?

I'm talking about a rifle handed to you cold over the counter, with no way to trace it to the little old widow from Pasadena.

Run an ammoniated patch through the bore?

Check the bolt face under magnification?

Examine the bore with a bore scope?

Just wondering what the experts think.

Thanks.

Check the bolt face in most situations. Also look at the crown.

Adam

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:
What's the best, most sure-fire (pardon the pun) way to tell if a supposedly NIB bolt rifle has truly never been fired?

Good question!
Since some manufacturers test fire each rifle?!

Personally, I would rather know a rifle has been fired previously. Preferably by the factory with a known load. What bothers me is the hand loading hot dogger bumping the edge of the envelope.

Using your definition of unfired, theree is no such thing, unless it was custom and I would not want "unfired".

Factory test fires every oe as far as I know so none are unfired.

Last new revolver I bought, had one fired casing with it. I would have preferred six fired casings so I knew all chambers in the cylinder was OK, after all, some bad metallurgy can appear anywhere in a billet of steel.

Only if you think it is; all have been test fired (not proof fired if a US gun; we have no proof laws like other countries do). Copper in the bore won't tell you anything; bolt face is what I look at; if it is clean and like new, the gun might be NIB. Go over to Geneseo IL and you can hear "bang bang bang bang bang" (that's 5 quick shots at a time) literally all day, from Springfield Armory and Armallite. Muffled a bit. And there are those who get anal about breaking in their barrels when they have had 5 rounds pumped through them right after assembly.
Anyway, look at the overall picture; gun, box, papers, oil, etc, for the answer. Not just one thing. If you can' t tell then it doesn't matter.

As others have said, factory rifle are test fired and not cleaned.

This would require some type of test that can discern the difference between 1 vs 2 rounds being fired or 2 vs 3 etc.

Ultimately, if no one can tell, it probably makes no difference, if bought and sold in good faith. To me, the question is really is it a 100% new appearing gun, or 99%, or what?

If it is 100%, then why debate about conjectures?

The most important two things when buying a gun, other than what you can see with your own two eyes, are provenance and the seller's personal integrity.

I don't generally pay collector's price for ANY gun which has no smidgeon of verifiable provenance at all with it. And I NEVER pay collector's price for anything to a person whose ethics I do not know and trust.

There are too many fakes and fakers out there to do otherwise. For instance I have an acquaintance in Oregon who can build you any vintage (age) of any Winchester you want or need for your collection, with visually perfect aging marks/wear if you desire, and do it well enough that NO-ONE can authoritatively dispute its originality or condition right down to an including original roll-stamps.

A number of his guns have been sold for BIG money at the biggest Vegas collector's shows. (He did not build them to be sold as originals, but some of his customers have broken their word and sold them as such.)

Personally, I think he should also stamp his own mark on them somewhere not in plain view. But his reasoning is different than mine. He will tell his buyers right up front that it is their integrity which they are selling if they pawn one of his guns off on others as originals when they know they are not. At the same time, he also believes that if byers don't know enough to authenticate their purchases before paying for them, then they have to expect to be taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. And if they then turn around and resell a gun they don't know to be original as if it was a genuine original collectible, they are as bad a crook as the person who sold it to them, maybe worse.

So, I don't buy guns from him even though I know he will not lie about their originality if you ask him straight out "Is this gun all original?" If it isn't, he'll simply say "If that is important to you and you can't tell for yourself, you shouldn't be buying guns in this price range".

If he had his mark stamped on all the ones he's fabricated, I'd own a bunch of them. Without it, I don't own any which I can trace back to him. I don't want my heirs selling any gun as an original which, unknown to them, I KNEW was not what it appeared.

Once you realize that is possible and generally known by the better collectors to be a fairly common occurance, how you decide to spend your money is strictly your own responsibility. Learning to tell the differences is NEVER a skill acquired to the level of 100% accuracy every time. Getting over 75% accuracy will likely cost any collector a bunch of money spent on good, genuine articles, and some not at all genuine fakes he did not recognize when making his purchases.

Caveat emptor.

As to all new guns being test-fired before being sold, that isn't 100% correct. It is often assumed to be correct, but I personally have bought a brand new rifle from one of the big three (Remington, Savage, and Winchester...won't tell you which) that could not have possibly been test fired. The chamber was not completed and there is no way one could manually chamber factory ammo in it.

Things like that are one of the reasons every single firearm in most European countries has to be proved by a standardized and certified individual national proof house before it can be legally sold...no exceptions.

In 1981, I bought a 300 Wbee that was NIB. The 3-shot test target sold me, it was under 1/2 inch.

Slight issue surfaced after we mounted the scope and went to bore sight the rifle.

It had not been chambered.

That's the only rifle I have ever owned that I knew for certain had never been fired.

I sold it to a Wbee collector friend of Elgin Gates for a L-O-T of money...

Usually the bolt will show "wear" the fastest. New might have some brass smudges from the factory test fire, there will be some minor scuff marks on the locking lugs- it takes quite a few rounds before they are smooth and polished on a factory action (Win, Savage, Rem etc.). Check the bluing at the muzzle or in the case of SS if it is shiny compared to the rest of the barrel. I would be more cautious when looking at a varmint rifle than a big game rifle- prairie dogs can wear out a barrel with almost no signs of use externally except the bolt and maybe the muzzle.

True about stainless guns; especially revolvers; SS will discolor and can't be removed to exactly match factory, so look at cylinder fronts, and muzzles.

Don't trust them. Bored out but not chambered ? Heard of that one ,in one case they were doing the Army show thing for VIPs.
NIB from maker ?,that was loaded !!
Watch out !

Rich, when I did a short stint t Sportsmans there in Meridian, we had a 223 Vanguard that came in the same way.