The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Guns, Politics, Gunsmithing & Reloading Gunsmithing Is there a market in financing custom rifles? hmmm....Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
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You know guys I was thinking, how many of us would love to have a custom rifle built? I wonder if there is a market there for somebody that could finance this? I thought about it while reading about a company that offered financing for people that were building kit bikes (motorcycles that is). The problem being that a lot of guys would love to do that and there was no way other than out of pocket. Just a thought that occured to me. There is probably some legal obstacle to it due to the collateral being a registered federal blah blah blah. Red My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. -Winston Churchill | ||
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When I lived in Colorado there was a bank which offered a Weatherby rifle if you opened a savings account with them. It amounted to financing the purchase of a rifle so I would guess that it can be done, unless rules have changed. _________________________________ AR, where the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history become the nattering nabobs of negativisim. | |||
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I saw a couple years ago, that if you invested in a specific CD, you got a weatherby rifle for the interest. I think this was in the SCI mag about 5 years ago.. might have been 4 years ago. But, here's the catch, custom rifles are sold for , what, 50 to 75% of their purchase price on resale, and this would have to be taken into account for the financing. Not a pretty picture, unless, well, it's a very long term build, say 24 months, and you could pay X a month and pay it off... jeffe opinions vary band of bubbas and STC hunting Club Information on Ammoguide about the416AR, 458AR, 470AR, 500AR What is an AR round? Case Drawings 416-458-470AR and 500AR. 476AR, http://www.weaponsmith.com | |||
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If you have to finance it you can't afford it. Howard Moses Lake, Washington USA hwhomes@outlook.com | |||
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Amen Howard. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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Dago Red, you might consider buying parts of your rifle as you can afford them. Buy an action one year, a barrel and the sights the next. Look for a good stock blank all the time and when comes along buy it. When you've got all the parts pick your smith and at the last pay to have it all put together. _________________________________ AR, where the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history become the nattering nabobs of negativisim. | |||
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I wasn't asking for me, although I would do it, that has to go through the boss too and she wouldn't be too enthused about it. my current system of slipping extra here and there and selling other things seems to work, although slow. Although I agree with Howard in theory, the fact however is that some people aren't able to prioritize properly, they have outside influences affecting them. For instance, I wanted to go on safari for my honeymoon, my wife said sure but photo only, no killing on the honeymoon. we went on a cruise to alaska. we got the tax return and I wanted to go hunting then, she said we needed to put in a back yard and work on the house. Yard looks great. I now believe this, payments will always be there in one form or another, opportunities to hunt etc. might not be. If somebody takes money out against their house to go on a 21 day safari I say good on them. they'll be paying for that damn house till they die, but who knows when hunting will change for the worse in Africa. by the same token I bet there are people out there that are on a fixed income or don't make a lot of money and would like a custom rifle and can commit to paying x number of dollars a month to make it happen. nobody pays for everything cash any more. at lease not normal people. I'd much rather make a payment on something I love than something I NEED.  I'm not looking at it as a business to get into, just curious about the market for it. Even if it were setup like was mentioned as a pay per month till it is done thing, like a layaway I guess. hard to come up with that chunk at the front to get the project going, and then hard to spend the money and wait to see the product. the person gets a gun loan, the money goes to the craftsman and the payments are made to the financier. the gun is released when final payment is made. just something different to discuss. Red My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. -Winston Churchill | |||
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Red this program exsits, its called a credit card  | |||
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Red This has worked for some of my friends. Tell the wife, "Okay, any extra money we get together such as tax returns, etc., can go for stuff we need, BUT . . . I am going to take a part time job, in the evening, specifically for my needs, which are to buy guns and to go hunting. Everything I earn from that part time evening job will go to the guns and hunting and nothing else." As for your plan, it would be workable, but as has been mentioned, that financier is going to want one hell of an interest rate for the risk he or she is taking becasue if the person who ordered the gun doesn't pay off the financier will be getting the collateral (the gun) at retail that he can only sell at wholesale. (by the way, my wife wouldn't let me have much in the 20 years we have been married either, BUT 3 years ago we paid off our mortgage . . . . . . . which is damned nice.) | |||
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I guess it used to be that you'd go to your banker and if he thought you were good for it then you'd get the loan regardless of what it was for; maybe this has changed? As far as I know unsecured loans--signature loans--are still available so I think some people probably already do finance guns and if the gunsmith takes credit cards you're there. For me however, not a chance. Only things I finance are vehicles and houses and I don't like doing that as interest is something I don't like to pay. In just shy of 30 years using credit cards I've paid less than $100 interest on them in total. I've never held a vehicle loan to the full term and I'm paying my house off five years early on a 15-year note. I wouldn't borrow monoey to buy a gun. John Farner If you haven't, please join the NRA! | |||
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Sure it would work. You would only want to loan a percentage though. Maybe 75% of the finished price? This way if you get the rifle it can be sold for the biggest portion of the loan. Remember, very few loans are defaulted on before atleast a few payments are made. | |||
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AMEN AMEN.  Doug Humbarger NRA Life member Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 72'73. Yankee Station Try to look unimportant. Your enemy might be low on ammo. | |||
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It does not matter how you get the cash for the things that make your life enriched. Save it, borrow it...what is the difference. Your going to spend all your money on something whether its a gun, a car, a house, interest, alimony or whatever. What you don't spend ain't going with you when they dump you in that box and lower it into the ground. Do you think when you are dying you will regret borrowing the money for the double rifle you used on the last safari of your life? Not a chance my friends. I have A LOT of guns...some I paid cash for and some I did'nt but their all paid for nontheless. Anyway, the initial idea won't work with credit as easy to get as it is today and a lot of it is fairly low interest by historical standards. | |||
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I think the harder part is getting the bank to trust the builder rather than the buyer. Most custom gun makers simply don't have the bona fides to interest a lender. Besides, look at used custom gun prices for all but a handfull of makers and you can see that loan value would be rather small compared to the purchase price. "Experience" is the only class you take where the exam comes before the lesson. | |||
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The problem doesn't lie in the value of the gun for lending purposes...it has everything to do with collateral and the value of that collateral given loan default. I would venture that there isn't a bank on the planet that will secure a loan with something they have no way of recovering. (Picture a repo man trying to knock on your door so he can get into your gunsafe.) The only way they would do it would be on an unsecured basis and going that route you are looking at an interest rate very similar to a credit card given a good credit score. I have seen a number of gunsmiths now that are able to process orders with credit/debit cards. I generally accumulate parts over a period of time (action, barrel, stock, sights, trigger) and then drop everything off at the gunsmith and pay for the machine work/labor with cash. By accumulating parts over time you actually end up taking money out of the gunsmiths pocket but it can make it otherwise affordable. While debt is useful in some instances I generally like to "act my wage" as much as possible. Next time you take a home equity or a mortgage out look at the accumulated finance charges over the term of the loan...at 15 to 30 years you end up paying 2 to 3 times what you borrow. | |||
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I already have two "zero-interest for one year" credit card offers in the mail, and it is only Monday. Open an account, finance the firearm you want, and pay what you can each month. In eleven months you will get at least twenty card offers like the first one. Pick the one you like, pay "zero-interst for one year on balance transfers" edition; and get back to paying off that 12 month free loan. MY wife told me I could get the Chapuis DR in 470 or 500 NE, OR have the $$$ to go to Africa in the spring...I am already packing. Rich | |||
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I actually see this as a life philosophical question. Should you borrow money for a frivolous item? In my case the answer is NO. God willing, I have borrowed my last dollar. The only thing I will borrow for in the future is medical, if my family gets that sick. I owe less than $20K on my house and that is it for me. The only way to really make some serious money is to let the money work, not you. Besides, without getting too radical about it, it is not my money. I am just a steward of the money for God. What I do with it will have a profound effect on my children and grandchildren. I don't believe in throwing money away on interest just so I can have more "stuff". If I have that much "extra" money, I will give it to someone who needs it more than I. Neither a borrower, nor lender be. Don't get me wrong, I like my stuff as well as the next fella, but not enough to borrow to get it. Just one man's opinion. Larry "Peace is that brief glorious moment in history, when everybody stands around reloading" -- Thomas Jefferson | |||
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Yeah, it's called a Home Equity Loan. Mike Legistine actu quod scripsi? Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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I'm just a steward of the money for various parts makers and gun builders. ______________________________ "Truth is the daughter of time." Francis Bacon | |||
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Forrest that is great, glad I read that. I really needed the laugh. Woodrow, I love what you said too. this has been a fun post. My gunsmith doesn't mind if I gather parts up, he's actually told me before what to buy and where to get it. I spoke with him the other night, he was helping me figure out what to get rid of and what to get so I am closer to the "fewer finer" point with my personal guns. gonna hold on to some good actions I have with the hope that some day I can personally build on them something for friends or family. Red My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. -Winston Churchill | |||
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