Hard Use Gun

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There are such a variety of backgrounds on this forum. I was wondering if we could create a consensus on what constitutes a hard use gun.
I am specifically talking shotguns and rifles.

[Chuck Haggard]

I'd say one that was military grade, easy to field strip and clean. Able to take abuse.

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OK I guess I wasn't clear. At what point does it become an actual hard use gun? Say for an example a trapshooter shoots 20000 rounds a year but the gun is babied, kept in a padded case, cleaned once a week, Is that a hard use gun?
Or a shotgun in a cruiser rack is that hard use?
A once a month shooter running 25 or 50 rounds through a mil spec sniper rifle and attending a few long range seminars a year and having some bad weather during the class.
Or is a hard use the military sniper training year round with the same rifle.
How about a rifle hanging in the window of a farm truck all year round. Is that hard use?
So what is it that makes a gun hard used. Is it amount of rounds fired? Is it the environment, rounds fired? I would think negligent abuse wouldn't count but a police armorer might not feel the same way.

[Jay Cunningham]

It kind of sounds like whatever your definition of "is" is...

Chuck gave a pretty common sense answer. You need to define the mission parameters of the gun first, methinks, if you want to parse the wording that much.

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I'm not looking at anything specific. I just hear the term so much. Can stand up to the rigors yes. but does it necessarily have to be Mil-spec. I've had tens of thousands of rounds through a Remington 1100. It probably wouldn't be defined as a hard use gun under Chucks description but heck that's not your average shotgun user either.
I would think the pistol tests I've read on here would constitute a hard use gun.

[JodyH]

For me it's a gun that I can bang around and shoot the crap out of under pretty much all environmental conditions with minimal maintenance.

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Whats your definition of bang around? How many rounds is shoot the crap out of. Are you talking sustained fire or rounds over time. Does carrying your new rifle around on your four wheeler constitute hard use to you Jody? Does your range time constitute hard use and if so why?

For example my 1100 used to get so hot I would get mirage from the barrel. I would keep a wet towel with me to wipe it down and cool it off. even though it wasn't sustained fire and it wasn't a mil spec weapon I would considered it a hard used gun. However when it wasn't at the range it wasn't exposed to the elements and it was kept clean and lubricated.

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Im not trying to be intentionally vague. I rephrased my original post to try and convey what I am after. It wasn't what is a hard use gun. It is at what point does a gun become hard used.

[Drifting Fate]

I read it as used hard and put away wet, something like my BB guns and 10/22 in my teen-age years. Update a few decades and few dozen 1911's later (sorry, I tend to be a handgun guy), I'd say it's those guns which have significant finish wear and high round counts, which don't get the TLC you know you should be giving them.

[Sheep Have Wool]

When does one thing become another in the absence of a specific definition of identity?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

I think in order to answer this question, you have to define what makes a gun a "hard used" gun, specifically. Then you can worry about when a gun makes the transition.

Further - and I swear I'm not trying to be snarky - what's the point of coming up with this definition? What difference does it make? I think this is like trying to define obscene: I'll know it when I see it.