My snowflake gun is an 80s? 90s? era Para P10 that I cant find parts or magazines for. Holster? Hah!
Heck, Para CS couldn't even tell me what recoil spring to use, let alone have any.
'Nobody ever called the fire department because they did something intelligent'
I mean...I’ve for sure never thought of building a 1911 in 9x25 Dillon and then shooting a match with it, so folks can ask me what it is and I respond with, “Oh you’ve probably never heard of it.”
But my buddy takes the gun hipster award for me - back when Texas required you to shoot your renewals with a handgun 9mm or larger, he took his 1912-vintage Bergman-Bayard in 9mm Largo and shot his requalification with it. THAT is fucking gun hipster.
I know I'm not the only one on this forum who carries and/or competes with a Walther P99 or P99c, but given the gun's overall weirdness (Striker-fired DA/SA with a third mode that's just a long-travel SA? Really? Who thought that up, and why?), that just makes us a group of snowflakes together. A snowball, perhaps? At least they're accurate and reliable guns, so there's that.
If the criteria is “gun,” not “pistol” I would say any rifle caliber which requires fire forming brass. I have a 300 H&H AI. You’ve probably never heard of it.
I carry a somewhat expensive 1911. But it's hard for me to think of it, with its worn blue finish, as a snowflake gun in any sense.
I think snowflake guns are sort of like obnoxious dogs -- it says more about the owner than the dog.
I don’t necessarily think that rarity makes a snowflake; my 36-6 is just a 5-shot J-frame, after all. Same with a short-frame Ruger SPNY.
But my Beretta ‘34–of which there were thousands made, even wartime ones—is pretty darn snowflake—but only if carried. Same with my inherited Savage ‘07, though it’s hardly rare too. But pocketing that for a trip to the grocery store is horribly snowflake.
But old/collectible isn’t mandatory, either; that Hudson H9 was a total snowflake gun.
I guess it boils down to the obscenity definition: "I know it when ai see it."
If it’s weird, and it’s being carried = snowflake
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
Since there are custom kydex and leather holster makers who can make a holster for just about anything (not to mention the sausage sacks that will fit anything remotely gun-shaped), a gun is a snowflake gun if you can't go into any reasonably stocked gun store to buy ammo for it.
I have 1 gun that fits that classification, my vintage M&P in 32-20.
Chris