A Farewell to "Collecting" Arms

[farscott]

I am both a shooter and a collector. I divide my firearms into two "piles", "self-defense/CCW" and "fun". I do not want every shot I fire to be part of training or practice. I find it very relaxing to head into my backyard after finishing work with one of my fourteen (everything from stock Standards to full-blown Volquartsen and Clark Customs) Ruger Standard-pattern pistols and do a bit of plinking. I try to shoot every day unless weather stops me. Some days I may only fire twenty rounds and some days I may fire seven hundred. Do I need fourteen pistols of essentially the same function? Nope, but I can afford it and I felt like doing it. I like rimfires, and my collection is full of them. I also collect "wonder nines", and my collection is full of them as well.

I also have five P30 pistols that are in the first pile, and I do practice/train with those. But I will also shoot a Beretta M9, a 1911, or a Glock for fun.

I like to balance practice with fun. I may not be the best shooter (not anywhere close), but I believe I am much better than average.

[Odin Bravo One]

My divorce made me simplify my life dramatically.. not much a man can’t protect with a couple Glock 19s, a Glock 43, and a general purpose carbine..

Mine did too. In addition to losing 120 lbs of dead weight, I was able to finally buy shit that I wanted without it becoming an “issue”.

First thing I bought when I got my papers from the court:

1928A1 Auto-Ordnance Thompson Sub-Machinegun.

The inventory has steadily risen from there. I say “inventory” because fact is, only a handful of the firearms I own are collectible. Sure there are lots of people who look at their guns as investments or collectibles, but having significance to the owner doesn’t make it an investment nor collectible.

I shoot the guns in my inventory. I collect pieces that have historical significance.

[WobblyPossum]

I like the theory of minimalism more than I put it in practice. I have a few Glocks (carry, identical training gun, smaller one for lounging around the house) and a few ARs (duty/HD, near identical training gun, smaller pistol one for giggles). Almost all of my live fire and the vast majority of my dry fire happens with these guns. I’ve fired around 6000 rounds of handgun ammo in the last 11 months. All but a couple hundred rounds has been through Glock 19s. I can shoot them and I know their inner workings well enough that I can perform all of my own maintenance on them. I enjoy the process of tracking my times and scores and increasing my skill level with the guns I trust for self defense. Same with the ARs. The few hundred rifle rounds I fire every year are coming out of the barrel of an AR 15.

If I stopped at Glocks and ARs, I would be perfectly fine, preparedness wise. However, I like having random one-of guns that I can appreciate and occasionally, if rarely, shoot. My not Glocks almost never come out of the safe but they’re still fun to periodically put a few rounds through. I just ordered an M&P 2.0 Compact to check out. It won’t be replacing my G19 for anything serious. It likely won’t ever be carried. I’ll probably put less than 2000 rounds through it during the entire time I own it, but I wanted to see how the M&P series is evolving. If it turns out to be a great little gun, I’ll have something else I can recommend to new shooters who just don’t like Glocks.

The gun thing isn’t just about self defense and duty use for me. It’s my only really hobby. I like having examples of different manufacturers and action types to look at, handle and examine. I like being able to compare different manufacturers’ interpretations of “polymer gun, generic, 9mm.” I also appreciate things like pre-lock S&W revolvers and 1911s (I need to get me a 1911). I get a kick out of the history of defensive pistolcraft. I still want to buy a bullpup rifle to compare it to my ARs (a Steyr AUG because Die Hard and @Dagga Boy can’t both be wrong). If I ever win the lotto or finally cave and start a savings account for it, I’ll buy a WC EDC X9 because I applaud Bill Wilson’s effort in making a gun that didn’t already exist to fill a need he saw some people had. I loved the video Bill Wilson did with Ken Hackathorn where they discussed the engineering that went into the gun and the role it was meant to fill. It didn’t hurt that actually handling and shooting an X9 at a pistol class this year left me grinning from ear to ear.

There’s no real wrong way to appreciate guns. If it makes you happy to minimize your collection and it helps further your shooting goals, that’s awesome. If you like having one of everything to mess around with, that’s awesome too.


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[Robinson]

Oh how I lust for a no frills 1911 that runs and runs...

If the funds are available this is easier done than some folks 'round here seem to think, at least based on my experience.

[GardoneVT]

I like a lot of what Dave Ramsey has to say and I truly believe that he's helped a lot of people. However, I used to work in finance at a dealership and worked with multiple people who had gone off the deep end with his stuff and now had a zero credit score. I hate the machine, I really do, but the machine says you must have some active credit in your world if you ever do want a loan with the best interest rate available. PSA off.

Yeah, Dave Ramsey always says educated finance people usually don’t like him.

There’s a reason for that, and I’ll leave the subject .

Now as to guns, well. The cruel reality of matters is skill really does cost money. Ammo isn’t cheap: while internet posters whine about gun cost, at factory rates here you’ll match a Glock 17s purchase price in ammo after just 4,000 rounds. Range time isn’t free either and in some areas , one has to pay for membership and drive hours away from home to get there. At one point I had to drive two hours round trip to shoot for 30 minutes when my local range closed for renovations. Being a single guy that was easy; for a family man two point five hours a week of free time is a luxury they may not have .

Collecting arms won’t improve your shooting, but it’s a lot easier to buy a $1,000 gun then to spend $1,000 on practice.

[mtnbkr]

I don't quite "get" the mindset that says you must divest yourself of your collection in order to focus on skills or that guns can't be a hobby and purpose unto themselves. While I've been focusing more on skills development the last year or so, I still have my loading and casting equipment and a safe full of guns (as well as another full of ammo). The guns don't cost me anything sitting idle in the safe. They're paid for and will wait patiently for me.

I just plain dig guns. I like shooting them, I like learning their history, how they came about, who influenced their design, and the minutia of their evolution over time. I like building or modifying guns. I like developing loads for guns to make them more effective or fun to shoot (or even to be able to shoot in the cases of some of my more esoteric chamberings). The martial application of them is useful and important, but not at all what brought me to them in the first (or even second) place.

That said, I'm not an accumulator. I'm very specific on what I buy and why. I still have more than I need for "purposes", but I'll keep them because they please me in one way or another.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

Now as to guns, well. The cruel reality of matters is skill really does cost money. Ammo isn’t cheap: while internet posters whine about gun cost, at factory rates here you’ll match a Glock 17s purchase price in ammo after just 4,000 rounds.

I flipped that around when I decided to focus on skills development for a while. For the mere cost of a gun, I could get a class or two in each year.

Range time isn’t free either and in some areas , one has to pay for membership and drive hours away from home to get there. At one point I had to drive two hours round trip to shoot for 30 minutes when my local range closed for renovations. Being a single guy that was easy; for a family man two point five hours a week of free time is a luxury they may not have .

This was another motivation behind putting gun purchases on hold for a while. I was running out of time to enjoy them all semi-regularly. Adding more guns to my collection wasn't going to resolve that. Now, I don't have to shoot each one every year, but I don't need to add to that problem.

Collecting arms won’t improve your shooting, but it’s a lot easier to buy a $1,000 gun then to spend $1,000 on practice.

True, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't collect arms if you enjoy the ownership aspect. Some folks really do like collecting fine guns as if they were fine works of art (and many are). There really is nothing wrong with that.

Chris

[blues]

I don't quite "get" the mindset that says you must divest yourself of your collection in order to focus on skills or that guns can't be a hobby and purpose unto themselves. While I've been focusing more on skills development the last year or so, I still have my loading and casting equipment and a safe full of guns (as well as another full of ammo). The guns don't cost me anything sitting idle in the safe. They're paid for and will wait patiently for me.

I just plain dig guns. I like shooting them, I like learning their history, how they came about, who influenced their design, and the minutia of their evolution over time. I like building or modifying guns. I like developing loads for guns to make them more effective or fun to shoot (or even to be able to shoot in the cases of some of my more esoteric chamberings). The martial application of them is useful and important, but not at all what brought me to them in the first (or even second) place.

That said, I'm not an accumulator. I'm very specific on what I buy and why. I still have more than I need for "purposes", but I'll keep them because they please me in one way or another.

Chris

Completely agree that "just for the love" of something is a perfectly valid reason to own them...especially when one is fiscally responsible and the items in the "collection" do not represent an existential threat to one's current or future financial circumstances. (Speaking as one who abhors debt and was raised to only purchase what one could afford to buy.)

And while I'm paring down my knife collection here and there, it's not from financial necessity and the money it brings in is not earmarked for living expenses, but more than likely will be used for some other pursuit or activity...whether firearms related or otherwise.

[Peally]

Outside of buying a Garand I never had a collecting phase. I think that fact was useful for getting to the skill level I'm at.

#poorfag

[BehindBlueI's]

Yeah, but I'm not going to stop buying decent K frames when I see them. (N frames are mostly too pricey.)

Kinda this. I use revolvers to satisfy my play-time itch. If it weren't for the requirement to be proficient with Glocks at work, I'd almost certainly be 100% TDA Sigs for magazine fed pistols. As it is, I'm all Glock and Sig, other than the Shield and a 1911 that lives in the safe because 'Merica.

I like Glock, don't get me wrong, I really like my "M" pistols. I just never would have tried striker fired if I hadn't been made to. I am hammer biased...