What gun did you pass on and regret it?

[Justincase]

So what gun did you have a chance to buy but didn’t for whatever reason or other?

Me? There’s two that come to mind right away. Both were from when Buffalo Gun Center was closing. They had a Ruger SP101 Match Champion marked down to $650 or so. It was a bit more than online, plus the tax made me decide not to get it. Now they’re not available and are listed out of stock for $850 plus. Ugh.

The other was a CZ P07 for $350 at BGC. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking on that one either.

What about you guys? Any stories about the ones that got away?

 

[turbobike]

Yup, Buffalo Gun Center Ruger Stainless Old Army for $450…now near $1000…

 

[spat]

Almost bought a calico M950 carbine back around 2001 or so.

I am aware of all their issues, it would not have been a "home defense" go to LOL.

But i always thought they were cool and looked like a lot of fun.


I also really wanted to get a 1919 parts kit back when they were sub $300.

Really kicking myself on that last one.

 

[Saltwater60]

First comes to mind was a Walter PPK in .380. I was like 15-16 and at a gun show with my father and it was $250. Dude said the Germans used it to kill Jews because the .380 was cheaper and it grossed me out so I passed on it. Had all the German eagle markings too.
More recently a beneli M4 for $700 about two years ago in 12 gauge. I wanted a 20 gauge but a friend was moving and just wanted to unload it. They are on GB for about $2,500-$3,000 and I’d sell it in a heart beat if I had it. Missed $$

 

[Podmonkey]

I couldn't afford it at the time so what can you do, but I was offered the chance to buy a fully tricked out Benelli M4 for 2k.
Most of my gun regrets are over all the stuff I had to sell before I stupidly decided to move back to NY from TX.

 

[Bananabandit]

A SCAR back when they were NY legal. Around $1800 or so.

 

[S&W Fan]

I stupidly missed a chance to buy a S&W model 610-2 10mm with the more rare 5” barrel. The guy offered it to me for $850 cash. The stupid part is that I told him that I’d have to think about it and when I contacted him back a day later someone else much smarter that me jumped at the chance . I’m still kicking myself over that one.

 

[Celt]

Not many really, but i remember when you could buy an ak for under $500 and told myself that id eventually get one.

 

[Depick]

I had a HK 45 in my hands during BGC closing sale. Ive wanted one for years but decided not to buy it and have been kicking myself ever since.

 

[4WHLDRFTN]

OOW M240 SLR

 

[Retired MSG]

I was offered a M-1 Garand by the guy I bought my first reloading press from, he was big into them and his wife was pressuring him to sell some of the many he owned. It was in great shape, and according to him had been gone over and upgraded by a salty old Marine armorer who had begun his career working on them. He wanted $1200 for it and I couldn't see justifying that big of an expense to the wife at that time. I don't doubt what he was telling me, he was a square dealing guy (actually got in touch with him through that "old" website a lot of us came here from). I didn't buy it and have kicked myself for years now about it.
The others are SKS's. On that other website there was a group buy of a crate of unissued Yugos, and I passed, it was back in the day when they were cheap and available and I didn't want to begin running another caliber. That was short sighted. Then a few years back I was at the formerly huge gun show in Oaks PA. I dickered with a guy about his Chinese SKS that he was asking $350 for but was VERY willing to negotiate and come down. I had once again spent a boatload on reloading gear, primers and powders and dies, a tumbler, all sorts of stuff (ah,the good old days). I left it on the table and kick myself for that too. Live and learn, take the deals you can get if you can, stockpile when shits available

 

[Jmac00]

1996, I passed on Colt Python. still regret that decision

 

[Darth]

I lost a Collectible of the year P99 with presentation box and all the goodies by $5. Went for $535. I had a max of $530.

:'(

 

[Justincase]

Aw man. Lots of good, er, bad stories. I guess the moral of the stories is to just buy the damn thing. You can always regret selling it later lol

 

[Cooolone]

Python...


So sad...

 

[Mosinitis]

A bunch of WWII vintage rifles, I should have bought when they were in abundance and cheap.

 

[Celt]

I stupidly missed a chance to buy a S&W model 610-2 10mm with the more rare 5” barrel. The guy offered it to me for $850 cash. The stupid part is that I told him that I’d have to think about it and when I contacted him back a day later someone else much smarter that me jumped at the chance . I’m still kicking myself over that one.

Just saw this on TFB this morning.

Wheelgun Wednesday: S&W Model 610, 10mm Revolver -

This week we’ll take a look at the model 610, the 10mm revolver I had on loan from Smith & Wesson. The large, “N” framed S&W model 610 utilizes moon

www.thefirearmblog.com

 

[dsdmmat]

Don’t know that I regret passing on any gun. I do regret selling my Dan Wesson 715 in 1992 to fund another gun purchase (which I don’t even own anymore).

I have not bought a nylon 66 yet (Apache black). I have seen plenty of them some new in box but I am afraid they won’t live up to my childhood expectation of the coolest 22 rifle on the planet.

 

[S&W Fan]

Don’t know that I regret passing on any gun. I do regret selling my Dan Wesson 715 in 1992 to fund another gun purchase (which I don’t even own anymore).

I have not bought a nylon 66 yet (Apache black). I have seen plenty of them some new in box but I am afraid they won’t live up to my childhood expectation of the coolest 22 rifle on the planet.

Aaaah yes, I loved my Nylon 66 ( Black). It was the first .22 dad bought for my brother and Me. wish I had never gotten rid of that rifle. Expectations be damned .

 

[Blimey]

I really thought seriously about buying the NY safe desert eagle. It's an utterly useless gun but I wanted (still want) one.

 

[Day444]

Browning BDA.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

I'm late to the party I don't have any great deals i missed compared to some but since I got into guns a few years ago my 2 biggest "do overs" would be to buy one of the really good shape Yugo SKSs for like $299 and I had a chance to buy a brand new 5th gen Glock 19 with night sights for like 379$ during gander Tonawandas store liquidation and I was on my lunch break and had to get back so I couldn't buy it then, but went back the next day and the guy said Glock corporate got involved and they all got pulled and sent back to warehouse because they were being sold below manufacturer minimum proce

 

[Justincase]

I'm late to the party I don't have any great deals i missed compared to some but since I got into guns a few years ago my 2 biggest "do overs" would be to buy one of the really good shape Yugo SKSs for like $299 and I had a chance to buy a brand new 5th gen Glock 19 with night sights for like 379$ during gander Tonawandas store liquidation and I was on my lunch break and had to get back so I couldn't buy it then, but went back the next day and the guy said Glock corporate got involved and they all got pulled and sent back to warehouse because they were being sold below manufacturer minimum proce

Oh man. Both of those hurt. Those would’ve been smoking deals

 

[Toecutter]

Glock 30 for 250 , BIL traded it in , 250 was the stores offer . I was with him , on the ride home I was like why didn't I just buy it off him for 250? I lived in Phoenix in the early 90s, I remember debating on buying an sks for 60 bucks. I was unsure how to get it back to NY so I passed.

 

[seezur]

Mateba Unica for like $600 used (gun store owner was an idiot and didn’t know what it was). This was before I had my pistol permit though.

Also, some fudd gun store selling new SCR for $700ish like 4 years ago when they were already in the 1k range.

 

[GOPerfect]

Far too many to list.

When I was selling guns, I received some really great deals through the manufacturers.

I purchased A LOT of guns while selling, but there were so many more that I wanted and had to pass on.

 

[Paxal]

So what gun did you have a chance to buy but didn’t for whatever reason or other?

Me? There’s two that come to mind right away. Both were from when Buffalo Gun Center was closing. They had a Ruger SP101 Match Champion marked down to $650 or so. It was a bit more than online, plus the tax made me decide not to get it. Now they’re not available and are listed out of stock for $850 plus. Ugh.

The other was a CZ P07 for $350 at BGC. Don’t know what the hell I was thinking on that one either.

What about you guys? Any stories about the ones that got away?

All of them, but most recently a Tanfiglio Witness in 10mm.

 

[HEX]

I have a lot of these stories/regrets; enough so that for the most part I don't remember them individually.

Here's one that stands out though. This one has bothered me tremendously for more than 20 years.

I don't remember the year exactly (it does kind of matter in explaining how this happened). Somewhere around 1998-2002 (probably on the earlier side)
Now, back in those days, and maybe some of you will remember this, big online sales websites weren't quite yet en vogue. Some of them existed, but a lot of people didn't even have broadband internet yet, so the web was a very different place. That being so, there were other ways to buy guns than directly in the shops though. Some dealers would still put out printed catalogs, and you'd call them up to order whatever shipped to your local dealer. Some of these companies were more dealer's distributors, but they would still send individually or sometimes in small quantities, and some of them were all about imports. Because there wasn't a ton of information to be found online, you'd find these catalogs to be often filled with obscure imports from makers you'd probably never heard of and probably couldn't get much info on. In these cases the photos were terribly printed 'grainy' crap, so it really was often hard to know what from what.

So, one day a fella that I knew was over at the place I was living at; more a friend of another person who lived there, but a nice guy and one who was also very much into guns. He'd brought over one of these odd 'grainy' import catalogs and we were discussing the contents. The prices were for the most part outrageously inexpensive on a lot of things. Partly because this was a distributor (that did sell individually though), and party because this was stuff nobody had really heard of yet and there were just the very few importers with this weird stock. 'Unknown' Turkish made shotguns, and things like that, were the general kind of merchandise. Also, this was during the '94-'04 Clinton AWB so you saw a lot of 'sporter' workarounds and such. This is also at least vaguely relevant.
Now, he swore by this stuff and proclaimed what amazing deals they were. I however, fool that I was, countered that these unknown guns were surely of dubious quality and said I'd never buy any such thing.

One particular gun I distinctly remember him pointing out (it haunts me still).. was a 5 round magazine fed, 23" barreled, semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun. There wasn't a name for it exactly, more of a model number, and not much info included. The name/model# was simply something like 'IZHxx12 HUNTER'. Yes, I'm being coy, because going on the info I had at the time is what makes this story so tragic to me.
This is a mockup of course, but the picture included looked something VERY much like this.


Of course at the time I didn't know that IZH meant Izhmash, or who or what Izhmash even was at all. Really couldn't even tell from the photo that it might have been an 'AK' shotgun. This fella showing me claimed he knew a guy who'd bought some from this catalog and thought it was great. Said he was buying some and asked if i would join in with him to get the batch pricing. I though, again claimed I wasn't going to buy some weird unknown foreign crap. Here's the KICKER though. I don't remember the price exactly, but I do know for certain it was right around $200. I believe they were LESS than 200 if you bought 5 or 10 or something like that (again this was an import distributor who would sell directly, and this was why the guy wanted me in on it).
So, by now you've figured our surely that this gun, not too long after this, became popularized as the Saiga-12; particularly after '04 when the Fed. AWB ended and it became available in other configurations than the 'Hunter' model, but would obviously have been easily modified from that configuration. The prices certainly changed, just a tad, when people had actually heard of them. Now of course, after Obummer's 2014 import ban, they're more desirable than ever.

So, I passed on buying as many Saiga-12s as I possibly could at under 200 bucks, and I surely REGRET it. I mean.. who knew ? (probably somebody)

 

[stokes]

Early 90's, M1 Garand Tanker for $500.Couldnt swing the $$ at the time.My buddy snapped it up so I got to shoot it.Only made me feel worse.

 

[Justincase]

Far too many to list.

When I was selling guns, I received some really great deals through the manufacturers.

I purchased A LOT of guns while selling, but there were so many more that I wanted and had to pass on.

I could never work at a gun store. I’d be in the poor house