Just wondering? Buying a surplus gun?

[1911crazy]

If you were buying a surplus military gun you have to know its a crap shoot that you will get a good one(one that shoots good). My question is if a dealer offered to you a gun that has been gone over(inspected) and sighted in with bought ammo and your sure of getting a great gun. How much more would you be willing to pay in price?? You get the gun along with the sighting in target(proof). Most dealers backup what they sell but it is no guarantee and you pay the ship both ways when there is a problem too. this could be an expensive problem by the time you are done. So how much more would you pay up front for a good gun?? If the normal price is $300 would you pay $25? or $50? or $100 more to be safe and sure of what you are getting??                      BigBill

Don't forget the dealers time to clean/check/sight the gun in then recosmoline for shipping.

[S.S.]

I'll be honest with you, I am not a trusting person.
(I was a Police officer for too long I guess)
There is nothing to say that the supplied
"test target" was perforated by the gun it is with.
Kinda like paying 10-20 extra dollars for "hand picked".
Sure it is hand picked, right off the top of the stack!!!!
I just carry a bore light with me to the gun/pawn shops
and take a good look for myself. The rest I have to trust to luck!

Man I'm a ornery old fart today ain't I.

[Jack Crevalle]

I will give you my opinion as the highly paid consultant answer:

It depends.

In my opinion, if you can go to a gun show or dealer directly, inspect the weapon in person and find it better than average it's probably worth $100 or more depending on what it is. If you're mail ordering it and you have only the guy's word on it, you're still buying a pig in a poke unless you've dealt with the guy before and know he means what he says and that you are both saying the same things.

I look at rifles on an auction site right now and one guy grades his NRA fine and another grades his NRA very fine. I look at pictures of them and see no difference and I assume that they probably ultimately got them from the same batch at the same time. Maybe they are not being dishonest, afterall both dealers, and my, evaluation are subjective.

If you have to return a weapon you are probably out shipping both ways, maybe a transfer fee and maybe a restocking fee, minimum. That doesn't include your time.

If on the other hand you inspect a rifle in person and find it's in better shape than it's comtemporaries, the dealer knows it's worth more, it's worth more to you, and you can probably resell it for more if you chose to in the future.

If you're just after a good shooter, almost every mail order dealer I've seen says if you fire a milsurp weapon, it's yours, no returns. So the only thing I'd ask if this person is going to provide a target is, "Can I then return it if I don't get the same results?". Otherwise, what does the target buy you? I've seen some offered with targets and I'd say that they are an indication of what that particular model of weapon could do, but I personally wouldn't place any more stock in it than that. If you've really found a dealer that will sight-in a milsurp weapon for you that may be different. The ones I've seen provide targets from the manufacturer or some where else, who knows what's happened to the rifle since then?  

Re-cosmoline? Are there any dealers that do that? Why? Unless they are filling a military order to some third world country. Personnally, if I was paying a guy extra money and he un-comolined a weapon and he offered to re-cosmoline it, I'd insist he didn't.