Online Gun Auctions

Anytime you are hunting for a used gun at a bargain price you had better go armed. Armed with knowledge of the gun, the maker, the mechanics, the variations, and what price is reasonable based on condition. The more you know, the better your chances of avoiding a costly mistake. I buy a lot of firearms online to use as the basis of my restoration articles so let me share some thoughts with you.

The safest places to pursue this risky business are your local shops where the friendly owners, and even most of the not-so-friendly ones, will have looked the gun over and put what they consider a fair price on it based on condition and Blue Book value. Unfortunately, that limits your choices and a specific model or caliber that you want may never come through a local shop. Taking your search to the next level of risk would be to start haunting gun shows.

If you’re just starting out to collect examples of one type of firearm (for example, battle rifles of WWII, or L. C. Smith shotguns, or whatever) you have a pret- A very beat up Browning .22. It functions and will make a great project. The price was right. A once in a lifetime buy at an online auction. Six-inch barrel with target hammer and trigger for $500. ty good chance of finding something to fill the bill.

But, once your preferred treasure becomes more specific, you have to cast a wider net and the danger level increases. The firearms auction sites like Gunbroker, Guns America, and Auction Arms are relatively good places to search for a real treasure but honestly, at this point, you are buying a gun unseen and are relying on the seller’s description and pictures to make your decision. The phrase "pig in a poke" comes to mind. My personal experience with these sites has been mostly positive.

The vast majority of the sellers do their best to present their merchandise fairly and will be happy to answer any questions you may have before you place a bid. That is not to say you will never get burned. If you are anywhere past the fifth grade, you have probably already learned that not everyone in this world is as honest as you and me, and sometimes, I’m not so sure about me!

By and large, but not always, the descriptions and condition of the firearm have at least been written by someone with a basic knowledge of what he is selling. He may fudge on the condition some or paint it as rare or highly desirable when it’s not all he claims but, at least you stand a really good chance of getting what you paid for. If the gun was grossly misrepresented the auction sites do give you a place to complain and will try to help you and the seller come to some settlement of the issue.

If you area real adventurer, a decent gunsmith looking for a project, or a total fool like me, venture into the world of Internet firearms auctions. These are auctions run by auctioneers that sell anything and everything. This week they may

I knew about the bad stock and rough bore but there was no mention of ruptured cases. A serious headspace problem with the 922 single shot caused every round fired in it to burst! This will add the cost of a reamer and relining tube to the total cost of the rifle. be selling a bunch of consigned guns while last week it was farm equipment and next week it may be antique Spacely Sprockets.

This is where the danger of not getting what you expected goes up to a level that makes the World Poker Championship look like a friendly game of Uno with the kids. There are several factors that make these auctions such a high risk. First, you are buying the item as is, where is. In other words, you bought it and it is yours.

Second, unless it is an Internet-only auction, you will be bidding against people that are on-site and have the advantage of having looked the gun over and seen its actual condition, peered down the bore, worked the action, examined the bumps, bruises, and scrapes, heard it rattle, and watched the rust dribble out of the action. Third, you will be paying an "Internet premium" of 15 to percent. In other words, if someone on the ground wins the auction at a price of $100, they pay $100.

If you are bidding online from several A project indeed! states away, you will pay the $100 plus the Internet premium, plus shipping, and probably insurance. The premium is supposed to cover packaging and labor. I don’t mind a 10-15% premium to get something I could not get locally but anything more than 15% is a rip off. Think about that! The people on site that are looking at the gun in person decided it wasn’t worth the price you just bid for it and they stopped bidding.

You, on the other hand, just paid more than they thought the gun was worth, plus the Internet premium, plus shipping! Oh yeah, you probably just made the deal of the century! Or maybe not! With absentee bidding set up like this, your chances of overpaying or getting well and truly burned are excellent. Given all this, why would anyone bid online?

Well, there are sevyou are looking for, a gun that is not worth the price paid in Alabama or North Dakota where the auction was held may be well worth American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.

Far This Stevens 44 was another project piece that turned out to be worse than I expected. The stock is battered, the bore is poor, and the metal has little finish left, but what really upset me was the chamber had been opened up with a hand drill! As you can see, the fired cases and chamber cast tell an ugly story. 25-20 Winchester case, a chamber cast of the Stevens, and an unfired .25-20 Single Shot.

When the .25-20 Winchester wouldn’t fit in the Stevens 44 .25-20 Single Shot chamber, the previous owner "fixed" it with a hand drill. Note where the case meets the throat. The chamber was no longer even centered on the bore. the price where you live. That is not going to be true of the highly collectible guns like the 1911, Single Action Army, or Winchesters, but may be on a Gras or Mauser. Sometimes there is simply nobody on site that is interested in the gun you consider a real prize. As an example.

I bought an S&W 629 in .44 Magnum on an Internet auction for $500. The gun was barely used and looked like it was right out of the box. For whatever reason, that day, at that auction, nobody but me thought it was worth that much. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. Another problem I encounter more often than not is that with these auction houses is that the person writing the description often doesn’t know anything about guns.

I’ve seen a Single Action Army-style revolver listed as an 1873 Winchester that was clearly marked Uberti in one of the pictures of the item. That can work in your favor or against you. Again, from my own experience, I was looking at a bad picture of a cap and ball revolver and the only description was "Cap and Ball Revolver". I studied the rather dark photo and could make out that it had around barrel squared trigger guard and looked more like an oversized Navy than an 1860 Army.

The lights and bells went off in my head and I said, "It’s a Dragoon!" I placed a $200 bid on it and won! After paying shipping and the Internet premium, it came to $260 and I still thought I had stolen a reproduction Dragoon. Imagine my surprise when it arrived and I discovered it wasn’t a Dragoon. In fact, I had no idea what it was and had conduct a series of searches online until I discovered I had what appeared to beanew and unfired reproduction of the Dance Revolver.

The originals were made in Texas for the Confederacy and have features of both the Navy and the Dragoon in a revolver sized between the two and no recoil shields behind the sides of the cylinder to make it easier to cap when on horseback. Those area couple of the great deals I have made on auctions but there have been bad ones, too. A great and recent example of a bad deal was what was listed as a Steven 44 1/2 in .25-20.

Nobody was bidding on it so I threw out a lowball bid of $250 knowing that would last about two seconds as soon as the live auction began. To my surprise, nobody else bid on the gun! I was pretty sure I was in trouble when I won the gun at that price and my concerns were verified when it arrived. It wasn’t a 44 1/2, it is a Model 44 with a heavy barrel that was originally chambered in .25-20 Single Shot, not the .25-20 Winchester that is commonly available.

An obsolete and hard-to-find cartridge in a model worth far less than the one advertised was bad enough, but adding insult to injury someone seems to have "fixed" the problem of not being able to chamber .25-20 Winchester in the gun by drilling out the chamber with a hand drill! That might not have been too bad if they had used an appropriate chamber reamer. But no, they had used a drill bit.

Not that it really mattered since the barrel looked like the sewers of Paris with pitting and only the occasional trace of rifling. Fortunately, I have the knowledge and the technology, I can repair it, I can make it better than it was. The beat-up stock can be refinished, the metal can be repolished and reblued, and the barrel can be lined and chambered. It can live again! But, I wouldn’t exactly say it was a great deal.

I could go on with the good, the bad, and the ugly of gun auctions and buying online but it would be repetitious. These are the things you have to watch out for and should understand if you are tempted to dive into the world of Internet gun auctions. The deals really are out there. You need to be careful because not all of those deals are good deals! AG