That is a new excuse to buy more toys. Funny, I never thought of that one so clearly before though. Buy a pristine military rifle, then you just HAVE TO BUY another less pristine rifle of the same make to shoot. I have already gone deeper into the rabbit hole. I get a pristine model of a milsurp, then a shooter version, then a beater for spare parts, then I find another pristine version at a great price, gotta buy it, the price is so good, and because... ( why? not sure about that one yet) and pretty soon, gotta get another safe.
This has been my problem. I find an excellent example of a rifle that I don't have yet and I can't even shoot it until I find another in good condition that I feel I can actually shoot occasionally without damaging the value or condition. The more you aquire, the less you shoot them. I bet over 3/4 of what I now own hasn't been shot by me and some of those are basically NOS that are still in cosmoline and won't be shot as long as I am the caretaker.
I have 2 very young daughters (3 & 6) so I rarely get out to the range at all. Maybe 2 times a year for perhaps 100 rounds/year of centerfire ammo. As they get older, I will take them with me and get them into the sport and hunting.
I feel there needs to be more people that keep pristine examples out there and preserve them for future caretakers. I feel people don't think long term enough when they buy amazing examples of rifles and pistols and then use them as their full time shooters. They actually do have a full power round count limit before they start to wear out. These can never be brought back to their previous all matching excellent condition when they are shot out. The way I keep seeing people posting about unwrapping and taking rifles out of their original cosmoline for shooters saddens me. It will only be a generation or so from now that they basically won't exist or be so rare that they can't be owned by anyone but the extremely wealthy collectors. I want to pass all of my collection on to my 2 daughters and have been keeping them in mind for keeping pristine examples for their so called "Museum collection" and trying to obtain 2 shooters of my favourites so they can both have one when I am gone.
Expensive? YES! But I don't really spend my money on much else these days and I love hunting, shooting and the history, mechanics and designs of the different countries firearms so very much that I treat them all (even SKS's! Haha) like they are the last ones in that condition in the world!
I wish more people treated them that way. I hate reading about the way people are abusing them, even though some of them seem to be super cheap and in seemingly endlessly available. They are actually limited and they will run out/get used up eventually! If our laws don't change from the way they are now, in a few generations, everything we see now will be mostly used up and beaten to death. People don't realize that we basically just developed (on a long term scale) the first lever action repeating rifles with the Winchester 1866 or there abouts and look at the prices of those originals in any kind of nice shootable condition not to mention how many of those are in near new condition now! Most of the rifles used in WWI rifles are just over 100 years old now. Just imagine what condition all of these are going to be like over the next 200-300 years of Bubba's and misstreatment/abuse! Even the occasional shooters will have their excellent condition barrels significantly burned through by then. The untouched, well cared for ones will be like gold and only the wealthiest people will own and maybe shoot them very little.
We as humans have mainly only looked at the short term and had the mentality of there are so many of this or that, that we can't possibly use them all up. THIS mentality has almost always come back to bite us in the butt! Unfortunately it usually isn't the same generation that gets bitten so the people creating the problem/shortage etc. never seem to learn from it. The "It is your rifle and you can do with it what you want" mentality is just going down the same road that we have always travelled and it will end up with the same results unfortunately...
Just my 2 cents on a crappy rainy day sorry...
Ian
