Just a young buck by y’all’s standards, but I learned something about 15yrs ago. I had a chunk saved up, and at the time, every penny I didn’t spend on bills was going to guns and reloading and shooting. It just became habitual. I couldn’t decide what I wanted but had always spent money on guns, so that’s what I was racking my brain to spend it on. Then out of nowhere I decided to buy a mountain bike. I had more fun and more enjoyment on that mountain bike over many years with that $1000 than I ever would have with any gun I could have bought. It taught me a valuable lesson.
Now, I didn’t quit buying guns or reloading or shooting, but enjoying something other than justj shooting made me enjoy the guns I already had even more. Fast forward to last year, and I decided I wanted to try welding as a hobby. I sold off a lefty Wby Lazermark 378 to get my Miller 211 and some gear, and once again I have enjoyed the time I’ve spent learning to weld this past year more than I ever got from admiring the Weatherby. I sold another Mark V and got a Hypertherm plasma cutter to go with it and the oxy-acetylene rig and all the other metalworking toys I’ve acquired with money from thinning the herd. $3500 of pretty sitting in the safe, or many hours of learning and building and creating with many more years of the same to come? The choice was easy.
All this to say, if you don’t get active enjoyment from a gun, sell it and use the value towards something you will enjoy. Less junk, more journey, friends. I still have a Liberty Fatboy full to the brim of firearms it’s taken me over 20 years to acquire and trade for, and I’ll never sell many of them. But I also ain’t going to hold on to one if it’s just sitting there when the next adventure is just waiting to happen.
