Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Can a hunting gun be too nice?

Opening day only comes once a year and rain, snow or shine, I'm going to be out there. Lots of you guys post some really nice firearm pictures on here and I'm wondering if you ever think that those might be just too nice to take out in the swamp or in bad weather? I use to duck hunt with a guy who kept his Browning in the gun case until we saw a duck! We use to tease him with "My Browning, my Browning" if he got some dirt on it. Not that a lot of us buy a shotgun or rifle with the thought of selling it, but condition counts at resale time. What are your thoughts about hunting with a really nice one?

If it's 'too' nice then it's not a hunting gun. I have no issue with pretty guns, or sentimental guns, that don't get hunted. I figure a guy can own whatever guns he wants and use them for his purpose. That purpose may simply be the pleasure of owning and/or just looking at it. Ain't my place to tell someone what their gun needs to be used for.

Never thought of buying anything that I wouldn't use. So I'd say no.

Walnut and steel is some pretty tough stuff.

Never.
Got a brand new benelli super black eagle 3 earlier this year and can’t wait to take it waterfowl hunting.
I’m sure it’s going to get banged around and slopped up but I really don’t care.

I have synthetic stocks for the really tough stuff but don't think twice about hunting with my wood stocked guns. I enjoy refinishing a wood stock. Haven't done one yet that didn't turn out better than any factory finish. Resale? Not in my vocabulary.

I soaked my Citori duck hunting once......once. Have a 11-87 SP for that now. I hold shotguns in much higher regard that rifles, for whatever reason.

I love blued steel and walnut. Rarely have I seen an attractive gun built out of anything else, I even get offended when someone looks at a plastic gun and comments on how nice it is.
However, it is nice to use guns that I don't give a crap about. I am still more careful than many, I don't like my stuff beat up. But a scratch on a synthetic/stainless gun, no big deal.

I sold all of my very nice Brownings for just that reason. Bought me some entry level replacements that I could feel good about dragging thru the elements.







I use it in the blind only or range, controlled environment.

I think nice guns look cool when they get weathered from use.

I fall in the category of having hunting rifles and range/safe rifles. I have a M77 Varminter in 243 given to me by grandfather that was NIB when he gave it to me in 2010 (its a 1978). It is blued with walnut and is a tack driver. I shot a coyote with it that year just to say I did and it now travels to and from the range in a case and that is it. It gets shot but not drug around. I bought my Vanguard S2 in 25-06 to replace it as my long distance or windy day calling rifle. My Stevens 200 in 22-250 and Ruger ranch in 223 are pure hunting tools. No different than the caller, bipod or camo.......part of the equation to put pelts down. I certainly am not trying to beat them up but I do not care if they get scratched or dinged.

I won't buy a rifle I won't hunt. Nice, plain, whatever. If I own it, it's getting hunted. To me a rifle is just a tool.

I've hunted with every rifle I own regardless of the weather or conditions. That includes a couple double rifles, a few drillings and a couple combination guns along with some custom single shot rifles and custom muzzleloaders. None are too nice to hunt with, I don't own any safe queens.

I don't take nice firearms out of the house if the weather is bad, as I have duplicates of nearly everything that I own, including dozens of stainless/synthetic firearms that are made to use in inclement weather.

Probably the only CM rifles that I would purposely take out in bad weather conditions would be my elk hunting pair in 270, a Cerakoted CLR and a parkerized 760. I do have a well worn 870 dedicated waterfowl 12 gauge, but I only hunt waterfowl about once every other year.

I don't abuse my firearms, but I do use them. I really don't need any gun that I can't or won't use. I look at it like this, someday, some guy is gonna use that gun, and it may as well be me. YMMV.

I prefer to hunt with nice rifles. If you were a mechanic would you use cheap chinamart tools or or a quality, well made brand? If I had an expensive Snap-on box full of Snap-on tools I sure as hell wouldn’t be using Walmart store brand crap to fix my car.

A nice wood stock with dings and scratches is still prettier than virgin plastic in my eye. Never understood the "too pretty to hunt with". In the end, it is a tool and just "stuff", but why not enjoy nice stuff.

Definitely.

I tend to shy away from anything that I think looks too nice to get banged up a little. I'm not particularly abusive of rifles and shotguns, but I don't want to go knocking a $500 off the value of a piece by one day's hunting.

Case in point: my Dad's Model 12. He won a bunch of trap trophies at Vandalia back in the 50's with his shotgun, and then it sat in his closet until I decided to take it out for my first turkey hunt in the early 80's. I came back in the first day with a ding in the stock. It's been all these years and Dad's been dead for over 5 of them. It still bums me out when I see that ding. The next year I went out and bought a used Rem 1100, and then in 1996 I had gotten so attached to it, that I stopped hunting turkeys with it and bought a Mossberg 500 for dragging through the woods after gobblers. It's spray painted; nothing worse can happen to it.

I've got deer rifles that I won't take out in the rain. With some, the aim on them is just right that I'd hate to see the stock warp. Others have too nice a finish. I've got plenty of rifles. I can plan around a 3 day rain.

Had a "too nice to hunt" rifle one time. 6.5x55 Swede Mauser 98 . . . I figured I'd just sell it instead. (Where is the money now? Gave it to my wife.) I had "delayed intelligence" after the sale and asked myself why I didn't just buy a "hunting stock" for it and hunt that sucker? This was also one of only two rifles in my collection that come to my shoulder with a perfect sight alignment. Funny that both were/is a 6.55x55 Swede. Moral of the story . . . No there ain't no such thing as a "too nice to hunt" rifle.










Here is the one I kept . . .

Nope. If they can't leave the safe and be used, they had no value to me.

I have a mix of guns with high end walnut and plastic stocks. If it’s raining, the nice guns stay home. And I have sold one or three that were too pretty to get banged up.