Home Forums Hunting & Shooting The Lefty Forum I'm bored.

Thinking about the next few years as I work toward retirement. As a lefty and a gun nut, I have acquired a fair collection of firearms. I am contemplating thinning the herd and using the money to go on a couple hunts. I also have given thought to getting one or two semi custom rifles such as a Christensen Arms Mesa etc.
To those who have done this, how did you feel about it afterwards? My fear is the money will disappear and my guns will be gone as well. But I have no lefty family and never use half of what I got. The guns will just be a burden some day for someone. Not to mention factory ammo and reloading supplies. Btw I'm headed toward 58 so I hope I have some time. A sample of some have is:
2 stainless 700's .270 & 30-06
2 stainless 70's both .270 ( with and without boss) supposedly unfired
Stainless 70's in 30-06, .300 Win, .338 Win
2 blued 70's both 30-06 (1 supposedly unfired)
2 blued featherweight WSM's 270 & 7mm.

I'm in the same boat. I'll be 60 in August and have several lefty rifles and no heirs. I don't plan on parting with any of the lefties anytime soon but I do have a large eclectic accumulation of non left handed I want to thin. Unlike you I'm all over the board with the chamberings. It looks to me that you have a lot of duplicates and overlap.

I guess if it was me downsizing your collection I'd pare it down to one 270, one 30-06, the 338 and call it good. That would cover all kinds of hunting situations. I guess you could even pare it further to the 270 or the 30-06.

I guess it depends on how much diversity you want to keep. I don't mind overlap in performance but I lean toward different chamberings and calibers rather than duplicates of the same chambering.

I've sold a quite a few guns as my interests changed. I haven't regretted a lot of them. A few I really have.

My Dad passed four days before Christmas last month and that has me thinking along the same lines as you. This accumulation will be burdensome and confusing to anyone but a real gun loony. Dad had everything in order and had sold his home. The only stuff he had left were paintings, vintage books and a few odd tools. I have his guns (it was just an Ithaca shotgun, a 22 and a 22 magnum). He passed them to me when he sold the house. He let other family members pick some of the things they wanted before he passed. It should be pretty seamless dispersing his remaining assets. Our family all gets along well so thankfully we don't have the stress of greedy family to deal with.

All the guns I sold to make a hunt amounted to little when looking at the cost of a trip... Wish I had kept them and borrowed the $... Buy never sell, and at some point you can do as you please.. I have $ to make some hunts, and plan to do that, but I enjoy my guns.. I like to think of what we did, who were with, and what game I took with them.. I plan to give my stuff to 3 or 4 younger guys who love shooting, guns and hunting as much as I.. I have no children, and I hope when one picks up a shotgun or pistol or one of my rifles, they will think of the old guy who left them to them.. Money will will be pissed away and forgotten.. I have seen it happen.. NO THANKS.. I will keep my stuff and pass it on..

So well said...Thx for the words of wisdom.

Mart, Sorry to hear about the loss of your Dad. Even if he had things squared away, still take time to get over it and sort it out.

Scott, Yeah, me three... I have hang tags with names on the firearms that I want to go to specific kids and grand kids. Have already given away some to kids and grand kids. Have sold some stuff. Still MORE stuff to sell. No left handed kids. No left handed grand kids. Two grand daughters have left handed husbands... Only one of them actually hunts / shoots.

My wife and her sister were co-executors for their elderly uncle. He was raised in the mountains during the Depression. Never threw anything away. Took the two of them almost two years to sort everything out and settle his estate. Would probably take almost as long for her to sort through my gun stuff. I am trying to move closer to where Mart's Dad was when he passed.

My "Final Three" will be a LH Rem 581, a LH KS in .270, and a LH Benelli SBE. Two LH Win M70's chambered .300H&H and .375H&H will continue to float around for a while longer. And there is a true custom rifle that is still in the works. Will continue tinkering for as long as the Good Lord allows me to.

Do not miss the rifles I have given to the kids and grand kids. Will probably give a few more away. Several reasons to give the firearms away now: 1) Better for them to put 'em to use now, rather than wait until I'm gone, 2) Reduced liability exposure in case of fire, theft, tornado, and 3) I can control who gets what. No bickering or hard feelings for the family to deal with after the funeral. Finally, yes, in my case, proceeds from firearms sales are frequently "re-allocated" for other needs. However, I'm O.K. with that. Less money to come out of the normal till...

If I weren't trying to downsize, I'd ask ya to consider a trade deal for one of those LH SS Win M70's !

Bravo! You are leaving a legacy for others to follow. Well done.

If you decide to get rid of any of the stainless 70's let me know. Specifically the .270's, 30-06, or .338. I'd probably be willing to buy one or all.

Adam

Wow, you guys in you 60's sound like your ready to go to happy hunting grounds. I'm almost 82 and just got a Christensen Mesa LH in 7-08. Love it . Don't sit here worrying who gets you rifles when your gone even if they are lefties as its not your problem after that. Just do it and enjoy them with the time you have left.

I have a real weakness for nice guns, especially old guns. I found that there is still something you can do with them, so I loaned some to a local museum to put up a display of historic guns relative to early Montana and buffalo hunting. I still own them, but others can enjoy them too when they visit the museum.

I have never tired of guns, I can't stop buying more either. I can't shoot all I have, but I can't justify selling them to go on a hunt somewhere. That is why I live in Montana, I can still hunt lots of stuff, fish and shoot lots more. 65 next month, I am retiring and taking some guns and fishing stuff and heading out the door to the Camper, camp trailer or whatever I feel like driving and going to see more of Montana and some of Alaska this summer. Still no plans on selling any guns to go do that.

All it takes is gasoline, I am not bored...

I used to gather guns. Then started to upgrade and replaced a lot of guns with a reduced number of nicer guns. Now at age 65 I still have three big safes stuffed full. I really do need to get rid of 40-50 but the market is pretty soft for what I want to sell so I procrastinate and never seem to get any sold as I am stuck on my prices. Have no desire to go on more hunting trips as we can walk out the back door and hunt deer, turkey, etc.
Once I get rolling and start selling most likely will piss away the money on a new JL Wrangler.

If you do decide to part ways with some, Just let us "all" know. Guaranteed there will be sizable interest in all of those you mentioned.

I've looked for a SS '70 .308 for a decade, Not even sure what I'd be willing to pay at this point.

Shrap, nice to hear you are retiring !!! You will love it.. I did it 20 years ago this year.. Haven't missed work one bit, and have never been bored.. Hope you like Alaska, we are planning a trip in June, but will fly... I want to look around Mt. and Wy. a lot more... I was looking at our fishing regs, an realize how may places i have not fished in my own state.. Life is good enjoy..

Shrapnel,

You are and will forever be a class act,.....congrats you have earned it, The t-bird looks out of place on a gravel road...just sayin.

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.

I'll be the voice of dissent here, and no I don't want your guns Scott, although they are likely very nice. This is STUFF. Guns, cars, boats, house....they are things and only things. Ive got all the same stuff, quality boat, camper, wheelers, sleds,....crap,crap, crap. It's quality crap, but crap just the same....I've never seen a hearse pulling a uhaul and we all need to remember that.

The guns and glass I have will never be fully appreciated by those I'd leave them to, but I'll leave some just the same. But not all. Take time to smell the frigging roses, fellas, this stuff is what it is.
We came into this world with nothing and we will surely leave the same way. Shrap, the gun display/donation is a great thing! Kudos....

Tx, you're the young buck but you got it right.