Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your Best or Worst Deal ....Ever

too funny..........my 2nd wife

still waiting for my best deal

$300 for a Sako lightweight deluxe .243, plus Sako rings and a Weaver 6X scope - found in a pawn shop where the owner pointed to the "Forester" on the side of the receiver (the word "Sako" was under the rings) and said, "I think it's one of those English made guns".

I pulled my wallet out so fast I practically set my pants on fire.

I’ve had quite a few good ones. A lot of the mines around here give yeti coolers as safety awards. They frequently come up for sale on Facebook. Bought a few for less than $100. My best though. Recently traded a model 700 300 RUM straight across for a Remington 700 varmint special in 7mm-08.

Fully restored, matching numbers 65 Mustang for $10.250. Also bought a pre 64 model 70 375 H&H for $1200 about 15 years ago. Great deal then and still good today.

Stole this for $275 earlier this year.
Refinished it, sure as fugg didnt look like this when I got it.
Got it up and running, didnt need a gunsmith to " fix it either"
"broken/ dont work per previous owner".
Not many can say they owned and shot a May 44 manufactured Walther G43 8mm 10 shot semi auto.
Was gonna keep it, take it on a token deer hunt once in awhile, but finding parts for it would have been a royal and an expensive PITA if something broke.
Moved it on down the road....


Traded it for this.
Arsenal SLR 100H Type 3 AK47
One of the best and rarest made.
Much more useful, practical, and durable to say the least.



Got some excellent pawnshop steals over the years around here also.
Project guns...
Given a new life.

Gotta love it when pawnshops/ female workers aint gotta a clue about schitt
And corparate is breathing down their ass to meet weekly sale goals.

Best thing that ever happened around here was Pawn America
buying out 5 of the pawnshops in town owned by 1 family.

Told this before. 2017. Small victory. Cabelas used rack, a rem 760 carbine ‘06, a trace rust foxing on mag tube but appeared otherwise, honestly, new. Weaver k3 post reticle in pivot mounts. It was $260 or $270 out the door after discount. Neither of us “needed it,” but on principle, one of us was leaving with it! I got it.

Turkey day week this year, same old rascal friend comes over in the store grinning like a cat, holding an anschutz, granted a m64, but still, with a leup 3-9 AO rimfire on it, has sights and mag. Again, whole thing looks new. $500? He got that one.

Generally, i find something i REALLY like, overpriced 10-20%, 30% and have to choose, “How bad do i want this?”

Worst deal. Consigned a nice but not perfect 66-1, holster, orig grips and new altamount grips, thru a small local shop that since closed. Suffice to say, “checks in the mail” type chit.

I just picked up a new in the box Lee Loadmaster for 9mm for $140. Local gun store/range is getting rid of all their reloading stuff. The components are 25% off and equipment is 50% off. Still need to make another trip to stock up on some more stuff.

Oh and I loaded 100 rounds of 9mm through that press today with no hiccups. Primer system even worked properly.

When Winchester closed shop in New Haven, a certain sporting goods chain heavily discounted their current walnut/stainless of M70 fwts. I bought all they had.

2 years ago I bought a tractor off the internet for a little over $50k. Pretty sure I could sell it today for $60-65K.



10 years ago we bought our house for cheap. It literally doubled in value 2-3 years after we bought it.



To date I haven't made a dime off of these deals but more or less saved a bunch of $$$.

4 years ago pawn shop in Billings had a tikka t3 stainless 7mm mag with a vortex scope for $325 with their 35% off sale so I bought it. About a week later the shop owner called and asked if I bought the tikka, I said yes and he asked if there was anyway I would be willing to sell it back to him. He said the guy who pawned it came in to pick it up and it shouldn’t have been put out for another 4 days. I sold it back to him for $700 and a really good price on another rifle.

Bought a rem 40xbr and a custom built rem 600 243 with douglas bull barrel, canjar set trigger. Both had mint 20x lyman scopes. Bought them a guy that said his dad built them in the 70’s . Caught him when he came thru the door at a gunshow. Said he just wanted them gone. He didnt even know what caliber they were. Gave him 375.00 for the pair.i figured he stole them but he handed me his id and his dads name was engraved on the barrel of one gun.i was leaving at the time but a friend bought 2 ruger 44 mags from him later that day for 100.00 each. G

I bought 12 guns for the shop I used to work for from a guy whose dad had passed and he wanted the gone and didn’t know or want to know what they might be worth. When I offered him $120 for the first one he quickly said that will work, but he meant for all of them. I tried to explain but he wasn’t interested in hearing it and sold them all to me for $10 each.

The best part was when I bought a first year 444 that was part of the deal for %10 over cost! My manager run off at the mouth and said I could have it for %10 over before he knew what I paid for it.

I bought a 16ga Ithaca 37R at the shop for $20 after the owner told the girl selling he wasn’t interested because it didn’t have a barrel. 2 hours later she came back and handed me the barrel she’d found in the meantime. She wanted to give me the whole works but I made her take the only $20 I had in my wallet.

I traded a guy a single 40 round box of American Eagle 22lr for a barreled 700 action in 222mag during the rimfire drought. He said he couldn’t find 222 mag ammo anymore and he’d broke the stock off anyway so he just wanted some 22 shells, I had one box in my door pocket.

Gave $40 for an FN sporter in 243 with a bent barrel from a snomachine wreck. Made a neat 7x57 out of it.

I have lots more village gun bargain stories.

Lyman Supertargetspot target scope complete with adjustable mounts, very nice condition, $3.00 out of a big box of toys at the Sacramento CA Veteran's Thrift store in about 1976 or so. Still have it and shoot it occasionally.

Billings MT gunshow 10 years ago or so, excellent condition Kimber SVT .22 with 3x9 Leupold scope and 6 magazines. $375.00. Sold the scope for $175.00. Shoots as well as my 40X or Anschutz 1407.

Once bought a Remington 24 in good condition from a retired ATF agent, while I was stationed in California for $50 cash. Probably would have been 2008.

Best deal I got was on gun broker. I paid an extra$50 to be a premium member about 5 years ago. Then they offered 50 USMC decommissioned Colt 1911 to the members. I got 2 for $1400 each. I see them listed now for north of 7k.

Here’s one on GB

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/837454373

Best,The contract that is our marriage license.

I bought my first house for $58k, sold it three years later for $102k, used the profit as a down on my new house.



P

Bought a Marlin 39m Mountie with the hang tags still in the trigger guard for $289.00.

The best deal I ever made was through a friend of a friend of a friend I landed a slot on a boat and was able to work the 1980 and 81 king crab seasons in AK. It only consisted of a few weeks each year but paid amazingly well. Looking back historically it was what is now called the glory years of Alaskas king crab harvests.

After the 1980 season I was able to pay 40K cash for a sorta non-livable old house on 40 acres in the Flathead valley in MT. It was my castle, it had power, water and a wood stove but no septic but a fair outhouse. It needed work and so did I so we were a match, I'd been living in a slide-in pickup camper prior.

Due to a lot of deer meat and low overhead I made it til the 1981 crab season got under way were I managed to double the wages I'd made the prior crab season.
I returned to my humble MT abode and promptly spent all my earnings on a commercial property in the Flathead that provided a slight income but It needed lot's of work....and once again I was broke, I'd spent 80k cashing out the property. No real job, no credit to speak of equals no loans.

I had to sell the 20 acre parcel next to the one the house sat on to get by the next few years. Managed to get what I'd paid plus enough to pay for getting the remaining 20 acres surveyed and broken into 40, 1/2 acre lots but had to dump the other 20k into the commercial property in attempt to enhance it's monthly revenues.

Fast forward 15 years...A real estate boom had hit the Flathead Valley and I sold both of those properties.

The commercial property was then bringing in over 100k a year in rental income, It'd now paid for itself a few times over, it sold for 950k.

My beater old house was still the same, no septic but an upgraded outhouse and a better wood stove, those 40 half acre lots were then worth about 35K each.
I sold to a developer for 800k.

Everything hinged on those few short weeks on a boat in Alaska some 17 years prior and having the balls to go for broke or bust. So, that was the best deal of my life.

I had to reinvest the bulk of the monies to avoid getting hit hard on taxes, 1.5M went back into Flathead Valley properties which since have more than doubled in value and are now self supporting tax and insurance wise with a little monthly residual.

Spent $30 to buy back about $130 of my own chit.



Best/worst deal ever.