Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Why are shotguns so expensive now?

1600-1800 for a Benelli SBE2. Aluminum receiver, plastic stock, etc...

And why is everything so damn ugly?

Makes me cherish my older Remingtons, Brownings, Berettas, and Benelli's.

+1

If the SBE's prices are scary don't look at a A&S Famars, Fabbri or David McKay Brown shotguns.

Birds fall out of the sky just as well with an 870.

My two hunting partners are using 20ga Charles Daly autos for pheasants this season and they both love them for their weight. One of them got a triple on wild pheasants and a scotch triple on ducks. They both have cabinets full of much more expensive shotguns. I'm a sxs guy but I still let them tag along with their evil black guns.

I did pretty up one of them with a rattle can.

because Biden told everyong to "use a shotgun" ???

i love my Vinci!

Because we have become a very marketing-gullible, want-to-be-part-of-the-in-crowd, society.

If a maker is savvy, or lucky, enough to break in and become an "IT" name, guys pay stupid money to join that crowd.

Look most any pickup rolling down the road today. They'll have the entire back window covered up in Matthews, Browning (buckmark logo), etc decals. It's not enough to pay the high prices for the gun or bow, but guys will then pay MORE, just to get a decal, to let everybody else know about it.







Yep. I own a few nice O/U shotguns that are primarily used for sporting clays (informal, never a registered bird in my life), because they fit me well and work well for that game, and yeah, they look good.

But when it comes to hunting, the majority of the time it's a good old Rem 870 that's in my hand. They've never let me down, and have been responsible for many truckloads of game of various flavors.

And guess what? Not a Remington (or any other) sticker to be found anywhere on my truck.

Those three are not expensive. They are obscenely expensive.

Know a fellow who has a Fabbri and he shoots Quail with a Cesare Guarini or Remington 1100 20. Another fellow has them all plus a bunch of others and he isn't afraid to use them for anything. He isn't one to say, I can't use them for fear I may get a scratch or they are too pretty to actually hunt them. Sometimes the back of his Suburban is carrying a better than decent retirement package in shotguns. Nice guy on top of it all.


I saw him shooting one day and thought the shotgun may have been Fabbri. Out of curiosity I asked and he said; "Yes. If you are using factory ammo, shoot it." That new broom swept clean.

Down at Cabela's the other day they had two Marlin 39's in the Gun Library rack.
Price? $1100. One had some funked up gold wash engraving and it was a little more. What is that all about?

Chicks love stickers

You can almost get two brand new Ithaca 37 12 Ga pumps for the price of that SBE2 and ugly will not come with them.

Problem is they usually leave with the guy carrying A&S Famars, Fabbri or David McKay Brown shotguns.

Yep! When ya got the bux - you get the babes...

B - I - N - G - O ! ! !

A sticker on the car is an invitation to have it broken into for the gun.

Happens at the Sporting Clay Nationals at San Antonio on a regular basis. Bud just lost a Zoli down there. They popped the lock while he was in a restaurant.

When weren't decent quality shotguns expensive, relatively speaking? The price of a new Model 21 during the 30's was as dear to a working stiff then as the same used Model 21 is to a working stiff today. I posit that the prices of guns in general, relatively speaking, is the same now as it has always been.

Difference was you got a solid well made shotgun for your money. One that it would be the exception if something broke. Today most of the semi-autos are cheap parts guns. Snap something in the trigger or crack a gas piston. Rush over buy another and pop it in. None of them will out last a good Model 12.

Something to be said for that. Depends on your perspective.

Same reason gas is $3 a gallon with low demand. Your almighty dollar is being rapidly diminished with every QE.

Spot on.

A gun back then was "made", and fitted by hand.

Today they are "assembled" by people that don't the first thing about actual gunsmithing, or even how a gun works.

They just know that Part A attaches to Part B, being held together by Clip C. Need another Clip C? They're over there in the bin on the shelf, after being spit out of the CNC machine by the thousands.

They sure as hell didn't have plastic trigger guards back then.

Well let's see in 1959 a Ithaca 37 retailed for $70. A Browning. Auto 5 retailed for $159 and a supposed was $269 according to Gun Digest. The average income was about $95/ week. Bread was $.14 a loaf. I agree that guns seem sort of high but realistically I am not sure. Most of the dad's I knew only had one and most were not auto 5s or superposed. Now most of us have several. I do agree with the gripe that they are not quite the nicely fitted pieces they once were but the 870 has proven that even a mass produced gun can be pretty reliable. Actually ammo is quite a bit cheaper relatively to then.

I agree, bangeye, I think when prices are adjusted for inflation, they will not be all that much higher than in the past, maybe lower in some cases.

Thanks Ploughman, I will have to agree somewhat with the conspicuous consumption theory that some have expressed here though. Compared to not that long ago we have all become much more attuned to the upper end of the scale due to the advertising and marketing forces we are bombarded with. The rise of sporting clays has also contributed to that as has the demise of small game& bird hunting as most of us knew it in our youth. Back then it was small farms and public land hunting and most went afield in jeans or pretty much work clothes. Today small game hunting is mostly dead and the bird hunting has moved to preserve hunting and the image is of some nattily attired country gentleman with a o/u or SxS jauntily carried over his shoulder by the barrels. Actually I am amazed that in little more than a generation we have gone to where few of the folks I see can actually operate a pump shotgun with any speed.