Buy the rifle not the story!!!!!

[bigduke6]

An interesting thread..... off topic a bit ( totally out of character for this forum) but to me the whole thread revolves around honesty and a bit of knowledge.

Back to post #1, The main concern from Buccaneer was the misleading info an RFD was giving out, I,ve bought a few rifles in the past and have been told all kinds of story etc, a few examples

1) A rifle I,d spotted on Gunstar, the pics were spot on I emailed the dealer and the deal was done, I was told it shoots fine..... I could never understand this bit, as the firing pin (it was a SMLE .22) was broke. !!!! but was an excellent example of a rifle.

2) A No1 Mk V described as all original, only original part was the body...... returned ASAP and the dealer said I knew nothing (maybe true but I can tell a Nock up No1 MkV a mile away) wasn't even willing to do a pick up. ( a real T**T as far I,m concerned)

3) A Mauser target rifle described as slightly pitted..... the body was total scrap, kept the barrel and timber and cut the body. (the fact this could of been sold to a FAC holder makes me cringe, the thought of home loads packed to the gunnels with powder....... ) not worth sending back as the I,d loose too much on the postage.


4) A rare SMLE that was a total knock up and sent back..... fair enough to the dealer he went out the way to get as much info on the rifle and its past , it belonged to Chris Barber.......

There are more but back to the rifle in (4) the dealer didn't know anything and was going by a description that come with the rifle I can't fault him for that and I should of learned by now to get more pics or go and see it..... as for the rest in the above just blatant lies......


I,m not going to say it will never happen again as it will, but when I see something now I tend to proceed with caution, with certain questions and get more pics etc and if in doubt pull out.

Rebuilt, Re finished, restored etc, I,ve rebuilt quite a few things in the past (some bits on the restorers forum) all of these etc are or were for me, I posted them to show what can be done etc on a budget, most recent was a scope can that I repaired and re finished....... I probably saved half of what they sell for on ebay, the most expensive thing I bought for this was the rivets.... is it original ( I,m not ar**d to be honest) it is a scope can that does its job a lot better now than when I first bought it, has had a proper repair and finished as it would of been in service if I was to ever sell it that would be my sales pitch.

As for hoarding or collecting, I always classed myself as more of a hoarder than a collector until I read the description of the hoarder....

I don't have 98 No4 t's, (have two) one being rebuilt which was just a barrelled action, so no good for the anal collector, but does that make me a bad collector ??

"I say, he's not one of those 3rd class collector chaps is he"

and as for the pic, is this collecting or hoarding ???