When I hear some one run on about how Indian guns are garbage and real men shoot only bench copies I give a Bronx cheer.
When you tell me there is some magic quality that makes a gun that shoots when you pull the trigger, has very close to the same profile as the originals, has a barrel that if cared for will take any charge your shoulder can handle and shoot on par with the bench copy, one had best be prepared to tell me what that magic thing is, because it ain’t visible on the shooting line
Guns are investments, some gun appreciate some do not, the ones that do not are garbage.
Depends on who’s calling them garbage, I call them garbage because I’ve worked on them. For a year or two i worked on over 20 of them, fixing locks mostly and i did it in good faith for the reinactors that needed them, not for profit. The real value i found in working on them was building a portfolio of what i can do to a really shitty lock. Other builders and smiths like Paul Ackerman, Kevin Dougherty and Jess Melot talked me out of working on any more because it was chewing up into my custom lock building time. So it was a logical choice to throw the garbage in the trash.
So i call them garbage now.
The real pain from Indian gun ownership comes in with the following.
1. Wanting to defarb them into more accurate copies.
2. Wanting to upgrade them with premium parts, or stocks.
3. Fitting castings on to the gun that don’t go to them.
The average Indian gun is around 700 now a days, a defarb in my shop will run 500, 600 with stamps.
Now your up to 1300 spent on the gun with investment.
Gun owner now wants an upgraded frizzen, cost to fit a new frizzen that will work is $100, to make a handmade frizzen $300.
New mainspring, cast fit, $100, a handmade mainspring $300.
now you’ve spent with investments up to nearly 1500 - 2000 on a gun that you purchased for 700.
When you move to sell that gun you get offers for 800-1000, you’re in the hole almost 600-700 dollars now.
All that cash could have been used to purchase a very nice custom gun with value to it.
When i bought my first gun it was a clay smith second gun, cost me around 700, pins were screwed up mostly and the stock had no figure, davis lock was very nice. I learned a lot from that gun, all i did was refinish it. Picked up a veneering technique from a fine furniture maker , learned how to Dutchman over holes and make it fit the wood grain, blended it in with a satin refinish of mowhawk varnish and linseed oil. 20 hours of my time, and around 70 dollars in supplies.
That Clay Smith gun sold for $2100, mostly because it was a Clay Smith Kit Gun, this was back in 2009.
Now i have much added equity to my hobby, this is how you afford new guns, build up your equity investment in your guns, be smart about what you’re buying and you’ll have ones i don’t call garbage.
And when you start getting scores insults from Indian gun owners, people telling you that you have no clue what you’re talking about, i know for granted that they have to constantly work on those hunks of garbage.