Can Someone Enlighten Me On This?

[Single Six]

Since I first got into shooting back in the early 1980s, I've always tried to buy one gun mag per year that has a catalog section. From then until now, I've noticed that certain fancy shotguns {especially O/Us and double-barrels} sell for INSANE prices. Suggested retail on some of these shotguns are six figures; I recently saw one in the catalog with an MSRP of over $100,000. Now, I'm by no means trying to flame here, I promise. I'm in no position to tell anyone how to spend their money. If you can afford such things and it floats your boat, have at it. I just don't understand: What exactly is the attraction here? I get fancy inlays and engraving, pride of ownership, etc...but it seems to me that a shotgun from Wal Mart will do anything that a foreign model {that costs what a decent house does} can. Any thoughts and/or opinions welcome; especially from anyone who may actually own such a weapon. Thanks, guys.

 

[the rifleer]

Pretty much anything over a couple thousand is just engraving and wood working. The really expensive guns are engraved by hand, hence they take a very long time and cost a lot of money. I am the odd duck out at the skeet/trap range because everyone has nice shotguns with engravings and nice gold triggers. My mossberg 500 has a serial number and a black trigger

 

[hogdogs]

According to the guys on here with the high dollar guns... there is super nice fitment and the barrels are far better regulated to POI/POA. The wood and inlay is icing on the proverbial cake...

And from what these guys will tell you, these guns have components designed to shoot hundreds of thousands of rounds before repair is needed compared to a few hundred or few thousand with the lesser quality/priced arms.

Brent

 

[C0untZer0]

At some point the price is not about utilitarian value - it's about status.

A gold toilet might work a little but better than a porcelin toilet, but not that much better right? It's about having a gold toilet.

We can point to cars and say the same thing - a $300,000 luxury car is not really going to get you from point A to point B that much better than a Lexus or a Cadillac or Lincoln or Toyota for that matter... It's about having that car.

Google the world's most expensive desert and you'll see it's not about taste - it's about status.

It's the same thing with expensive rifles, handguns and shotguns. Maybe it's partly the gun as art, maybe it's partly about elevating a thing to it's penultimate most finely crafted form. But more than anything I think it's another way to express status.

 

[Single Six]

Okay, I knew this wouldn't take long. The responses so far have all pretty much answered my question. Anyone else who cares to comment is certainly welcome to, though. Thanks again, guys.

 

[lamarw]

You have simply never been placed in the environment to experience the finer things in life (material wise); therefore you do not have an appreciation as to the difference.

Someone who has experienced it could attempt to explain it to you, but your lack of experience or ignorance would not allow you to comprehend the difference. You would simply say mine is just as good when you have no idea whether is is or not.

 

[jaguarxk120]

It's what Hogdogs said, plus more.

The more expensive guns do not have any plastic/alloy parts in them. The internals are machined and hand fitted, not made on a punch press. The wood is carefully graded and doesn't come from a shipping pallet.

I have seen a whole pallet of AAA fancy stocks at Ithaca shipped back because the wood did not meet the standards. Could the stocks be used, yes, did they NO. We pay for quality, and quality costs.

 

[PJR]

The very high end guns are hand made by the finest gunmakers the world has to offer. They are about excellence. Excellence in any field doesn't come cheap.

Some people are uncomfortable with excellence because they can't afford it and resent the people who can. Most often however they simply don't understand it. For them no explanation is sufficient. For those who do understand no explanation is necessary.

There have always been people who understand the price of everything and the value of nothing. For them a Chevy Aveo will reach their destination as well as a Cadillac, a double-wide will keep them out of the rain just as well as a mansion, they'll get just as drunk on Boone's Farm as Chateau Lafitte and would enjoy sex with Rosie O'Donnell just as much as with Catherine Zeta Jones or Charlize Theron.

 

[Maxem0815]

PJR has got it correct and yes I own one of the fancy hand made guns and yes it looks pretty and it has fancy wood but when my Remington 1100 pops a seal in the field I am done hunting or shooting. But my W.C. Scott & Son has not failed to fire in 95 years of use every year and every match with nitro powder. Grandpa bought a good gun!

Mace

Happiness is a belt fed weapon and lots of ammo

 

[oneounceload]

There is a nice Fabbri for $225,000 and a Bertuzzi for almost that much.

Once you get above $10K which is the current price range for top-tier target guns, you get into the realm of the "best of the best". also called "bespoke" guns. These are made, one at a time, to the customer's exact orders and specifications, in a similar way someone having an architect-designed custom mansion picks out every single detail and nuance., or the way someone goes to Saville Row and has a suit hand-made. The wood can be upwards of 900 year-old root burl, every engraving mark is done by hand, not computer, everything is hand fitted, many parts are completely handmade from a piece of steel.

The engraving alone, especially from one of the better engravers, can take over a year or two to be completed and cost over $50,000 in and of itself - you aren't going to get fancy inlays from Wal-mart.

That work above takes a little longer than most - Peter Hofer builds this gun - in this case a double rifle, the lightest in the world at 2.2 pounds, chambered for the 22 Hornet or 17 HMR Everything is hand done.

If you look at a gun as nothing more than a hammer, then you do not understand the pride of ownership involved. If buying clothes off the shelf from Target works for you, then having a custom suit made is also in the same ballpark.

Some folks, make that MOST folks are not in that financial level where they can see or touch, let alone acquire these things and therefore have a hard time appreciating them.

We all do, to some degree, and these things don't always have to be very expensive.

But when it comes to custom guns of the highest level of a craftsman's ability, the work takes months to years and is painstakingly done one file stroke at a time. Some folks can understand the labor that went into it, and they can afford to appreciate it


Maybe one of the NASCAR fans on here can help me understand why those cars cost over a million, and no one blinks - but bring up a pic of a $350K Bentley, and they don't understand

Guess it just depends on how you look at them and how you appreciate them.

 

[Ltriker]

Looks like yoou guys have it coved on the fancy gun market...however, not everyone that has a fancy gun actually shoots it.
I have a friend who has many fancy guns and never shoot any of them...they just hang on the wall and look pretty. But, he can tell anyone that he owns one of these rare, one of a kind, or simple expensive weapons.


They are usually finely crafted and well fitted, pieces slide together with ease and finsih is exacting. These qualities make them desireable.

 

[johnbt]

Fabbri -

"Our dream is trying to make the best looking and reliable "shooting machine" possible today. Every single part of the shotgun is designed and produced in house, from the smallest screw to the barrels, actions and everything else, using only the very best materials available today, optimized by specific vacuum heat-treatments."


"What exactly is the attraction here?"

Why would anyone buy a freshly made $7.95 hamburger when you can get one down the street at McDonalds for a whole lot less? They're both hamburgers, right? They both fill you up, right?


"At some point the price is not about utilitarian value - it's about status."

For some people it's about status, but for others the improvements are tangible. If a person can't feel the difference (in touch and handling qualities) with their eyes closed between a $1300 Citori and a $3000 Guerini/$30k Perazzi/$300k handmade Fabbri, well, they can't appreciate the differences and might believe that there aren't any differences.



"Maybe one of the NASCAR fans on here can help me understand why those cars cost over a million"

Do you realize how hard it is to make a car that only turns left? Btw, whatever happened to stock car racing? Stock...cars.

 

[Dave McC]

We've always prettied up our weapons. Homo Habilis chipped his handaxes to a symmetry well past merely functional and oft made them so that colors in the stone were displayed well. And that was from what was basically a bipedal Chimpanzee.

Thanks to good friends and a generous helping of Chutzpah, I've shot maybe a dozen bespoke guns, and a carload of high end Parkers, W&C Scotts, Greeners, Foxes, and so on. They all shot very well for me, but not so much better than my 870s that I feel cheated by life because I cannot afford them.

I mighty score better with a Kolar O/U handmade to my specs than my Beretta, but adding gold inlays will not up my average one iota. At that point, it's bling, not quality.

There's many paths in Shotgunland. If someone wants a 4 barreled 410 with ivory stock like one I saw in a magazine some years past, and can afford it, more power to them. My conflict comes when they regard themselves as better than others because they have it.

And who knows, maybe the owner wants it for rats around the corn crib.

Most of the high end collectors I know are pretty decent types,BTW. Some are more into collecting than shooting, but so be it.

And had I the money, I'd probably get that $10K Kolar,but not the bling.

 

[oneounceload]

Once you add "the bling" as Dave so eloquently puts it, you are going from utilitarian onto an art object that also has a function besides hanging on the wall like a Dali canvas. I am fortunate, like Dave, to also know some folks of means who own some very nice guns. I have been able to handle and fire them on a variety of occasions. These folks are very down-to earth when it comes to these (not like they are in their respective business environments) and are always ready to hand you some shells to try their gun out. For one or two of them, I think their guns are more like a soothing form of relaxation therapy - they bring a smile to their owner's face, and they enjoy themselves while out shooting.

For those of who us target shoot or upland hunt, I think that is one of the driving forces outside the competitive arena - a simple way to enjoy the day; or as one friend said..."Life's too short to shoot an ugly gun or drink cheap wine"

If you can afford it, go ahead and enjoy it.....(I'm hoping my Powerball numbers will finally come through!)

 

[C0untZer0]

Do you realize how hard it is to make a car that only turns left?

I worked with a woman who never made left hand turns. She got T-boned once in an intersection turning left and when she got out of the hospital she never made left hand turns ever again.

She always had to plan out any trip she was going to take before hand to map all the right hand turns necesary to get to her destination. This is before Google maps or Mapquest. I ended up riding with her one time when our department went out to lunch, a five minute drive down to the deli turned into a 15 minute trip via only right turns.

She needed a car that only turned right!

 

[hogdogs]

"Five rights equals a left"...

As for the guy who has the nicer guns but doesn't shoot them... They are truly wise financial investments. Short of financial collapse, they will always be worth more old than new once past a certain age and in a great condition.

Something ya'll never have to worry about me hoarding though.

Brent

 

[BigJimP]

Its all relative ....

Browning and Beretta - are the well made Utilitarian guns ( and on the high end are around $ 3K - $ 4K these days ) ...but you get a lot of gun for the money. Most of us are very happy to shoot a variety of their models.

The next tier up - Perazzi, Blazer, Kolar and Krieghoff ( $ 7,500 - $ 20,000) probably ....have many features that make them better guns / well made ...and still affordable for most of us / if we really wanted to go there. Are they 3 - 5 times better than a Browning or Beretta ...maybe, maybe not....

Then there are the "spoken for guns" like you describe ...way above $ 20K --- to $ 100K or more ...where its just a matter of whether its something you really want to own and shoot. Most of us would never spend that kind of money on any gun / regardless of whether we can or not. But for guys that want to / and can ...I'm happy for them - and I admire the craftmanship - including the engraving and wood and finish on many of those guns.

If you have bad fundamentals for target or wingshooting ...poor mount, poor swing, poor follow thru, poor hold points ...or poor fit ...a better gun isn't going to help !!

 

[zippy13]

I mighty score better with a Kolar O/U handmade to my specs than my Beretta, but adding gold inlays will not up my average one iota. At that point, it's bling, not quality.

Dave makes a subtle, but significant point: Up to a point you pay for better performance, beyond that point you're paying for a work of art.

 

[hardworker]

A NASCAR racecar costs that much because it has to go fast and handle well enough to win a race. That and they're so covered with sponsors that no corners are cut. Bentley's are all about pride of ownership. Comparing racecars to one is like comparing a minigun to one of these double barrels. Apples and oranges.

 

[mavracer]

"Five rights equals a left"

5 rights equals 1 right.
3 rights equals a left
Somebody please tell me how good does a $300,000 shotgun work for holden down a barbed wire fence.