American Gun Ownership Highest In 18 Years

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Refinishing it will drop what ever value it does have. Most folks buy Mosins, Mausers and the like. Another good choice is a high numbered '03 Springfield or an M1917. If you want an investment look into an M1 Garand. CMP has them for 625.00.  All shoot 30-06 and you have a large range of ammo from plinking surplus Prvi to match grade. People generally buy cheap low grade surplus Mosins and Mausers, that is whats popular to the masses, which you should avoid, which leads to surplus ammo shortages because the rifles are cheap. You generally wont see any of these nimrods with a '03, M17, M96, M1 Garand.

http://www.thecmp.org/sales/m1garand.htm

Other choices
Yugo M48
Swedish M96
SVT-40

OK, good advice.  I'm not adverse to paying for a good rifle.  My wife cringes when I start talking over $1000 though.

Today I bought a subscription to the Blue Book of Gun Values, which seems to be the closest thing to a standard out there.  Armed with this, I have been trying to value a few 1903s that are available locally.  One is a 1903A1 that I forgot to get the serial number to, but at $1200 the price seems reasonable, subject to close inspection of the rifle.  This is the other.  It's basically a 1903A1, but it has a WWI receiver in it.  I'm not sure how to value that one, since the A1s are all interwar production.  Also, I wasn't sure if your caution on SNs just meant SN > 800,000 or a caution against all WWI manufacture rifles.

I would really like one of the CMP Garands, but I'm having trouble finding a CMP-affiliated club around here that is not a youth program.  Their club search function blows.

[derspiess]

Some outfit (other than CMP) was refinishing/rebuilding 1903's and the couple I looked at were really nice.  Forget who it was but they ran around $800. 

[Syt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKHeXC7L85s

[derspiess]

[Malthus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKHeXC7L85s

Okay, that was damn funny. 

[The Brain]

If you lock up your guns only guns will be locked up.

[garbon]

Why isn't the solution to lock up your children when they are at home?

[Malthus]

Why isn't the solution to lock up your children when they are at home?

Spoken like someone who should have been locked up as a kid. 

[11B4V]

Refinishing it will drop what ever value it does have. Most folks buy Mosins, Mausers and the like. Another good choice is a high numbered '03 Springfield or an M1917. If you want an investment look into an M1 Garand. CMP has them for 625.00.  All shoot 30-06 and you have a large range of ammo from plinking surplus Prvi to match grade. People generally buy cheap low grade surplus Mosins and Mausers, that is whats popular to the masses, which you should avoid, which leads to surplus ammo shortages because the rifles are cheap. You generally wont see any of these nimrods with a '03, M17, M96, M1 Garand.

http://www.thecmp.org/sales/m1garand.htm

Other choices
Yugo M48
Swedish M96
SVT-40

OK, good advice.  I'm not adverse to paying for a good rifle.  My wife cringes when I start talking over $1000 though.

Today I bought a subscription to the Blue Book of Gun Values, which seems to be the closest thing to a standard out there.  Armed with this, I have been trying to value a few 1903s that are available locally.  One is a 1903A1 that I forgot to get the serial number to, but at $1200 the price seems reasonable, subject to close inspection of the rifle.  This is the other.  It's basically a 1903A1, but it has a WWI receiver in it.  I'm not sure how to value that one, since the A1s are all interwar production.  Also, I wasn't sure if your caution on SNs just meant SN > 800,000 or a caution against all WWI manufacture rifles.

I would really like one of the CMP Garands, but I'm having trouble finding a CMP-affiliated club around here that is not a youth program.  Their club search function blows.

http://www.odcmp.com/Sales/m1903.htm

WARNING ON "LOW-NUMBER" SPRINGFIELDS

M1903 rifles made before February 1918 utilized receivers and bolts which were single heat-treated by a method that rendered some of them brittle and liable to fracture when fired, exposing the shooter to a risk of serious injury.  It proved impossible to determine, without destructive testing, which receivers and bolts were so affected and therefore potentially dangerous.

To solve this problem, the Ordnance Department commenced double heat treatment of receivers and bolts.  This was commenced at Springfield Armory at approximately serial number 800,000 and at Rock Island Arsenal at exactly serial number 285,507.  All Springfields made after this change are commonly called "high number" rifles.  Those Springfields made before this change are commonly called "low-number" rifles.

In view of the safety risk the Ordnance Department withdrew from active service all "low-number" Springfields.  During WWII, however, the urgent need for rifles resulted in the rebuilding and reissuing of many "low-number" as well as "high-number" Springfields.  The bolts from such rifles were often mixed during rebuilding, and did not necessarily remain with the original receiver.

Generally speaking, "low number" bolts can be distinguished from "high-number" bolts by the angle at which the bolt handle is bent down.  All "low number" bolts have the bolt handle bent straight down, perpendicular to the axis of the bolt body.  High number bolts have "swept-back" (or slightly rearward curved) bolt handles. 

A few straight-bent bolts are of the double heat-treat type, but these are not easily identified, and until positively proved otherwise ANY straight-bent bolt should be assumed to be "low number".  All original swept-back bolts are definitely "high number".  In addition, any bolt marked "N.S." (for nickel steel) can be safely regarded as "high number" if obtained directly from CMP (beware of re-marked fakes).

CMP DOES NOT RECOMMEND FIRING ANY SPRINGFIELD RIFLE WITH A "LOW NUMBER" RECEIVER.  Such rifles should be regarded as collector's items, not "shooters".

CMP ALSO DOES NOT RECOMMEND FIRING ANY SPRINGFIELD RIFLE, REGARDLESS OF SERIAL NUMBER, WITH A SINGLE HEAT-TREATed "LOW NUMBER" BOLT.  SUCH BOLTS, WHILE HISTORICALLY CORRECT FOR DISPLAY WITH A RIFLE OF WWI OR EARLIER VINTAGE, MAY BE DANGEROUS TO USE FOR SHOOTING.

THE UNITED STATES ARMY GENERALLY DID NOT SERIALIZE BOLTS.  DO NOT RELY ON ANY SERIAL NUMBER APPEARING ON A BOLT TO DETERMINE WHETHER SUCH BOLT IS "HIGH NUMBER" OR "LOW NUMBER".

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Thanks, that is what I thought you were referring to.  I did not know the WWII rebuilds mixed bolts, though.  The one at Jackson looks like a good bolt, based on the handle bend, though it is easy enough to buy a known-good bolt to put in there.  They also have an apparently original Rock Island 1903 for a suspiciously low price.

[Savonarola]

It hurts that Texas gets mentioned three times in this article and Florida doesn't even get mentioned once.  We're gun crazy too; and just plain crazy as well.   

This political primary season has seen an unprecedented use of guns to get votes. Republican hopefuls across the country are appearing in political ads firing guns and holding political events around firearms.

Texas state Sen. Donna Campbell won the Republican nomination in her party. In one of her ads, she's seen firing a gun at a target as a narrator lauds her for reducing "the time it takes to obtain a concealed carry license, so more law-abiding Texans could exercise their constitutional rights to defend themselves."

In another, candidate Matt Rosendale shoots a rifle at an imaginary government drone — though it did not help him snatch the nomination for a Montana congressional seat.

And in a now-classic ad, Will Brooke, a candidate for Alabama's 6th Congressional District, sets up a 1-foot-thick copy of the Affordable Care Act for target practice. Then he starts blasting away.

"We're down here to have a little fun today and talk about two serious subjects — the Second Amendment and see how much damage we can do to this copy of Obamacare," he says.

Though Brooke did considerable damage to a publication from the Government Printing Office, he lost the Republican primary.

Guns are powerful political symbols this year because the gun rights crowd is on high alert. After mass shootings in the past two years in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., they believe the Obama administration wants to come for their guns. Conservative candidates have piled on.

In Texas, GOP Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — who ran for renomination and lost — had a poster with the phrase "Come and take it" superimposed on a rifle.

Even Wendy Davis, the liberal Democrat running for governor of Texas, had to come out and say she's for open carry of handguns.

"Candidates respond to public opinion, and when that's one of the questions they get asked a lot — 'Where do you stand on the Second Amendment?' — then they're gonna tend to get the point that not only are guns not a liability, but they actually can be a plus," says Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America.

Candidates have raffled off weapons as a campaign gimmick in local, state and national races.

And the shooting range is becoming the new country club for some Republicans. Former New Mexico Republican Party chairman Allen Weh is running for the U.S. Senate. His press secretary, Paige McKenzie, said they held a fundraiser at a shooting range in Albuquerque to stress the difference between Weh and the incumbent, Democratic Sen. Tom Udall, on gun rights.

"Since Allen is a retired Marine colonel, we thought that this would be a fun and unique event for supporters to come out and shoot with the colonel," McKenzie says.

So what's going on here?

"Firearms are a very convenient shorthand in the Republican Party," says Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York in Cortland and author of five books on guns and politics in America.

It's not that every candidate who brandishes a firearm will become a crusader for gun rights if elected, Spitzer says. It's symbolic language.

"Having a gun in an advertisement is a way to summarize your opposition to the Democrats, to Barack Obama, your suspicion of big government, your valuing of individualism, and it also expresses a kind of sense of power that is very appealing to base voters in the Republican Party," Spitzer says.

Now that the political primary season is mostly over, it remains to be seen whether candidates will use hi-caliber firepower in the general election, where mainstream voters may not be as impressed by belligerent imagery.

I like the part about Wendy Davis "Having" to say she was in favor of open carry; as if she has no choice in the matter at all. 

[CountDeMoney]

THE UNITED STATES ARMY GENERALLY DID NOT SERIALIZE BOLTS.

Zee Germans sure as shit did.  Bolts and Jews.

[Valmy]

I like the part about Wendy Davis "Having" to say she was in favor of open carry; as if she has no choice in the matter at all. 

I am pretty sure Wendy Davis actually is in favor of open carry.  How else to defend abortion clinics and their patients from the army of evil?  Seriously though she came out passionately in support of it early on, on her own volition.  It was not like entering into the general election she is trying to appease anybody, she did this before the primary had even really gotten going.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I like the part about Wendy Davis "Having" to say she was in favor of open carry; as if she has no choice in the matter at all. 

I am pretty sure Wendy Davis actually is in favor of open carry.  How else to defend abortion clinics and their patients from the army of evil?  Seriously though she came out passionately in support of it early on, on her own volition.  It was not like entering into the general election she is trying to appease anybody, she did this before the primary had even really gotten going.

I think this article is playing to the assumption that "Democrat == guns BAD", and thus Davis' position is pandering to the electorate.  There are a significant number of Democrats in Texas who genuinely support the state's looser gun laws.

[11B4V]

THE UNITED STATES ARMY GENERALLY DID NOT SERIALIZE BOLTS.

Zee Germans sure as shit did.  Bolts and Jews.

Is that anything like Chutes and Ladders?