Is a cheap shotgun a waste of money?

[Andy H]

Out of all the shotguns I have owned and still have the best one for me is a Browning A5 semi auto that I picked up for £18 at Weller and Dufty auctions , Beats the rest into a hat and it's 107 years old.

[super sharp shooter]

My zamocola sxs was £50 and it kills the pigeons the same as my £1300 browning

[wabbitbosher]

Should check the trade sales, Wabbitbosher has an SBS up for £25, so of course there is such a thing as a £50 gun

 

I'll second that !

 

I've trapped in compititions and i've seen shooters with a Scrap old Baikal side by side that was'nt worth £20 score better than people with over £3000 worth of over n under

 

Its not the gun that hits the target its the Shooter !

[39TDS]

My SxS cost me £50 30 odd years ago.

I have a sneaky feeling that if I did want to sell it, its' value hasn't changed for the better.

It would be nice to be in the position to be able to waste £3000 on a gun but in the meantime a £50 does the same thing.

Edited December 24, 2011 by 39TDS

[andy198712]

i think you'd use a cheap gun more as your less worried about it getting wet/scratched/worn ect...

[Wharf Rat]

Fit is everything! I picked up a very cheap sxs this week from a fellow member, fits me like a glove. But for less than £100 I could have had cash left to get the stock fitted to me antway. Took it out in the rain last night, let the lad have a go with it, held down some brambles with the stock when climbing through a ditch (unloaded!) wouldn't have done that with the Beretta!

[Hamster]

Well well well, I just knew that would tease out a few £50 quid gun worshippers :lol: . So, they're just as good, if not better than £3000 guns are they? Give me strength.

 

Of course the competition circuit is positively heaving with world class shooters wielding their 28" O/U Baikals. Trust me there is a world of difference between a £1200 gun and a £35 one. The fact that pointed straight it will kill is obvious but rather missing the point. A 15 year old car gets you from A to B I'm sure but not quite the same as a new one is it?

[billytheghillie]

basically its just 2 steel pipes that go bang! its all down to who is pulling the trigger. same in every sport.

[Asa Bear]

If it gets you out doing what we all love then it's just the job!

 

Happy shooting.

Edited December 24, 2011 by Logo

[Blackpowder]

I haven't had a shotgun for nearly 25 years, and that was an old folding 410, and I've been thinking of getting a cheap sxs for occasional use. I prefer rifles on bunnies but a shotgun will be useful for pigeons but, as always, funds are limited so I wanted to know what the limitations of a 50 quid gun are and how much of a difference you can notice compared to a 500 gun. I'm not worried about comfort, looks or anything other than accuracy and reliability (which I assume will be hit and miss) I just want a cheap tool.

Have a look at some of the guns wabbitbosher has for sale on the for sales section of this forum, it sounds as if some of those are just what you want.

 

Blackpowder

[Asa Bear]

Well well well, I just knew that would tease out a few £50 quid gun worshippers :lol: . So, they're just as good, if not better than £3000 guns are they? Give me strength.

 

Of course the competition circuit is positively heaving with world class shooters wielding their 28" O/U Baikals. Trust me there is a world of difference between a £1200 gun and a £35 one. The fact that pointed straight it will kill is obvious but rather missing the point. A 15 year old car gets you from A to B I'm sure but not quite the same as a new one is it?

 

 

 

 

 

Yeh but I'm sure George Digweed could shoot better with my gun than I could with his.

[Catweazle]

Well well well, I just knew that would tease out a few £50 quid gun worshippers :lol: . So, they're just as good, if not better than £3000 guns are they? Give me strength.

 

Of course the competition circuit is positively heaving with world class shooters wielding their 28" O/U Baikals. Trust me there is a world of difference between a £1200 gun and a £35 one. The fact that pointed straight it will kill is obvious but rather missing the point. A 15 year old car gets you from A to B I'm sure but not quite the same as a new one is it?

 

But some people only want to get from A to B and aren't worried if the ride is a bit rough. I can't think of any other sporting equipment where the law of diminishing returns hits so hard, and I reckon it's because so much of the price of a top class shotgun is for the decoration.

 

All that hand engraving does nothing to a pigeon, but costs a fortune. Of course the better guns are "better", but not as much better as the price often suggests.

 

Long live the £50 gun you can bash about, and long live the Sunday Best gun you can feel proud of. They'll both put dinner on the table.

[Hamster]

But some people only want to get from A to B and aren't worried if the ride is a bit rough.

 

 

Too right, I'm just saying let's not get too carried away and confuse adequacy with being the equal or better of.

[Thunderbird]

My two best ever scores on clays:

 

88/100 using 33 year old Franchi Falconet, cost £100

90/100 using 8 month old Beretta SP1 costing £1300

 

Now THAT's diminishing returns!

 

[welshwarrior]

Well well well, I just knew that would tease out a few £50 quid gun worshippers :lol: . So, they're just as good, if not better than £3000 guns are they? Give me strength.

 

Of course the competition circuit is positively heaving with world class shooters wielding their 28" O/U Baikals. Trust me there is a world of difference between a £1200 gun and a £35 one. The fact that pointed straight it will kill is obvious but rather missing the point. A 15 year old car gets you from A to B I'm sure but not quite the same as a new one is it?

 

 

I would not agrees that a £50 gun is as good as a £30000 gun I would not change my Berrettas for anything try once but got shot of the Perazzi

 

But a £50 gun that fit is more useful than an expensive gun that doesn't. You have got accept a few repairs may be needed and there maybe no spares around but it was only £50.

[welshwarrior]

Too right, I'm just saying let's not get too carried away and confuse adequacy with being the equal or better of.

 

You ve hit the nail on the head it's all in ranges of best and better and price does come into play.

[DIRTYHARRY]

I've not been shooting shotgun long, i have 2 guns, an italian rizzini o/u which i paid £250 for

and the other is an AYA Yeoman in absolute IMMACULATE CONDITION, barrels are perfect, blueing perfect, walnut stock, and i bought it off a bloke on here for £145.

There is indeed a MASSIVE amount can be said for cheaper guns.

[njc110381]

I guess it depends how you define "better".

 

Like I said in my post above, my £1000+ Beretta was the only shotgun I've had that ever let me down. So money doesn't even buy reliability all of the time. Top shots shoot with top guns because their sponsors want them to show off the top of the range products they produce, not because they get better scores with them but because it helps sales to the lesser shots who think that spending £3k on a gun is going to make them hit more.

 

You know there's even a chance that an old gun had more care taken in it's manufacture than some modern factory mass produced "best" will ever get.

[FalconFN]

Well well well, I just knew that would tease out a few £50 quid gun worshippers :lol: . So, they're just as good, if not better than £3000 guns are they? Give me strength.

 

Of course the competition circuit is positively heaving with world class shooters wielding their 28" O/U Baikals. Trust me there is a world of difference between a £1200 gun and a £35 one. The fact that pointed straight it will kill is obvious but rather missing the point. A 15 year old car gets you from A to B I'm sure but not quite the same as a new one is it?

Thanks for your thoughts. I have very little experience with shotguns and I don't need anything fancy but, just hypothetically, do you think a decent shot would score better with a top notch £3000 gun than they would with a cheap £50 gun if they fitted exactly the same and had the same barrel length and choke etc? If so, what would give the £3000 gun the advantage?

 

I'm just interested in your opinion and I won't spend £3k either way!

[39TDS]

My car is 40 years old, not 15.

Yes it does get me there just the same as a new one.

The only real difference about my car and a new one is that people look at it and say "Ooh, that's nice" whereas they probably don't give the new one a second glance.

Same reason people want a £3k shotgun I guess. I really don't care but a £50 gun will do what a £3k one will.

[Hamster]

In short yes, all things being equal even a £1500 gun would allow a good shooter to more easily shoot higher scores. This is not to say that there isn't a 90+ score living inside every beat up Baikal out there but real life is just soooo different.

 

The thing is that all things are simply not equal at all, nowhere near it in fact. Guns in the £1000+ bracket are manufactured with fantastic tolerances nowadays, they open and close sweetly, eject beautifully, the top levers tend to break open crisply and the grip shape, fore end and balance etc etc etc are just simply on a different planet. Look I'm sure I could turn in a decent score with a cheap gun, I used to shoot 40+ x 50 with my 2nd hand Laurona I bought for £315 but you'll struggle to find a £150 gun that would live with the awesome sortedness of a £800 2nd hand Miroku 3800 with which you really could win the British Open or shoot 2000 doves in one day, never mind a £6 grand Perazzi or DT10/11.

 

Fit is a completely separate issue by the way and incidentally I happen to find it hard to justify spending £250 on getting this right on a £150 gun as opposed to one costing £1500 which you may well keep and shoot for a near lifetime.

 

As has been mentioned they're all just two tubes welded together with a trigger underneath , there endeth the similarity. What's her name getting married to Ian Beale on Eastenders is a size eight 30 something bird as is Charlize Therone .

 

Personally I would advise you to avoid the £50 quid route and buy a gun for between £300-£400, life's too short.

[hardguy007]

Plenty of cheap guns about. My grandas brother deals in guns, more so of a hobby, and 90% of his guns are sub £150 and usually has at least 8 or 9 around £70 - £80. First one i nearly bought off him was £30.

 

No such thing as a £50 gun, but there are more than a few 2nd hand buys around £300-£400 that would serve you very well. I think you can do a lot worse than a S/S AYA or a O/U Laurona for that kind of money.

[bedwards1966]

I've an old Le Page SxS, from 1897.

I can hit as much with it as any modern gun I've used. It has two triggers, which does not cause any difficulty - it has the advantage of being able to select which barrel/choke selection without any delay or thought when you see a target.

I doubt it'd fetch £100 if I sold it. It started to get a bit worn and occasionally didn't fire one barrel (I've seen very expensive guns do this too), £60 repaired that and welded the hinge pin up, it's like new now and may well outlive me by many years.

I can't afford an expensive gun, and wouldn't buy one if I could.

 

The only downside I've found with these old guns is the fixed choke (but, to be honest, how often does it actually matter?) and that it can't take 70mm or magnum cartridges due to the chamber length and it's never been proofed for magnum loads.

Apart from that the extra money only gets you a fancy name, fancy looks and possibly ejectors, which not all old guns have (it doesn't bother me, even at clay shoots).

 

My view is to buy something old and cheap, that fits well and that you like and has been cared for, they are great value for money.

[EdSolomons]

If I was starting out again I'd go for a well used old style 682 or a 3800, spend £650 and spend it once. Learn to shoot the gun and crack on. If you don't stick at it you can sell it for the same money.

Start off wig a cheap n cheerful one, you might start to shoot it ok (it will be hard to shoot it "well") then you fancy a treat as you feel your progressing, you get another gun and it will take you 1000s of shells to shoot it well again.

Buy once, buy right.

[Catweazle]

If I was starting out again I'd go for a well used old style 682 or a 3800, spend £650 and spend it once. Learn to shoot the gun and crack on. If you don't stick at it you can sell it for the same money.

Start off wig a cheap n cheerful one, you might start to shoot it ok (it will be hard to shoot it "well") then you fancy a treat as you feel your progressing, you get another gun and it will take you 1000s of shells to shoot it well again.

Buy once, buy right.

 

Noted, for my lad who's just starting out. Ta.