Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
Can you tell if a gun has been fired once or ten times? What are the tell tales? I assume they are (should be) test fired at the factory?
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They can be cleaned up well enough from a cursory test firing to appear as unfired. Eventually, though, the finish on the front of the cylinder and bottom of the top strap at the barrel/cylinder gap will get permanently stained. On revolvers, it actually kind of burns it to a flat black, with a very telltale ring around each chamber. This is true for blued or stainless guns.
As I mentioned in another thread, I put 42 rounds (seven cylinder's worth) through a brand new Peacemaker the other day. It cleaned up well enough that I could easily pass it off as "unfired". My next newest one, going on a year old and several hundred rounds, will not clean up that well anymore. So, somewhere between these two gun's use is the "magic number".
I remember in the early '90s going to look at a couple of Colts at a local guns store. It's unusual for them to just be "in stock" - most are sold before they arrive. The guy had two 4 3/4" .45 Colts. Fit and finish were a wash - nothing to choose between the two there. Picking up the first one, I went to thumb the hammer back to check and see if it were loaded. The guy barked at me like I'll never forget - he claimed just thumbing back the hammer would hurt their value. Not just "unfired", but "unturned" was what he was looking to sell. So I couldn't even check to see which had the nicer action. That's how bad it has gotten, this whole "collector" b.s.
I rather suspect a lot of "unfired" guns have just been fired little enough to where they clean up well enough to appear unfired. That, and many are simply stripped completely down and refinished to appear "unfired". On the other end of the spectrum, many guns have faked patina, serial numbers, inspector's cartouches, and proof marks. Nothing will drive up the value of a run-of-the-mill Colt or Trapdoor faster than finding out it's a Custer battlefield survivor, or the gun that Pat Garret used to kill Billy the Kid, or one Bat Masterson carried, or whatever. Lots and lots of "collector" guns are counterfeits, simply because all the stuff that really doesn't matter does to collectors. In a way, they kind of deserve the mess they have made...