Let me start by saying this… Round count doesn’t matter. When you bring in a gun to trade in, the store doesn’t need the full Biography of the gun. We don’t need to hear the round count. I don’t care that you only had 1 magazine fired through it. You only fired 1 box so it’s practically brand new. That’s all meaningless. I had a guy that swore he only fired 3 rounds out of his Ruger revolver. Doesn’t matter. A. People lie about that big time… and B. Firearms don’t have Odometers on them. Unlike the value of a Car, the value of a gun doesn’t factor the number of rounds fired. Not at all.
What we do care about is CONDITION. In fact, that’s practically all that matters. Unless you have a gun that was NEVER fired and is in PERFECT and FLAWLESS condition, then maybe. But that almost never happens, so it’s moot. On just about any gun, firing some rounds is going to effect the condition a little. Most guns go from 100% to 98% almost instantly. After that, they could stay there for awhile at 98 for good long time of careful handling. Most guns tend to be 95%. This effects the value more drastically.
Now when you bring in a gun, and it’s 95%, say it’s worth X amount of dollars according to the book. That’s the Max we could sell it for. We have to make some money on that gun, so we are going to give you less than that. About half, because we have to mark it up, but keep it less than a brand new gun by a margin that would still let the gun move instead of people saying “Well, I’d just buy the gun new.” Don’t be offended if your baby doesn’t bring the big bucks you wanted. It’s nothing personal. And your beautifully crafted, bitter-sweet story isn’t going to raise the value either. Come on, if the gun meant so much to you, why the hell are you trading it in? Don’t be thick. If your Baby is worth so much – then sell it yourself. You know you are going to take a hit on value if you trade it. If we gave people what they wanted for a trade in gun – Used guns would cost double what New guns would cost. We can’t sell a used gun that’s priced outside of it’s Book Value. The store ends up sitting on them for years until they are finally marked down to Give Away prices just to get rid of the things.
So no, Sir. I’m not going to give you twelve hundred bucks for your late Grandfather’s WWI Ruger Mini-14 with a Simmons scope on top.
