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.
From an end-user perspective, round count is just as meaningless as it is to your shop. I bought a Glock 5 years ago that, according to the serial number, was manufactured in 1993. Since then, I quit counting after 10,000 rounds and the only issues I have had with the gun was replacement of a couple springs.
This is more true than many know, I work at a shop.
Had a guy come in with a sigma .40 a while ago wants to know what we will give him for it.
“He needs to make rent” “I say ok what do you want” He says $300!
I say not going to happen! You could buy a new one for $250 at the time hell still can I think. we don’t carry them.
He tells me he paid $350 for it. I tell him that’s not really my problem, I tell him I would sell it for $200 so I would be nice and give him $150 if that would help.
Not worth more than that.
This guy gets pissed and acts like I am lying and storms out.
I still get a smile out of that guy.
Yeah, we get that all the time too. Then there is the other guy that brings in a gun, of a make we have never carried in the history of the shop – and insists he got it here. He knows he bought it here, but I wasn’t here that day. Yeah, okay. Let me look it up in the log book. Well well, not only have we never logged such a gun in or out, but we’ve never sold you a gun at all.
Gotta love using an electronic log book.
Round count only makes sense for rounds that are capable of seriously wearing down the bore.
Buying a used .220 Swift? Yea, you want a round count.
Even then the actual condition is more important. People who shoot .220 Swift are often handloaders and if they were really pushing things the wear could be worse that the count would suggest. Conversely, if the loads they used were backed off from max just a little bit the throat wear might be a lot less than you might guess.
A bore scope would be extremely handy for evaluating such things.