think about it carefully before selling a good rifle

[grumpyvette]

One of my good friends decided many years ago that he wanted a semi-custom built 375H&H for what for him would be his single ELK hunt.
He bought a browning stainless A-bolt in 375H&H and had it restocked with a black/gray/green laminate stock and had a muzzle brake added, the rifle proved to be heavy at almost 9 lbs but it was accurate, (under 1" 3 shot groups with some 300 grain hornady boat tail reloads) and seemed to be dependable, he took it on that ELK hunt. He never saw an ELK while he owned that rifle, so he traded it off shortly after the hunt, hes regretted that ever since.
one of my other friends, bought it and hes killed 6 ELK with that rifle over the last 15 years,
all nice one shot kills, and every time he does it seems to depress my friend some as he feels a bit cheated,
after selling the rifle and not getting his elk, with it.
hes tried many times to buy it back, but the current owner loves the rifle and won,t sell.

I once bought a MARLIN 444 ,and mounted a 2.5X weaver scope on it, duplicating a buddies combo,just after returning from a hunt trip in 1968,
after watching a friend drop a deer in spectacular fashion at about 150 yards shooting off hand, I hunted with that rifle with excellent results for about 20 years then I noticed the accuracy was getting worse,
while it used to shoot 1.5" groups it was then shooting 3" groups at best,
I mentioned that to a friend who offered me $100 MORE than Id paid for the rifle,
when it was new, I foolishly sold it,
hes hunted with it ever since and it still shoots under 1.5" 100 yard groups
(It never occurred to me like it had to him that it was the scope, not the rifle
, causing the problem, he replaced it with a 4x leopold and has hunted with it ever since.
(he won,t sell it back either, but Im not really upset at all, as I bought a BLR in 358 win to replace it and THAT rifles been a great companion on many deer hunts)

 

[Grumpy]

I was reminded of this thread, recently, when a guy I went to the range with mentioned he used to own a colt sauer 458 win mag rifle,
he purchased it for about $800, from a buddy that assured him it cost double that new, he had sold it after shooting it a couple times with full power factory loads.
he tried shooting my 458 win remington bolt action and was amazed that the recoil level was much more reasonable.
I pointed out that I was using hand loads with a 400 grain bullet pushed to only about 1900 fps which I found was perfectly adequate to use on Elk and deer hunts ,
he had been using a 500 grain bullet load pushed to 2100 fps, and had never considered hand loading ammo.
Ive seen the USED colt sauer rifles , in the 375 H&H and 458 win CALIBERS ,
in good condition sell for over $2000 in recent years
, now granted he sold his used rifle almost a decade ago, that he paid $800 for for $750 ,
but he would now have a very difficult time finding one for sale at any price and,....
it would now likely cost 4 times that amount to replace..if you could locate one for sale

http://www.shooterscalculator.com/recoil-calculator.php

factory ammo produces nearly 68 ft bs my reduced hand loads are closer to 42 ft lbs of recoil

a typical 270 win or 30/06 will be closer to 20-23 ft lbs, so theres a noticeable increase but certainly nothing an experienced rifleman wont easily handle