I hate to say accuracy is over rated, but for hunting rifles, the average hunting rifle will shoot inside the unsupported hold of a shooter. Now if there is nice flat spot with an unobstructed view to put a bi pod rest, the accuracy of shooter with his rifle goes up, but in the brambly woody woods were I live, you can’t see 50 yards at ground level, not even power line cuts are clear to the ground.
For a hunting rifle, this pre 64 300 H&H shoots fine with its factory barrel. It has been bedded and the stock cut for a rubber buttpad. Those modifications reduced its value as a collectable.
For target rifles, target shooters customize the heck out of their rifles to get the ultimate in performance. There have been a few rifles that “out of the box” qualify as target rifles, but even so, once a target shooter gets his hand on one of those, they change barrels, modify the handstop, add a special buttplate, and the rifle ends up highly customized. While some may believe (or hope) that customized rifles keep their value, all the time I see customized target rifles being offered for far less than what the owner put into the rifle. You put a custom trigger in the action you won't get 100% of the value of that trigger back. You see.
I have been shooting small bore of late, this is a factory correct M37 Remington. These are rare. What M37’s I do see, the stock has been discarded or cut, barrel changed out, and all original M37’s are worth more, sometimes substantially more than any customized version.
Bernard Levine has an excellent section in “Levine’s guide to knives” on the value of handmade knives, and custom rifles follow the same trend. Levine says
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“ Because the collector market for hand-made knives is overwhelmingly a fashion market, some of its features are counterintuitive”.
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I am of the opinion that custom rifles follow the same fashion market model. When the maker is alive and influencing others, the name recognition is high. When the maker folds or dies, his work appears old and obsolete. There are only a few old and dead makers whose custom rifles are highly collectable and very valuable, and this is primarily due to the exposure they get in Gun Magazines. I am of the opinion this is how Gunwriters enhance the value of their rifles from their collections. These guys pump and dump.
How much would you pay extra to have this name on your barrel?
