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How safe are machine guns as an investment?


johnson184
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Recently completed purchase of a HK sear for my first machine gun. Already on to saving up for a M16 of some variety... (Still not sure which manufacturer). Mentioned the idea of possibly more machine guns besides those two to my family/friends and they think it's too risky in light of recent events. I stated how they're basically grandfathered in... but admitted I hadn't considered any potential future legislation simply prohibiting the use or ownership of rapid fire guns. I can only think of alcohol, but has something like that happened before where even ownership is prohibited?

I wouldn't be left out on the street in poverty lol, but it'd obviously be a couple of kicks to the groin.

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I think the prohibition would be hard to pull off, but I think greater restrictions on transfers could be a real threat to NFA items as an investment. We already see values impacted when Form 4 times approaching 12 months.

Imagine if they further restricted transfers, or even stopped doing transfers. They aren't going to send out Feds to collect them, but they might make it impossible to sell them to an unlicensed person.

 

If you are looking for an investment, try a nice index or age based mutual fund. If you want a Machinegun, buy the M16.

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A classic gun from WWII I would say is an investment, but IF, and again I say IF, they would ever allow for the new manufacture of Class III for civi's (I know it's most likely never going to happen) HK and M16 prices will drop as they will be some of the first guns to be going into production by people. If you want an "investment" machine gun, look at a Thompson, Grease Gun, MP40, or things of that nature. Something that has history and won't be able to be made again (that has historical significance)

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wouldnt bet my retirement on it....but i DO consider mine an investment that i can enjoy...it probably wont rise close to the stock market, but it brings me joy and what good is having money if you cant have some fun with it....ive never lost $ on any gun....(im talking the SA's ive sold- i have not sold a FA)....

 

if this is your retirement plan i think you made a poor investment....if you have money,plan on shooting your sear and want to be able to sell it someday for double what you paid then yea i agree with you.....if your just going to let it sit in a box i think you made a poor investment

 

you picked the most expensive FA......some may say its so expensive very few can afford it vs a $6k Mac 10....will it appreciate as much as lower/mid level FA's?.....you could argue this point all day.....tons of people with $5-10k....not many with $40k to spend on a sear...

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Yep ... consider the collectible NFA items, but only as a very small percentage of a well balanced well diversified conservative oriented long term growth portfolio. The shooting grade machine guns are only a disposable income hobby endeavor WITH the strong possibility of solid value stability. That is where we are and want to be.

 

Might want to consider going elsewhere if NFA items are a substantial portion value of your estate. This is not an economics investment forum per say, but there is overlap because of the collect ability of many NFA items and discussion of such specifically directed to and perhaps limited in scope to Thompson Sub Machine Guns.

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wouldnt bet my retirement on it....but i DO consider mine an investment that i can enjoy...it probably wont rise close to the stock market, but it brings me joy and what good is having money if you cant have some fun with it....ive never lost $ on any gun....(im talking the SA's ive sold- i have not sold a FA)....

 

if this is your retirement plan i think you made a poor investment....if you have money,plan on shooting your sear and want to be able to sell it someday for double what you paid then yea i agree with you.....if your just going to let it sit in a box i think you made a poor investment

 

you picked the most expensive FA......some may say its so expensive very few can afford it vs a $6k Mac 10....will it appreciate as much as lower/mid level FA's?.....you could argue this point all day.....tons of people with $5-10k....not many with $40k to spend on a sear...

An HK sear is not the most expensive FA in the registry. Several guns have sold for multiple times more than an HK sear. Agreed the market is much larger for sub $20k guns.

 

Ron

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When looking at M16s only go with a Colt

agree'd!.....a 614 is nice if on a budget...its what i was going to get...an A2 with Full auto setting is very desirable......if you get a standard a2 its best to remove the burst as its worthless...with a Geissele trigger you can do 3 round bursts on your own all day long....

 

i own an A2, but if i had to do it again i would get a 614...i find them a more interesting piece of M16 history and they are less than an A1 typically

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On the subject of Model 614s, I saw these two:

 

http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/index.cgi?db=nfafirearms&website=&language=&session_key=&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=long&db_id=29519&query=retrieval

 

http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/index.cgi?db=nfafirearms&website=&language=&session_key=&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=long&db_id=29526&query=retrieval

 

The first add indicates it was made in the 1960s. I wonder when in the 1960s. Approaching C&R status?

 

I'm much more collector oriented, so a C&R gun is preferable to me.

 

It's been said before on this Board, don't buy for an investment. I do agree with other comments on the desireability of the WWII and similar historical guns.

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I have a caveat to this discussion. Convince your wife that it is an investment and you will not have to answer any of those "Why do you need another machinegun?" questions. My wife saw that they were something I enjoyed and twisted my arm until I had to get an FFL/SOT. Yes honey. LOL
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If going with the M16 or type, strongly consider just an excellent condition forged AR15 lower with the M16A1 NFA conversion work properly done. Many lower manufactures and conversions on the NFA market. For a shooter, (not collector) the Colt Name is not needed. The savings obtained more than pays for stripping the M16 down and just using the registered lower to build whatever type of M16 you want. That plus lots and lots of ammo.

 

For collect ability the Colt Name is usually required. Not always but usually.

 

Respectfully. All Oregon State, US Code Laws And NFA Rules Apply.

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All Colts are from forged stock. The other non colt conversions are not forged, but cast. I recommend Colt over all others for three main reasons that I did not mention previously. 1st is the obvious is the name and what that brings. 2nd is the receiver quality is vastly superior and as a shooter/investment would not trust a cast piece to fill both roles. 3rd is that being cast the item could be out of mil spec range and require work done to it. Most that need this work have been worked on already, but not all have had it yet.

Edited by Speeddemon02
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I have one RR lower that is cast, and that's the one I run the most. Never heard of any issues with any of them. I've heard of hammer pins breaking and some guys continuing to run the gun until it won't run anymore and jacking up hole. Makes no difference whether it's cast or forged you can mess up the hole. Mil-spec is a mythical beast and a set of specs with generally loose tolerances. Think of mil-spec as minimum wage..... Colt really doesn't make anything, they mostly assemble with other people's parts and their quality has always been questionable depending on what was in the box when you got it.

 

Investment safety is in the eye of the beholder as is risk tolerance. I have much more tolerance for items I can stand on, hold, or see vs. vaporware/ paper with absolutely ZERO collateral value. That said I still have some things like that, but far fewer these days. I own a slot machine and that thing is an awesome investment. I have yet to see anyone walk away without leaving me a substantial profit! Stock brokers are like slot machines, even if you lose your money they always make a large profit with zero risk or investment.

 

The discussion boils down to the tax code once again. If Roth profits one day are/ will be considered taxable for some people (like people subject to AMT) then you'll lose a substantial portion of your "investment". If the NFA is overturned due to the illegality of congress using the commerce clause and a punitive $200 to effectively ban an item of supposed commerce, then some of those items may lose substantial value?

 

The ironic thing here is that lots of people believe Roth IRA profits may at some point be taxed, yet no one is making much of a concern about losing that money? Virtually no one foresees the NFA being ruled illegal, that tax and regulation being overturned and losing money on those "investments" due to market proliferation of MG's, even though there is a much stronger legal case for that. I get it that probably no one gets what I just laid out.

 

I have two bumpfire stocks in the shop I paid $89 for. Sell now and make 4-10x profit, or wait and maybe register them as NFA and they may be worth $5000 in a year? Or maybe they become valueless with a complete ban?

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  • 3 weeks later...

If your looking at NFA as an investment, think on it like this-what would be the first things manufactured in the event that the NFA would be lifted and stay away from those. As badly as I want an M16, I won't pony that kind of cash as they would be the first thing being made. MP5 (or sear packs) would be right there too. Look at guns with history or have historical value. Why do you think WWII Thompson's are worth more than West Hurley guns, or Guide Lamp and Ithaca M3's are worth more than Medea M3's? Similar reasons that boil down to this-people want the originals, not the "repo" guns.

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I for one would not recommend under any condition a cast lower.

 

Probably, but back when stuff was cheap, I picked up a cast lower and ran probably 10000+ rds through it. Zero issues before I grew tired of that platform and sold it. Again, your probably right, but I wonder at what usage level do the problems show up, so since you obviously have first hand experience with such a strong statement and are not just parroting crap you read on the internet, what problems did you have and at what approximate usage level.

Edited by geefal
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Respectfully ...

 

I have no big dog in this. Just a discussion. Speeddemon02: Most non Colt M16 NFA conversions use a forged receiver. Not cast. Probably only a small percentage of registered non Colt NFA M16 receivers are cast. We could go to the trouble and ask the BATFE but the reality is that LIKELY over 95% of all registered M16 receivers are forged and not cast. There is a reason.

 

The raw forgings are made in high volume. The blanks are purchased very cheap. Cheaper than castings.

 

We saw A FEW basic training M16 rifles come back from Fort Ord CA years ago that had probably over 50,000++ rounds on the lower receiver. The rest of the rifle had been replaced several times. We sometimes had to rebuild those lowers. Oversize hammer and trigger pin holes. Slightly reamed out larger front and rear take down pin holes. Fabbed oversize pins to fit the holes.

 

You do not want to break a M16 lower rebuilding it. Trigger guard roll pin ear. Do not ask me how I know this to be true. Yikes!

 

Refinished with spray paint. Yep. A good forged M16 lower can be rebuilt several times. The rest of the platform can be completely replaced. The lowers were still serviceable. I owned an EA cast receiver AR15. I built the gun. Not dimensionally correct. Junk. The hammer pin hole cracked after 500 rounds. This soured me to cast AR15 lowers. Military spec M16 lowers are forged.

 

I do not remember ever seeing a USGI cast M16 lower. All were forged.

 

Back on the topic, non collectible forged converted AR15 to M16 lower receivers represent a good value compared to the COLLECTIBLE Colt made guns. If you want a shooter and not a collectible then a forged after market NFA M16 gun may be the way to go. You can strip and rebuild the platform anyway you want. I would stay away from cast lowers. Not for high mileage use.

 

Respectfully. Hundreds of AR15 builds. Uncounted gang tackled M16 rebuilds. Long ago, far away. No dog. All Oregon State, US Code Laws And NFA Rules Apply

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If going with the M16 or type, strongly consider just an excellent condition forged AR15 lower with the M16A1 NFA conversion work properly done. Many lower manufactures and conversions on the NFA market. For a shooter, (not collector) the Colt Name is not needed. The savings obtained more than pays for stripping the M16 down and just using the registered lower to build whatever type of M16 you want. That plus lots and lots of ammo.

 

For collect ability the Colt Name is usually required. Not always but usually.

 

Respectfully. All Oregon State, US Code Laws And NFA Rules Apply.

if you have a colt it will sell quickly....if you do not it most likely will not.....the Colt name is golden (whether it deserves it or not)...i would not buy any M16 that was not a Colt....its worth the couple extra thousands...

 

id recommend an A1 or a 614 vs a conversion since cost is not that much more...your paying $18k whats $23-24k?

 

ive bought and sold many Colts....every one sold within a week...most same day for full price...that name is Magic to a large % of the gun collector world

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  • 5 weeks later...

NFA firearms are probably the riskiest form of firearms investment. But then ANY government regulated investment item has a certain degree of risk. How much do you trust Congress to leave them alone between owe and the day your sell them? Quite frankly, 30 years ago I would have said the chance was very close to ZERO!

 

That said, I own several historically-significant machine guns. I consider them part of my retirement portfolio. But I also recognize that the day Trump leaves office, their value could drop to close to nothing.

 

As far as cast vs forged M16 lower receivers go, the next destroyed cast receiver I see that would not have had the same problem if it was forged will be the first one. Most problems with lower receivers are either easily fixed (cast or forged) or catastrophes due to the user being an idiot. (1 run over by a truck, another shot with .308 after owner left it leaning behind a target stand.)

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Back to the original question. I have many different things I invest in. Stocks. And a wide variety in that. Guns. Both machineguns and regular. Bitcoin and Ethereum (which has made me the most money of anything). All of these have risks. But I figure not everything is going to crash at once. Spread your money into multiple venue's and realize nothing is guaranteed.

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