Pawn Shop firearms...
Awhile back during a 50%-off Pawn Shop Weekend (One wknd annually, ALL the shops in town put on a big sale and advertise as an industry), was making the rounds and came across a NIB 20 ga./28" Vented mod. Remington 870 Wingmaster (one of the early ones on the 12 ga. receiver) for $250 dollars - marked down to $125. Have a 12 ga. just like it so I bought it. Works perfect for dove and rabbit, as well as a sheet gun for the boys coming up.
Also found a 1955 High Standard 3" 9-shot 22LR R-100 Sentinel revolver.
Was looking for a kit gun for fishing and bow hunting, and this one looked just right. They wanted $150 for it, marked down from $300. It looked to be in very good shape... until I opened the cylinders and used a business card as a bore light. The bore looked rusted out with almost all the rifling gone.
I showed the resident gunsmith and he said it would clean up, and he took it into his bullpen and scrubbed the bore with solvent and a brush for about ten minutes and then brought it back out.
No difference.
So I told him that I wasn't interested in it any longer as a $125 dollar kit gun as it probably couldn't hit a snake at 6 inches, much less 6 feet.
Then I told him that it might be OK for snake-shot in the boat, but not for that price, and since he figured no one else would buy it with a bore like that he offered to mark it down another 50% to $75 dollars.
So I bought it.
After I got it home and was cleaning it to no avail, I decided to run a military .22 Cal. stainless steel bore brush I had picked up at a gun show for stripping lead and copper fouling. So I pushed it down the muzzle, and then pulled it out, once, and then ran a jagged patch through it a coupla times.
What greeted me was a pristine bore, with sharp clean rifling and no sign of pitting.
What had appeared to be rust... was just 40-odd years of polymerized cosmoline, cardboard fibers, and drawer lint.
Pawn Shop firearms...
Red