Thread: Would you be grumpy........?

Originally Posted by puku

Are all nz distributors lazy or what?

Leading question that......

B

I have bought a couple of rifles "new" and had watched them on the shelf for a number of years. I think my Kimber Sporting Varmint in .204 would have been on the rack for 2-3 years and could have easily manufactured 2 years earlier. The only thing you would keep an eye on is a lot of rifles in shops get handled by greasy, salty & sweaty hands and I've seen some guns in shops with slight surface rust.
Hopefully you bought a "new" rifle that you will own for life and it shoots straight. Don't worry too much.

I have a view from another angle. No I would not be grumpy as long as it was still unfired and as it should be if purchased as new. We imported a large (ish) number of Toz 22LR rifles from Russia some years ago. We are not a big company that sells many guns per day. It has taken me 4 years to sell almost all of the bolt actions and I only have a few left. The last one I sold was exactly the same condition and age from factory as the first one I sold in about 2010. Was the first one any different to the last? No. It is exactly the same. Many rifles are manufactured and stored in the factories as they do a run and stock pile enough to fill orders. They make another run as they run out. As long as you know what the rifle is when you buy it why would it matter? I expect my 22LRs to last it s new owner many many years. Some of the old Toz 17s are still working very well and they have not been made in over 30 years. If you expect to get 30 or 40 years of use from a rifle (its what I expect) then it should easily cope with a couple years in a box.

Note that two years on a shelf being handled, cleaned and so on, is NOT what I class as new. Ex demo at best. New is in the box, unfired and stored properly.