DEACTIVATING!

[Ovenpaa]

Yes it was meant to be in caps. Twice whilst recently searching for different rifles I have come across fine looking examples of what I am after that have been deactivated.

Why the trend towards deactivating older rifles, is there waning interest in owning and shooting such things or is there an increase in people who would like to own and collect wall hangers?

[Strangely Brown]

Why the trend towards deactivating older rifles, is there waning interest in owning and shooting such things or is there an increase in people who would like to own and collect wall hangers?

I just think its down to market forces; money being the end answer and going through the hoops for a FAC the start of market forces.

[Fedaykin]

Sadly market forces, I vaguely remember one of the large DEAC companies that also does a sideline in selling S1 saying it doesn't make anywhere as much money on the unbutchered rifles in a volume sense vs butchered.

Some go to deac as they are not safe to shoot anymore, whilst the pool of available rifle is getting smaller we are not at crisis stage yet.

[Ovenpaa]

The problem as I see it is the cost of a deactivated rifle should be typically around GBP100-125 more than an unmolested example if they were both in a like condition however I now get the impression that similar deactivated and live fire rifles can go for similar money which means the deactivation circuit is artificially bumping up the price of rifles. Another example is eBlag, I am seeing target sights go for the same price as the complete rifle and it saddens me to say some of the complete rifles we have here are worth considerably more when broken down. The BSA International is a perfect example.

[Strangely Brown]

I was told that Fultons did very well on deactivated pistols when the Harley Davidson club stayed at Bisley for the weekend.
50 somethings with fairly deep pockets!

[Laurie]

For traders buying large quantities of firearms that either have limited markets due to licensing requirements and/or have a lot of shot-out rubbish in them, deactivation can be a lucrative business even with the cost of the work and reproofing. It was certainly very lucrative 10-15 years ago, but I have a feeling the market for deacts may be much less active now - changes in regulations making many deacts less attractive to potential buyers? market saturation?

Working for a business that did a lot of this business some years back, one very sad segment of the deactivation activity was public collections being butchered as the only way the owners could hang onto them.

Somewhat earlier, I viewed and bought a fair few rifles in my historic arms shooting days with an RFD who had an excellent network of contacts that put museum etc business his way. This was the early 80s, still pre-Hungerford, and he got a steady stream of really lovely shootable S1 pieces in, many rare and collectable. This was thanks to the HO uprating contemporary security requirements for institutions such as public schools and museums. When they needed their periodic relicensing the local police came in and said - this standard of electronic intruder alarms has to be installed; bars on that set of windows; reinforced doors and locks here there and everywhere, so the bill to be relicensed became serious money.

Deactivation wasn't an option then, so they sold their pieces off into the gun trade and they eventually ended up being bought by people like us, or if valuable enough went to the auction houses for American or whoever collectors. Hungerford saw the easing of / allowing deactivation basically to save the Treasury measly amounts of money in compensation to self-loading rifle owners being deprived of their property, but had the unlooked for result of creating a significant new market for and pool of unlicensed deact firearms, some of which produced an all year round Christmas for criminal armourers with the technical standards then applying!

After Hungerford, those museums which still had collections no longer had to sell them on - their local FEOs continued to up the ante on security standards and costs, but peddled the 'You can keep them all without this cost and hassle if you have them deactivated, and it makes society safer too taking live firearms out of circulation' line. I saw some really good S1 rifles from collections being chopped on this basis as recently as 10 years ago, including rifles and pistols that were antiques in exempt categories.

I should imagine the same thing is happening with the few remaining privately held heritage rifles owned by families on a historic / sentimental non-shooting basis, (if that category of Section 1 hasn't already been abolished). When the previous generation dies, the next will be told either surrender it to the police for destruction, or have somebody in the trade deact it - they won't issue an FAC to the member of the next generation inheriting it.

[breacher]

The problem as I see it is the cost of a deactivated rifle should be typically around GBP100-125 more than an unmolested example if they were both in a like condition however I now get the impression that similar deactivated and live fire rifles can go for similar money which means the deactivation circuit is artificially bumping up the price of rifles. Another example is eBlag, I am seeing target sights go for the same price as the complete rifle and it saddens me to say some of the complete rifles we have here are worth considerably more when broken down. The BSA International is a perfect example.

My mini-mcqueen rig Martini only cost me pennies once I sold the sights !

[snayperskaya]

Not long back I found a listing for an unmolested Imperial Mosin that was 1891-dated (first production year!!!) with all matching serial numbers and the original rear sight fitted and a beautiful looking stock etc........and near the end of the listing were those dreaded words, "deactivated to current spec"! . I could have cried that such a historic rifle like that had been deactivated

[Ovenpaa]

I spotted a MN sniper minus the 'scope at an arms fair a few years ago, it had been through the hands of the Finns and still had a superb trigger. It was deactivated and up for a quite modest sum. I walked away. The next stand had a boxed 4(T) complete with everything also deactivated. It is devastating when you see such fine rifles relegated to standards.

[RDC]

Not long back I found a listing for an unmolested Imperial Mosin that was 1891-dated (first production year!!!) with all matching serial numbers and the original rear sight fitted and a beautiful looking stock etc........and near the end of the listing were those dreaded words, "deactivated to current spec"! . I could have cried that such a historic rifle like that had been deactivated

I know your pain! It was the bane of my searching when looking for the right mosin for me.

Ovenpaa, I was wandering round War and Peace with an American friend of mine who was over with one of the Soviet reenactor groups who was displaying there. To see so many lovely looking rifles in the stores, simply butchered to be wallhangers was difficult for both of us!