There's No Auction Like a Firearms Auction

If you're like me and already have too many hobbies, look away now. 

Apart from inane eBay searches, charity shops and locked unit auctions there aren't too many places that you've consistently got a shot at a bargin with.  A lot of the gun auction sites  basically have people selling off their pride and joy, so they're pretty clear on the upper value of their guns and rifles. That leaves the physical auction houses which are amazing troves of treasure, the Purdy, Rigby and Rolex end of things is a bit crowded but the 'Pikey' and 'Ephemera' end is where the magic happens anyway.

How many great stories are in this lot? Estimate is: $150 - $200

A build-yer-own Rigby kit AKA a 7mm Mauser with tidy wood work and a knackerd barrel, is estimated at  $100-$200 sounds a bit vague as an estimate to me, run $40 up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes it. Or thinking again what about "re-barrel it and start competing in Service Rifle!" Go on, you know you want to.

Pre-war Nazi Ammo? Est. at a measly $50-$80 the clips alone are worth that.
[He tells himself]

I was pretty taken with one of these for £200 the other day. If it opens at $30 (£19.36) in front of the wrong crowd it's not going to have too many takers. If I was in Florida I'd be all over it.

As the buyers at the gun auction are squabbling over the high-end stuff a lot of 'working guns' fall through the cracks, but wether you're in the market for a dinner-getter or an heirloom, searching for 'hunt'-ing ephemera is lots of fun and will occasionally throw up real bargain-of-a-lifetime finds like this stunning signed photo....

Look everyone, its the boring one out The Avengers and him off the coffee ads. Yours for £4!

What did I bid on? Not telling.

More soon

SBW

Review: Spyderco Sharpmaker 204MF Ultra Fine

If you're the kind of person who has one of those annoying 'wheel sharpeners' for your knives best to stop reading now, as either you don't care about edge durability or you dont yet know what it'll mean to you. I'll concede that 'wheel sharpeners' can achieve a sharp [ish] edge, but never a durable edge.

 I know its frustrating to start with, but by working your way through a set of stones you get an edge that is far more robust and with enough patience far far sharper too. It took me ages to be able to get even half decent results on a set of stones. While I was practicing I used and reviewed the Spyderco Sharp Maker, which with - a very small amount of practice/following the instructions, will give you excellent results. The Sharp Maker is absolutely the perfect sharpening system for Spyderco's blade geometry; works surprisingly well on axes, and is very safe and handy for broadheads: it took me a while to get good results from thicker convex blades like the F1, but its excellent and intuitive for any flat-ish grind.


What you get is a box that does double duty as a stand/handle for the hones, setting them at 40 and 30 [giving you grinds of 20 and 15] degrees for blade sharpening, 12 degrees for scissors and flat for an improvised bench stone. Comes with course brown and fine white hones which make short work of carbon steel and are hard enough for stainless' including the 'super steels' like VG10 ect.

I've always wanted a pair of the Ultra Fine hones but they used to be crazy money so I never took the plunge. They've come down in price a bit lately so I ordered some from the chaps at Eden Webshops and two days later they were on the door mat.

Puta Madre!

Hallelujah

Yes sir I can boogie

They're good, really good, they take you to a whole new realm of sharpness, and considering the sharpness you get from the fine hones, that's really something. To illustrate the point my TK6 has a cutting edge in Super Gold Powder Steel hardened to 62, the fine stones made very short work of restoring the factory edge.

If you've already got a Sharp Maker, get a set, these you will love. If you haven't yet got a Sharp maker you've only yourself to blame.

More Soon

SBW