Last night I was in a poker game and I won a saw-off shotgun. The fellow was not a very good poker player and I felt it was wiser for me to give him the $50 he wanted for it so he could keep playing rather than let him keep it and continue to lose and have a shotgun.
Anyway, so now I have a sawed-off shotgun. So what do I do with it? I know it is illegal so it is not something I am going to put over the mantle above the fireplace (actually, I don’t have a mantle or a fireplace - so that was out anyway). Should I turn it into the police. I am then out $50 and that is not a prospect that I look forward to. I can’t use it for hunting if I were to go hunting. Obviously, it has no range.
You say it’s sawed off, how long is the barrel? An illegal sawed off shotgun has a barrel length of less than 18 inches. If it’s 18 and 1/8 inch, it’s not illegal.
The last time I needed to get rid of a sawed-off shotgun, I took it apart and cleaned everything and then my neighbor threw it in his front yard and we called the cops to report a mysterious shotgun in the front yard.
The cops came and made it go away.
I can’t think of anything useful to do with an illegal firearm besides just get rid of it.
FWIW, to directly answer the OP. If the stock and the shotgun is a halfway decent make and in good condition, I’d remove the barrel, hacksaw it in half and throw it away. Then I’d go buy a replacement barrel, which would probably run less than $100, easy. Then I’d either use it or sell it and recoup my investment.
I have a friend who found his father’s old sawed-off shotgun in their attic. He lives near a small lake. Suffice to say, he’s not in possession of the gun anymore…
From the shortened barrel to the homemade pistol grip, it is a total of 18 inches. Barrel length is 12 inches. It is definitely illegal.
Do some police departments still pay for turned-in weapons? I seem to remember some departments having “toys-for-guns” programs a few years back. Do they still exist? How would I find out without basically announcing that I have a questionable gun? And if I were to take in this illegal gun at one of these programs, would they arrest me for having it? Since it is so clearly illegal.
Ringo, your front lawn idea is looking very good, but I still hate to be out the $50 (I really sound cheap, don’t I?).
Hmm…, I paid only $7 for the one I tossed, so it was less of an issue. I just didn’t like having it around, and the way I got rid of it assured me that no random miscreant was going to lay hands on it.
Put it in a bus locker, and call in a tip to the cops from a pay phone. Like someone said, you’ve got a $50 story. If you’ve got this thing hanging around, and the guy you got it from decides to screw with you by making his own call, you can be in for a world of hurt.
i know us has guns etc but this one sounds like it is not made to hunt rabbits in the first place
in uk there is an amnesty for firearms but shotguns require a certificate of ownership and the police would need to know the previous owner.
when i shot i kept records of all the purchasers of my guns and their shotgun certs if they didnt have one. no sale…
i guess the poker game got a bit out of hand…??
btw all sawn off shotguns were once ‘legal’…someone sawed them for a reason and not ballistically either.
i was told if you destroy the fore end it renders the gun useless
a gunsmith will always query a replacement fore end.
but this is uk:)
mrcrow posted what I was thinking. Get rid of the stock and the barrel (ASAP!), and keep the rest. You can have a new barrel fitted by a gunsmith, and he can also put on a new stock or you can put it on yourself. Considering that there are some very inexpensive shotguns out there, it might not make sense to do this; but this is one way you can keep the shotgun and not have an illegal one at the same time. You can do a search to find out the value of an uncut shotgun to help you decide.
But be aware of this: The shotgun in its present state is illegal. You are currently in violation of federal law. You must get rid of the barrel and stock (or the whole thing) immediately. You don’t need the barrel, so twist it off with a pair of Vice-Grips if you have to (after examining it to find out how it is removed, of course). If you turn it in to the police, they will want to know how you came by it. If you’re not a good liar, then the guy who gave it to you will be in Trouble.
Again: Ditch the barrel and stock now. This is a public message board, and you don’t want a BATF agent to say “I think I’ll find this guy.”
Nah, pretty typical. Periodically people will trade stuff to stay in a game. I will say that a couple of us sucked in some air when the guy came back after saying, “Wait a minute let me see if I have something in the car you guys will accept in trade” and he is carrying this gun.
In the past I have come away from poker games with a banjo, gum ball machine, CD player, bicycle and even a bust of Shakespeare.
Getting back to it. The lawn thing is looking better and better. Crafter_Man I would throw it in the local lake like your friend, but because of the drought we have been having, I’m not sure the water would cover it.
Haj, I had to acknowledge the wonderfully bad pun. So here goes, “Groan.”
The patriotic thing to do is to clean and oil it without getting your prints on it. Then seal it and some shells in a waterproof container (pvc pipe is the usual thing) and bury it. Don’t tell anyone.
You’ll know when and if its time to (possibly anonymously) tell someone about it.
Really, if you do not know what action it is? Pump, semi-auto, Win. Rem. Beretta? Find out and then maybe throw it away. Might be worth several hundred dollars and maybe a thousand with a legal barrel and a good stock. Know anybody that knows guns? And is a friend who won’t turn you in or con you out of it? Can you look at it and then go to the gun shop and look in the Shooters Bible and see what you have? Have you priced guns lately? I wish I was rich enough to throw money away. Do what Johnny L. A. said, get rid of the illegal part now. Then check on what you got.
Of course there is no price on a great story either. Let us kno0w hat you do…
