Just the Tips: How to Buy a Used Gun (and Not Get Catfished)
Been looking for a piece in the “back pages”?
If you’re trying to buy a used gun on a budget, you’ve probably gotten a little nervous about finding a private seller who’s willing to let you get some alone time with the firearm that caught your eye. On the one hand, you know you can get some great bargains by buying a piece that ain’t exactly factory-fresh—but on the other hand, you don’t want to pay for a sleek little .380 and have a big ol’ .50-cal Desert Eagle that’s taken so many rounds its barrel is practically a smoothbore. Now you’ve got both hands full (and not in a good way). So how do you buy a used gun from a private seller without getting catfished? Here’s a few Just the Tips…
Last updated: October 12, 2026 · Originally published August 23, 2018
1-Y’all Need a Bible
Look at you, digging around in the BackPages of the Internet trying to get a piece. If you’re gonna do that, at least get an idea of what other guns of similar quality are going for these days…and that means you need to get a Bible. At least, that’s what the guys who’ve been around the block call it. You might call it the Blue Book of Gun Values. Protip: The Gideons haven’t gotten ‘round to stashing these in hotel-room dressers, so you’re gonna have to bring your own to that party.
2-Reverse Image Search is Your Friend
We all know there’s some trifling people who think that as long as the picture they show you ahead of time looks good, you’ll just have to deal with whatever shows up on the actual date. Just for fun, you’ll wanna run a quick reverse GIS on that pic to see if it’s actually just ripped from Instagram pics of a much better-looking gun. Here’s how. Now, if they’ve been trying to turn that gun out, you will see it on other sites—what you’re looking for is clear evidence that the pic is of some other, much more attractive gun.
3-If It Seems Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is
For the time being, there’s no Snapchat puppy filter that people can slap on a gun to hide those signs of wear and tear, but you’ll still want to keep in mind that if that “BackPage” piece looks incredible and is selling at a price that makes you all “shut up and take my money,” there’s gonna be a catch because that’s just how it works. Is it possible that you might come across something that matches the hype? Sure—it’s a big old world and sometimes you do find a unicorn. But don’t trust it until you’ve seen it in person, looked in the unicorn’s mouth, and maybe given its mane a tug to make sure it doesn’t come off.
Just the tips!
100 to 200 yards took it: 48% of you who voted keep deer shots in that window, and 13% will shoot past 300.
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Sound advice. Never buy any gun based on a picture or associated text. Before the sale is finalized and the check or cash is transferred you must visually inspect the actual gun including verifying serial# etc. Only an imbecile would do otherwise. Any would be seller must agree to those terms or the sale is off. And if there is a comment section on the sellers page you should state that the seller was unwilling to allow you to do so.
In 2018, I have found that the LAST thing that has ANY relevance to a gun’s current market value is a Gun Trader or Blue Book, and the TRUE value of a gun in “X” condition is a search of Gun Broker and to a substantially lesser extent, it’s ghetto partner, Guns America, or the third world cousin, Armslist. To be at all realistic, you MUST do a search of COMPLETED auctions to find out what Joe Schmoe ACTUALLY paid for a gun, not what Slimy Sam, the dealer man LISTED his 1929 Throckwhacker Grade IV 16 Gauge with rare Polychoke option for, because morons can ASK whatever they want for junk.
good ideas and hopefully folks will heed and not get taken
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