Dream Guns: How We Would Spend $6,000 on One Firearm

Does anyone else have a folder of bookmarks for guns that you’ll never be able to afford but that you like to visit every once in a while, if only to live in the fantasy of owning, say, a Korth revolver or a high-end Benelli shotgun just for a few precious moments? We do. We all do. The FRA staff was talking up our dream guns the other day and decided to make it a bit more of an organized list of heartbreak and yearning.

The task was simple: What single gun we would buy if we were each handed $6,000 that we couldn’t spend on anything else — bills and mortgages and cars chugging along on their last leg be damned.

The resulting guns are diverse, and a lot of you won’t agree with, well, most of our choices. But these are our dreams, damn it! What gun would you buy for 6 grand?

THE THUMPER

Mad Pig Custom Marlin 1895 Lever Gun
Price: $5,112 with upgrades and accessories

OPTIONS:

Base gun: Marlin 1895 Trapper in .45-70: $1,449
Mad Pig Thumper V2 Custom Conversion Package: $2,545
Beartooth Mercantile Knuckle Duster Lever: $139
Multicam Black Cerakote finish: $350
EOTech XPS2 Optic: $629

I don’t typically believe in love at first sight, even when it comes to firearms. I firmly believe that dream rifles are made by wearing them out, that the value is in the memories creased in the bumps and scratches, not necessarily in the gun’s factory features, no matter how expensive those features may be.

But then I saw John Wick: Chapter 4 and fell head over heels in love. I haven’t been this obsessed since middle-school me fell for Corey Haim in The Lost Boys.

My new movie crush is Mr. Nobody’s Mad Pig Custom Marlin Model 1894 takedown lever gun.

Oh. My. Gawd. This piece is really fuckin’ dreamy. It’s the coolest gun in the whole John Wick franchise (which is admittedly overflowing with sick firearms), and I don’t care what you say; I’ll die on this hill. So when FRA tossed me a stack of imaginary Ben Franklins to spend on a money-is-no-object firearm, I knew immediately where my heart wanted to go.

Although the fictional freelance assassin used a Mad Pig-modified Marlin 1894 in the flick, getting your hands on a factory-fresh 1894 is impossible at the moment. Marlin has promised the return of the beloved 1894 sometime this summer, but it hasn’t shown up just yet. (Time is a-tickin’, Marlin.) Until it does, I’ll have to make do with a Marlin 1895 Trapper in .45-70 Govt as my base gun, which really isn’t a bad compromise.

Mad Pig’s V2 Custom Package includes a butt ton of cool shit. And because the company understands that beauty is more than skin deep, most of their work isn’t even cosmetic.

As part of the package, Mad Pig gunsmiths have their way with the gun’s action, cleaning and deburring the inside of the receiver and the trigger plate. They also chamfer the magazine tube, polish the chamber, tune the bolt assembly, and work all kinds of magic on the gun’s mechanics.

It’s not like Marlin’s lever actions aren’t already ultra-reliable (especially the newest version of Marlin under the Ruger banner), but Mad Pig takes an already sweet set-up and gives it the full monty. When it comes back from the Mad Pig gun spa, all the internal mechanisms are enhanced, and the thing runs like freakin’ butter.

The V2 custom conversion package also includes a barrel cut and fitted with a Mad Pig Thumper muzzle brake, a dope skeletonized stock with a cheek riser from Chisel Machining (if you haven’t heard of them, check them out right now), an enhanced trigger from Wild West Guns, a Slate Stop hand stop from Slate Back Industries, and a Midwest Industries M-LOK handguard and optics rail.

And because it’s badass (and this is imaginary money), Mad Pig can add a sick knuckle duster lever from Beartooth Mercantile. Yes, please.

When Mad Pig has had its way with your rifle, that Marlin 1895 becomes an absolute work of art. Not the weird art-kid-videotaping-a-balloon kind of art, either. I’m talking about the stunningly tactical, inside-and-out type of art that dreams are made of.

But because I still have imaginary money left in the budget, and I’m not a cheap date (even in your imagination), I’m wrapping this gorgeous piece of firearms finery in a Multicam black Cerakote finish, and topping it with an EOTech XPS2 holographic sight.

And then I’m hitting the deer woods to wear this baby out. — Alice Jones Webb

THE CLAYS KILLER

Beretta 694 Sporting B-Fast O/U Shotgun
Price: $5,199

OPTIONS:

12 gauge
30-inch barrel
Right-handed
3-inch chamber

Most folks start shooting as a kid with a .22LR single-shot rifle, or maybe a .410, or maybe with dad’s duty pistol with 9mm wadcutters at the sportsman’s club down the road. I came to guns late in life, in California of all places, with a less-than-ideal gateway gun: a 12-gauge.

My dad didn’t grow up with guns or shooting, so neither did I. Duck hunting seemed to find me on a lark, and it changed the direction of my life. My dad’s, too. I bought a 12 gauge pump gun to kill birds. Dad shot a gun for the first time with his 24-year-old son. Twenty years later, he shoots skeet a couple of times a week in a competitive league in eastern Connecticut.

Converts tend to be the most extreme fanatics. I don’t know how many shotguns we own between him and me, but we have all the sub gauges covered a couple of times over, plus a Kreigoff and a few other big-dollar sporting guns for clays. Of all those shotguns, though, my favorite — by far — is his Beretta 687 EL Gold Pigeon set in .410 and 28-gauge.

It’s hard to put into words that feeling when a firearm really fits — when it feels more like an extension of the arm than simply holding a tool. Beretta over/unders just have that effect on me. The first time I shot that Gold Pigeon in 28 at skeet, I shot a 23, which is great for me. It’s been my favorite ever since, so if I had $6,000 to spend on any single firearm, I’d get its big brother in 12-gauge for sporting clays courses and dry field duck blinds.

Beretta long discontinued the Gold Pigeon, but several variations of the Silver Pigeon and the extra spendy Diamond Pigeon line are still rolling off the line. If I had my druthers, I’d try and change this hypothetical spending limit to $7,500 and pick up one of those.

But rules are rules, and with $6,000 in my theoretical hand, my choice would be the new(ish) 694 in the “sporting” B-Fast model that comes with an adjustable comb. With its sleek modern lines, it’s almost the opposite, in some ways, of the ornate Gold Pigeon, with its etching-free receiver and sci-fi sounding “Steelium (tri-alloy steel) Plus barrels.” Okay. But I’m just here for the fit and a little bit of the romance: my dad with the old-school etched sub-gauges, his son with the modern 12-gauge version.

Hell, maybe this is just what I need to finally shoot a 25. — Michael R. Shea

THE LONGSLIDE

Nighthawk Custom Chairman 1911 10mm – Double Stack
Price: $5,854 with upgrades

Nighthawk Custom Chairman 1911 dream guns

OPTIONS:

Finish: Cerakote – Sniper Grey
Double Stack Upgrade: $650
10mm Upgrade: $100
Recon Rail: $100
Adjustable Tritium Sights: $150
Ambidextrous Safety: $120
NH Extractor Upgrade: $115

At some point, you go about as far as you can go with low-rung 1911s. Other than aesthetics, they’re all pretty much the same. After you’ve been through a few, it’s time to either graduate to military surplus guns with some history, get real weird with it diving into DIY custom work, or move to the next tier of 1911s. And I’ve always wanted a nice handgun. I’ve had some expensive pistols, but they were all utilitarian.

Stacatto’s offerings had me for a minute, but in the end, the longslide — which I’ve always wanted, for reasons — and the fact that the Nighthawk Custom Chairman 1911 can be had in 10mm with a double-stack frame just sealed the deal. The Chairman was the first entry in Nighthawk’s Boardroom Series of 1911 pistols, a line with plenty of drool-worthy entries — but just look at it.

At its heart, this gun is a competition 1911 with a 6-inch barrel and matching slide with windows and lightening cuts that let it run without question. The extra length also means extra weight for taming recoil and flip and a longer sight radius for better accuracy. The gold titanium nitride barrel isn’t normally my style, but I dig it on this gun.

For the price, you get a hand-fit frame and slide as well as a hand-fit, crowned, and throated barrel with a polished feed ramp. Brass for a front bead? Fuck that. This one has a standard 14K gold bead front sight, which I would upgrade right away with Nighthawk’s adjustable tritium sights. Those grip panels would also have to get traded in for something a little more — elegant.

Would this be the pistol that gets me into serious competition shooting? Probably not.

Would I look at it far too often and shoot it as much as I can afford to? Yes. Absolutely, yes. And…I just want it.

The double-stack upgrade, 10mm chambering, and other upgrades bring the total price to $5,854. That should leave me with enough wiggle room for taxes, the transfer, and, like, one extra mag — maybe. — David Macar

THE MODERN RECCE RIFLE

Noveske Rifleworks 16” GEN 4 Recon Rifle
Price: $6,025 – $7,303 with upgrades and accessories

OPTIONS:

NightForce ATACR 1-8×24 34mm FFP Rifle Scope: $2,800
Badger Ordnance 34mm C.O.M.M Scope Mount NV Height: $318
Condition One 45-degree J-Arm mount: $50
Condition One Micro Sight Mount – Aimpoint T1/T2: $40
Aimpoint Micro T-2 2 MOA 1x18mm Red Dot Reflex Sight: $870
Rifle total build cost: $7,303; rifle and primary optic only: $6,025

This question’s a lot harder to answer than you think. If you’re looking at rifles rather than handguns or shotguns, 6 grand can get spent really fast. After a lot of introspection and meditation to old cassette tapes of gunfire and reloads, I decided that I’d pick up Noveske 16” GEN 4 Recon Rifle to spend my dream gun allowance on.

We can sit here and shoot off the specs and talk about the precision-milled receivers or how it comes with an oversize flared mag well out of the box. But all you really need to know is: This gun just fucks. I would throw on a Nightforce ATACR 1-8x24mm with a C.O.M.M. 34mm 1.54” NV Height modular mount from Badger Ordnance on top of her. That right there will take us past the 6k mark quick.

The base Noveske Gen4 Recon Rifle, bare naked.

Why the Nightforce ATACR over any of the other LPVOs on the market? It comes down to the fact that the reticle is daylight bright when running on the first power setting and the superior glass clarity. Hands down, I believe Nightforce has the best glass when punched in. It’s crisp, like watching a movie in 8K; once you see it, you don’t want to go back to 4K.

When running at the top-end magnification, you will also find more chromatic aberrations on something like the EOTech Vudu 1-10. This might not be a big deal to some, but this is why you are paying top price for the Nightforce.

I could add another grand onto this build real fast — which, of course, I probably would — if I tack on a backup red dot to the Condition One modular mount from Badger Ordnance. But, while my backup optic isn’t fancy, the Aimpoint T2 is tried and tested, and I know it will withstand a beating if SHTF. — Kurtis Frasier

THE MODEST THROWBACK

Springfield Armory M1A Loaded in .308 Win
Price: $3,589 with accessories and ammo

springfield m1a loaded walnut dream guns

OPTIONS:

Padded Vickers Sling: $55
800 rounds of .308: $800
10 20-round mags: $590
Custom buttstock ammo carrier: $60

I’m a simple man. I see this rifle and picture it as my companion to ward off any potential threats of piracy while I eventually circumnavigate the globe via sailboat. Sure, there are probably more practical options out there, but I’ve never been a very practical person. But I’m way under budget, so that should earn me some good cred with the mysterious Gun Oz, who is apparently doling out armory enhancement funds around here.

The M1A Loaded is one of several semi-auto versions of the M14 U.S. military service rifle from the late 1950s and early 1960s made by Springfield Armory today. Outwardly, it looks a lot like the regular M1A and, consequently, the M14, but the components are more on the premium side.

The rifle comes with a National Match tuned two-stage 4.5-pound competition trigger, a medium weight 22-inch barrel with a 1:11” twist that will get a lot out of the versatile .308 cartridge. It also comes with match grade iron sights (rear adjustable).

A lot of people might want to shit on this choice because “there are AR-10s that do everything this gun does, but better” or that it’s too heavy at 9.3 pounds or not accurate enough without a free-float barrel. That’s all good. You spend your magic gun money however you want.

I want this walnut-stocked tank of a semi-auto .308. And my sailboat.

And if you know how to use it, this rifle can be capable of long-range artistry, not to mention some mid-range brutality if necessary. — Benjamin Pennington