Pretty Vs Ugly

I’ve been chatting with MBtGE about Pretty Guns vs Ugly Guns. He realize he had few pretty guns and wanted one.

I argued he DID have pretty guns. His Ruger and S&W revolvers, both stainless, are handsome enough. Sure, you can get nicer esthetic lines in something else, like the Colt Python. THAT’s a pretty gun.

He was thinking more on the lines of FANCIFIED pretty, and he sent me a link to after market lacewood shotgun stocks with glass smooth varnish, bright and smooth, and as shiny as the sun, and some of the severest deep figure in the wood grain I’ve seen anywhere.

But you don’t need to go fancy-wood, floral engraved receivers and mother of pearl inlay to be a pretty gun.

First, what’s ugly? Assuming it’s a gun not beat up with excessive use, as that will uglifiy any weapon, ugly is something like Hi-Point or some of the Kel-Tec. No offense to fans of those lines. They are a good value for the money, and there are people that swear up and down about the function, and I may even get one or two, but aesthetically? No. They look slapped together to me. Proportionality is all off.

The M2 Grease Gun, a sub-machine gun made out of stamped metal at General Motor’s headlamp division is ugly.

Japanese WW2 rifles and pistols are ugly, generally, and got uglier later in the war.

Russian stuff from the same era is ugly, though the later, AK-47, stuff has a certain charm, and good lines. It’s iconographic status may transcend any ugliness.

Now Pretty.

If you compare a Springfield 03 to Garand, in similar condition, the wood and lines of the 03 are more elegant and graceful looking. But both are pretty guns. Maybe it’s because I like walnut wood so much.

I’ll even concede the Glock has some attractiveness in a sparse-Bauhaus-furniture kind of way.

.22 target pistols, with the form fitting big grips are so pretty they are sexy. All from the lines. Add wood grain instead of bright green synthetics and you get even prettier.

My bet is MBtGE will get a nice stocked gun or replace a stock for something he has. Something with a thumbhole - vice a pistol grip. Generally, they are made from a type of plywood laminate. I don’t know if those are pretty or not, but I bet I can be convinced.