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Ugly gun, is okay. In fact, it'd be one less thing to worry about.

I never like Glock, never owned.
I do not buy beat up firearms too.
You can enjoy yours. My guns are like Man's Jewellery.

my guns just need to be reliable.

I don't think anyone has ever accused most of my guns of being pretty. They start with painted ARs and go downhill from there

I have one gun I'd call pretty, and that's a 1950s Browning takedown 22 that I inherited from my dad, who inherited it from his dad. Only two other guns have sentimental value (and both are ugly), the rest are strictly function over form.

I’ve carried many different handguns and reliability, capacity and my ability to shoot them well are the things I consider. I tend to lean toward Glock because of their proven reliability, low cost and availability of parts and accessories.

Smooth function and reliability are a beauty all their own. A pretty gun that doesn't work, handles like a brick, and/or has a crappy trigger isn't very pretty.

But that gets into what makes a gun beautiful. If it was just a block of inert metal with a nice finish and machine work, we wouldn't care much for it. It is the functional shape, the good workmanship, elegant design, and smooth function that make a gun beautiful. Even a Glock has some of those features.

I like reliable over pretty. However, I have to admit, seeing as I like the 1911 platform, I have a few "pretty" 1911's. The closest thing to a "pretty" rifle or shotgun I have is a Weatherby Mark V Safari in a .340 mag that was my mothers gift to my dad back in the 70's. It is now mine and I have only shot it a handful of times but I keep it pristine. It gets cleaned, along with a very few of my other guns every couple of months just because.

Just about everything I have now is matte finished, non reflective, fiberglass stocked. I gave up bougie bougie for all weather performance long ago. I see firearms as tools, not as ornaments.

I have owned two Weatherby Mark Vs, one in .270 Weatherby Magnum and one in .300 Weatherby Magnum. Both of them had beautiful wood, a blued finish you could read a newspaper off of, and both of them shot sub-MOA out to 300 yards with Weatherby factory ammunition. I also carried them back and forth to the deer blind in hard cases :). I sold them.

If you want to see ugly guns that perform, go shoot a USPSA match sometime and look at a Master Class or Grand Master Class shooter's gun. They are not pretty because they get shot or handled(dry fire, mag changes, holster presentations) literally every day. Shooting in a match against somebody with a purty gun doesn't worry me as much as shooting against somebody with a ugly gun.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

I like my guns to be reliable, accurate, ergonomic, and pretty in that order. Sometimes better ergonomics can also make a gun "prettier", as with a 1911's rounded top slide that helps with concealment and just happens to look better (to me) than a blocky gun like a Glock.

That said, I also want all of my guns to be usable. They can't be so pretty that I am afraid of taking them out of the safe and putting them in a holster, or carrying them through underbrush (for hunting rifles).

A while back, I was looking for an SP-101 and found an engraved model for around $10 more than the basic model (both were new). I almost passed on the engraved model just because I might be afraid to use it. I ended up with a compromise. I bought the engraved model and gave it to my wife as a present. Given that she isn't a huge fan of guns (but does want one available "just in case"), it won't be leaving her bedside safe much, if at all. I can tell myself that I'm not carrying it because I want it to always be available to her.

All my guns are pretty!

This is where my older brother and I diverge wildly. I choose all my firearms for function, pretty is way down the list*. Every firearm he's ever bought I think has gone to the engraver before the range.

*I do this with vehicles too. Drives the salesmen crazy.

Mine are rugged and reliable. I think they're beautiful, too.

No reason a rock solid, accurate and reliable gun can't be pretty... I often carry what I consider to be a very "pretty" STI... although it was already pretty, before it was proven!

On the other hand, a reliable accurate gun is pretty in my eyes. So yes, even a PF9 can be pretty... if it runs like a singer and hits the mark.

Pretty is as pretty does.

puma guy wrote:All my guns are pretty!

Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with these other guys.