Has someone ever described a gun as having a “soul?’ It’s not something we hear often, and it typically involves an older firearm. A gun, like a car, having a soul is a completely nebulous concept. It’s not found in a spec sheet or a manual of arms. It’s part of the appreciation of the machine.
Getting to the Heart and Soul of the Machine
How old does a gun need to be to have a soul? It’s arguable, but currently, the general timeline for guns with soul tends to end around the time Glock took over the market.
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Guns all went from being a little different and unique to all essentially trying to capture Glock’s magic in a bottle. That’s not a slight at Glock, it’s just an evaluation of the market. It’s tough to see a polymer frame, striker-fired, double-stack 9mm, and think it has this nebulous concept of soul to it.
Glock represented a shift in firearms design. It created a funnel in the market, squeezing it into what’s essentially one type of modern duty pistol. Arguably, the same can be said for revolvers. As wood grips and blued finish made way for polymer grips and matte or stainless design, a little of the soul of these guns was lost.
What Is Soul?
Soul, when it comes to firearms, goes beyond our expectations for modernity. Soul comes in many forms, and often combines these forms.
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One is obviously aesthetics. Guns these days all look largely the same. Guns from yesteryear had distinct looks, shapes, and feels. The curves of a CZ-75, the brutalist look of the HK Mk23, and the sleek design of the Walther PPK give them an incredibly distinct look.
Next is the sensory language these guns provide. They are different; each and every one tends to be slightly different. This provides a different sensory language we can experience. This can be the kachunk trigger of a S&W 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Gen, or the ping of an M1 Garand. Don’t get me started on the feeling of a rabbit ear trigger on an old double-barreled shotgun.
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As we get into older guns, there is something soulful about a hand-built gun. When you get into turn-of-the-century firearms and earlier, there is soul to the work it took to produce. All of these guns were the products of skilled tradesmen with remarkable talent. It’s a living history we can experience every time we press the trigger.
The soul of a firearm is an intangible value. We see soul in a gun’s aesthetic distinction, its sensory feedback, and the human effort it took to produce the gun. That drives us to pay a premium for a gun that doesn’t perform as well as a modern gun, but is somehow still worth the investment.
The Idea of Wabi-Sabi
I always think battlefield finishes are lame. You and your gun should earn its stripes. A lot of the time, guns with soul are often a celebration of the concept of Wabi-Sabi. Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese concept that is centered on finding beauty in imperfection.
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There is an honesty that a beat-up old gun maintains. We aren’t talking about cracked frames or pitted rust. Rather, we are focused on the wear a well-maintained gun earns through use. The loss of bluing around the edges of a pistol from years of being carried. The dirt and grime that inevitably stains wood grips after years of use.
One of my favorite things is when an old gun has been modified by the end user. I’m not talking about Bubba’s Dremel, but practical changes that made sense. I have an old Remington 31 in 20 gauge, the famed ball bearing repeater. The barrel has been trimmed back slightly, and the stock shortened to create a light and handy 20-gauge shotgun.
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In my mind, someone took this old gun to a gunsmith and had the stock and barrel shortened to make it easier to use for a smaller shooter. My head cannon being a grandfather aiming to lighten and shorten the gun for a grandson to take hunting.
Those little imperfections that might kill historical value, but they add to the soul of the gun.
The Soul Is the Draw
As a gun community, what draws us to a firearm? We typically examine factors like reliability, capacity, modularity, accuracy, and price. That’s what will drive most of our purchases in the world of firearms. It’s how we choose our daily carry, our home defense, and duty firearms.
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Those make sense, but what doesn’t often make any sense is choosing a firearm for its soul. Yet, we do it. We do it enough that the gun industry embraces it from time to time. Remember the year of the Hi-Power? That time when Springfield Armory, FN, and numerous Turkish companies unleashed a new generation of Hi-Power pistols?
In the modern era, a Hi-Power doesn’t make a ton of sense as a duty or defensive firearm, but as an industry, we’re drawn to the gun’s design. Much like feeling drawn to a classic sports car. It doesn’t make sense from a performance standpoint, but we still love it.
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Soul is why guns like the S&W Third Gen series are only going up in price. Sure, a lack of availability helps increase value, but there has to be some desire to collect them in the first place. There are plenty of guns out of production that remain cheap, but nearly impossible to find.
The Machine
Modern guns are a bit like modern cars and electronics. Press a button, and the thing happens. That’s fantastic from a usability and efficiency standpoint, but it lacks soul. The soul of a firearm doesn’t even make it a good gun; what it ultimately does is make it an interesting gun. A gun that you desire for reasons outside of accuracy, reliability, ease of use, and capacity.
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