10 Coolest Guns Under $300

Most people don’t realize there are even guns available for under $300, and it’s a shame because a few of my favorite guns of all time are dirt cheap.

I’m going to cheat a little bit on this list with a few guns that you could buy for $300 cash plus maybe a little plasma donation on your way to the gun shop, but all of these should be findable for under $300 or just barely over the line.

Military Surplus Rifles (M91 Carcano)

When I was a kid, every sporting goods store had piles of cheap Mosin Nagant rifles for as little as $90. Today, those same rifles go for around $500. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great milsurp options available.

One that I recently purchased is an M91 Carcano. For whatever reason, the Carcano has a reputation for being a poorly made gun, but I say any milsurp gun under $200 that has survived a world war plus nearly 100 years of storage… is a pretty decent rifle.

The only trouble with the Carcano is finding ammunition. If you see it in stock, buy it up.

Tokarev TBP12 Bullpup Tactical Shotgun

No gun collection is complete without a sweet-looking tactical shotgun in the gun safe. The Tokarev TBP12 definitely fits that bill. Not only does it cost under $300, it’s actually a pretty good shotgun. It’s super reliable and well-constructed for the price.

The Tokarev boasts an 18.5″ stainless barrel chambered for 3″ 12-gauge shells. It includes a 5-round magazine, but any red-blooded American would immediately throw that out and buy a 20-round drum magazine. Why? Because 20 is a higher number than 5.

Many of the controls and accessories are familiar to AR shooters such as the flip-up sights and the AR-style safety. It also has an M1913 optics rail if you want to add an LPVO.

Hilariously, this bullpup tactical shotgun also includes a choke tube kit with full and modified choke tubes and a wrench–as if someone is going to take this thing out skeet shooting. Wait… that might be me. Sounds fun.

You can order the Tokarev TBP-12 on Midway USA.

Heritage Roughrider 16″

For under $200, you can pick up the Heritage Roughrider 16″. It’s a 22lr pistol with an extremely long barrel. Given its barrel length, this pistol technically is a rifle in the eyes of the law.

The gun itself is always a hit at the range when I bring it out. My favorite part, however, is that the gun isn’t just a gimmick. It’s incredibly accurate. I compared it to 7 other 22lr pistols, and I was able to shoot the best groups with this little cheap pistol. The secret to the accuracy is not actually the long barrel, but the long sight radius, or distance between the rear and front sight, which allows for more precise aiming.

Many of the controls and accessories are familiar to AR shooters such as the flip-up sights and the AR-style safety. It also has an M1913 optics rail if you want to add an LPVO.

Taurus G3C

The Taurus G3C is an amazing pistol for the price. At around $250, it’s absolutely a buy if you don’t already have a reliable concealed carry pistol.

It doesn’t matter what ammo you throw at the Taurus, it just eats and spits. I’ve never had any reliability or feeding issues with my Taurus.

The trigger travel is long, and for some people the grip is a little uncomfortable depending on hand size, but I have always felt like if this pistol wore branding from a different handgun manufacturer, they could charge twice the price and nobody would think twice about it.

Trek-22

Most shooters have a Ruger 10/22 somewhere in their gun safe. It’s often the first gun people buy. If you already have one, putting it in a Trek-22 chassis is an awesome upgrade that’ll cost you less than $300.

It turns your regular Ruger 10/22 into a bullpup, which shortens it from 37″ stock, down to just 27″ in total length.

Not only will it make the gun more compact, it comes with a ton of cool features: a much upgraded flat-blade trigger, magazine storage right in the chassis, an optics rail, and M-lok. It’s pretty cool.

Altor Single Shot

$99. Yep, $99. You can either order 16 Big Mac Meals, or you can go buy an Altor Single Shot pistol and not balloon up to 300lbs.

The Altor is a gimmick gun. Nobody would use this for serious range time–and especially not for personal defense. Yet, it’s a fun gun to test out.

The gun works by removing the barrel, setting in one round of 9mm, and pulling the trigger. The gun doesn’t go off when the trigger is pulled, but when it’s released, which springs the firing pin forward to hit the primer.

Personally, I think this gun is dangerous. I’m sure engineers have been over the design so it won’t blow up. That’s not the concern. The problem is when a gun works so differently than conventional standards, people end up using it wrong and it can create a dangerous situation–especially with how the trigger works.

I own one and it’s cool, but please be extremely careful letting anyone use this gun who doesn’t first understand how it works.

CVA Scout

This is another gun that will require that quick trip to donate plasma before you buy the gun. Mine cost $350, so technically it’s cheating to include it in this blog post, but it’s still a very inexpensive gun. You can order the CVA Scout online at Midway USA.

The CVA Scout is a single-shot break-barrel rifle design that comes in a variety of chamberings, but I think the rifle really shines in .300 Blackout. This cartridge is great for tactical shooting or personal defense because it can be shot subsonic and still works in an AR-15’s action.

The cool thing about a CVA Scout in .300 Blackout is that it is ultra quiet with subsonic ammunition. There are basically three things that cause loud sounds when a gun is fired (1) the bullet breaking the sound barrier, and (2) the high-pressure gasses behind the bullet suddenly being exposed to the atmosphere, and (3) the action of the gun loudly opening and closing such as on an AR.

You can make the CVA Scout truly Hollywood quiet because of its design. (1) You won’t have the bullet breaking the sound barrier because you can shoot subsonic (slow) ammunition in .300 Blackout. (2) You can reduce the sound of the high pressure gasses by using a suppressor, although it’s still very quiet without a suppressor. (3) There’s zero action noise because this is a single-shot design.

I made a video showing how quiet the CVA Scout is. Check it out below on the Backfire Youtube Channel and then be sure to subscribe!

AR Lower

The “lower” on an AR is the center piece of the firearm below the action that has the gun’s serial number on it. To purchase a lower, you go through the same process you would to purchase a typical firearm, but this just just a piece of an AR and only costs between $70 – $120.

So why buy just a small piece of a gun? Because once you have your lower, in most states you can simply buy the other parts and have them mailed right to your door. You can purchase different parts over time as your budget allows.