I agree that auctions allow many more folks to get into the guns that they otherwise would never even be able to handle in person but also think that in rifles, bore condition is too subjective. Subjective as to the sellers experience in looking at bores and also subjective as to whether the rifle will shoot satisfactorily with said bore condition. Im sure we all have crappy bores which shoot quite well, right?
What I genuinely loath, is pure laziness on the part of the seller or auction house. My Westley match rifle had a bore report which was not complimentary but after cleaning and shooting some PP loads, it actually looks quite nice and shoots very well. I think the crappy bore condition report kept it from selling at auction (Julias) and if they had bothered to give it a decent cleaning, it would have sold at auction for more than I paid for it at the post auction sale.
Even at shows, I am shocked by the number of rifles which have clearly not been cleaned in years! You damn near need to bring a kit with you to get a good idea of the bores sometimes!
I have come out on the upside more often than not in this regard, luckily, but as SKB says, if you know what you are buying and buy it right (at your comfortable bid) you will be all right. He has the benefit of being a smith whom understands what he is buying and has the ability to right the wrongs of the gun as well.
Also, you will notice that, generally, the sellers who go to the trouble of thoroughly describing a gun and it's bore are usually the guys whom have been selling from before the internet era. Gentlemen like George Caswell do a great job describing his guns on offer because he came from an era when a lot of sales were made based on a printed catalog description, often with no pictures at all.
