Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Buying a Used Gun From Cabela’s?

How did your experience go? How were they with trades?

I found 3 different rifles I’m interested in on the used rack. The prices didn’t turn my crank but the customer service indicated they’re not necessarily firm. Two of them were about $250 high.

I have bought many used guns from Cabela's, never had a bad experience from the sales staff though have waited a life time or two waiting to get through the paperwork more than once. They have been decent on price negotiation if the gun had been sitting long enough- I once talked them down on a rifle to where it was $200 less than I sold it to them. It had sat on their shelf for nearly three years at that point. That was $1300 less than they had it originally marked.

Most of the time I paid the asking price as I felt the price was at least fair if not favorable to me. This is especially true when they have a sale on used guns, typically $100 on guns $500 or more. Or it was something I wanted really badly and rarely saw elsewhere.

I have sold few guns to them as I can do much better myself. They do not "trade" but buy your gun and put the proceeds towards your purchase. I have not seen a great change in value between an outright sale and a "trade", maybe 10% on a good day on guns over ~$1500. I have done far better selling at gunshows or online.

I’ve never had any luck purchasing a gun from Cabela’s Gun Library and I’ve tried several times. It’s been my impression that Gun Library staff are more interested in the sport of gouging sellers of guns than they are than they are at interacting with gun buyers. My in-person gun purchase inquires have been met with wholly unqualified arrogance and condescension. Gun Library staff have almost universally presented themselves as rude, abrasive, dismissive and patronizing. Amazingly Cabela’s hiring managers have staffed all six Cabela’s Gun Libraries I’ve been to with the same unique personality type. To be clear, I’ve never engaged nor have I known anyone personally who’s engaged a Cabela’s Gun Library to sell or trade guns. However, on multiple occasions while waiting to discuss gun purchases, I’ve witnessed sellers bullied and in one case humiliated buy Cabela’s Gun Library representatives. I was disgusted by what I saw.

I've only purchased one from them, my Beretta AL391 shot gun. It was priced pretty well to begin with but the employee hinted they could do better. Saved about 15% by the time I walked out. Paperwork took longer than I'm used to but it wasn't horrible. I've never tried to sell them anything.

Bought quite a few from them. Sometimes you can get to a good price, sometimes not. Just like any used gun shop. They are limited on how much they can drop the price by how long they've had it. Starts at about 5%, climbs to 10% unless it's been there forever.

I've never had any luck trying to get them to drop their price. I've bought several used guns from them. Usually they're a hundred dollars too high. I've tried to bring in trades but they beat the living hell out of me on trades. What makes me mad is when they have a gun I really want and I can't work anything out with them and I won't pay their sticker price.

Gotten a couple good deals from them. Bought a Kleinguenther K-15 improved from them for 400.00. Bought a Keith Stegall 7 mag for 1200.00

They sometimes don’t know what they have.

Bingo.. That's most of what I've bought from them. When they know what they have, they are usually at the high end of retail. But once in a while.. They goof. For example, picked up a couple pristine Savage 99's priced way low because they thought they were refinished, a "paint" Savage handgun for cheap because they thought it was just a normal model with crap bluing, etc.

They used to price things by the blue book, now it's more common for them to price by gunbroker plus a bit.

But for every deal I get, there's probably 20 guns that I'd like that are overpriced. Just gotta watch their inventory.

Locally they want to give you about 60% of what they think they can sell it for.

Bought a Ruger MKII laminate/stainless .223 with a Burris FFII 3-9x BP for $476 back in 2014. Have seen few others I thought were attractively priced and have bought none since.

Bought a couple "Bubba" 98's from them here and there, spotless actions already modded for scope for $200 each. Gotta be patient and hit 'em up when they are overstocked, right after gun deer season is a good time. As far as selling to them, depends on what you can convince them it's worth, they'll offer you 40-60% of what they think they can sell it for, just like most shops.

Never sold to them. Have bought several over the counter and three thru the gun library. It's a bit of a process getting them shipped from one store to the other, but I got what I thought were good deals on the guns (two K22's and one Ljutic trap gun).

I think they've told me that corporate has set their purchase price to be 62% (rounded to nearest whatever) of what they are going to price it at.

Heard last night from the local gun library guys that the new Bass Pro management is telling the gun libraries to price guns to sell, they don't want guns sitting around for a year or three. So that's bad news to sell, but might be good news to buy. Haven't seen any chance in pricing tho.

I have just bought used guns with no issues. I have never traded but heard they try to lowball major fashion on your end.

I have bought a couple, there pricing is so so around here. Every know and then there is a deal to be had. Twice I asked for an appraisal for selling to them and both times the offer was around a half what would be a fairly quick sale here on the campfire. The last one was a Ruger African in Like new condition and I think the offer was $290 or $300, something like that.

If they have something you like and the price is ok go for it, as for selling the campfire or Gunbroker seems a better route to getting a fair price.

The fellow at the gun library told me they would give 60% of what they thought they could sell the gun for so at least he was very straight forward about it. I think they get a lot of estate and "widow selling the guns" type stuff from people who don't want the hassle and BS of trying to haggle with some dealer over things they don't know the value of to begin with.

On buying used guns he was also very straight forward about pricing. Their price is their price, if the gun doesn't sell in 30 days they will negotiate but he didn't say they come down any set amount. If the gun has sat around for some indeterminate "long time" they'll lower the asking price on the sticker.

Mostly they seem to want high end dollars for the used stuff although I have bought one or two used guns from them. Rarely buy anything new since Sportsman's Warehouse or on line dealers beat them by a fair amount. Bought a used plain jane but great shape Ruger .357 Blackhawk which was priced right since I imagine it had sat in the case for long time. They recently cleared out all of the Ruger No. 1 stock nationwide so I picked up a NIB 1S for a price I hadn't seen in ten years or more.

+1 regarding Cabela's Gun Library offering only 60% of a guns value, their prices are over the moon. I seldom see the inventory of the gun library change, same stuff every time I visit the store. The Gun Library Manager at the local Cabela's is not all that knowledgeable about gun prices, most times he reaches for one of the price guides and then offers 60%. Gander Mtn. on the other hand seemed easier to buy used guns from, more reasonably priced and willing to negotiate.

Bought four NIB Beretta shotguns that were mis priced by over $500 per copy. Got three then went back for another. As I was paying for the last one, a supervisor snapped. As I left he instructed the clerk to immediately correct the error and raise the price on the remaining stock.

Jack

I had a similar conversation with the local Cabelas guys as well. They were complaining that they had a very low inventory of used guns, and had a hard time getting new used stock in. I told them that maybe they should consider offering more than 60% of anticipated retail for inbound trades/buys. Just a year or so ago they were offering around 67% on trades, which seemed fair to me. Not sure if this is due to the Bass Pro acquisition though.

Also agree with another poster on both their new and used guns normally being somewhat overpriced. Every now and then you can find some significantly under-priced gems, but I don't go out of my way to stop by there anymore.

Thanks guys. I think I'll skip the trading and sell my rifles on here. Priced correctly, I've not had an issue on here.

Only bought one from them. Dakota 76 Alpine. Should have kept the #1 I traded. Only got $300 for it. But, I've always had good conversations at the gun library in Hamburg, PA, and have seen them treat others well.