Went to a local gun show today more out of morbid curiosity than anything else. Didn't buy a single item. Prices were simply stupid, and people were lined up azzhole to elbow to buy. I couldn't help myself. I was literally laughing out loud as I went from table to table. The cheapest POS AR was $1800. Anything decent was approaching four grand. A thousand rounds of cheap .223 for over $900. One clown was selling beat up old .50 cal ammo cans for nearly $30 each. I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG time!

Someone could sure have mine for that money.

This is a repeat of the second week of November, 2008. Prices and panic the same.

i will be avoiding gunshows and gunstores for at least 6 months. fortunately i have all i need in that area.

The good news is they are going to cancel the gun ban. Seems there's nothing left......

Nothing like eating your own, eh?

We went to the local range here outside SA and the owner was selling his last AR (he builds them as well as very nice 1911's) for $1250. Nice gun with a 20" SS heavy barrel. Nice to see he wasn't in gauging mode. I am pretty pleased with the two I own so I passed hoping someone without may pick it up.

"We have met the enemy, and they are us."

At some point, these purchasers will be wanting to sell, and we'll hear that tired, old phrase, "Well, I've got $X,XXX.00 in it." Like that should matter to the prosective buyer? (Of course, we all know that any firearm should appreciate each time it changes hands.)

He must be the only guy in town who isn't gouging... which range, which guy? I'm also in SA. What upper/lower/barrel does he use? PM me if you like.

I don't feel sorry for anyone that did not buy/stock up on stuff before this. I don't have much use for AR's or high capacity mags but I own plenty because everyone should have seen this coming.

Dink

There was actually quite a bit of entertainment value in it. Guys lined up, jockeying for position at the tables, practically salivating to part with their cash. Some of the overheard conversations were real gems...

Every time I looked at a seller, laughed out loud, and said, "REALLY?" they just shrugged their shoulders and smiled.

I have a small confession. I currently own ONLY ONE AR, which is used primarily for coyotes, and NO so-called high-cap magazines! Are you telling me I'm undergunned? Fresh meat for the zombies? Oh, the horror!

Of course, the other non-AR semiauto rifles I own might come as a rude surprise to some...

I had planned on going to the gun show in Columbus, GA next weekend but I'm surely having second thoughts about it. I think I'm gonna pass.

I would have had to break out an AK or AR and walk around the show like the pied piper saying "no habla englis" everytime someone asked if I was selling it.

I was going today just to look. Heard stories on line that most ammo is gone. Show was a mad house etc.
Try again in the morning, just looking really don't need a thing. This is Fort Worth show.

Not even close...the prices this time around are a lot more than 2008

When the time comes to use them, I will pick mine up out in the street.

I haven't been to a Gun Show in years. They are all rip off deals. Besides I really don't need more, I think I need less. Getting to old to use them all,but I love them like a child of mine.

No. What I am saying is if having AR's is important to you you should have been buying them long before now. If having a case of Pmags was important to you they should have been bought long before now.

If those things were important to you and now you mad because of the high prices you have no one to blame but yourself.

Dink

I picked up an AR upper Daniel Defense from MIdway in the past few days. It was normal price. Would have preferred a complete rifle, but that ain't happening now. I still have another lower in need of completion, so that oughta do it.

One shop still had a few Pmags at a slightly inflated, but not horrible price. I got a few more, and a couple more Glock mags.

I'd sort of like to get a high cap .40 something, but it's not a high priority.

Hopefully people are dumping useful things like Ruger #1's and such, in their panic

Everyone willing to pay the current market rates is getting exactly what they deserve. I don't wait until my house is on fire to shop for homeowner's insurance and I don't wait until an induced "crisis" to decide that I need to buy firearms, ammunition, and reloading supplies.

Me either, I will wait a year or two from now and pick up these same rifles for 800 bucks.

I will say I'm slightly pissed about the current run on AR stuff. I've been haunting the AR15 classifieds for a used RRA middy barrel to come up for about a month and a half. I've missed 2 in that time period. Stuff usually doesn't last long there but recently it's been ridiculous. The prices are unbelievable too. BCGs are apparently in short supply, because they are selling in seconds for 3 times what I could but them for 2 months ago (and did).

I think it is awesome myself. It shows that a lot of people always wanted a good weapon, 'just in case', and that case has now arrived. Capitalism at work. The fools parting with their money obviously have some to work with, as most transactions I've seen this week have been cash only. It benefits the economy and the morale of the country, both now and into the future. This is the best response to happen for gunowners in a long time.

Who knew "0" could still really stimulate the economy?

If fools are willing to buy something at any price, how can you blame the seller for asking "any price?"

Well right up until and sometimes after the shooting, you could get perfectly serviceable AR's at Walmart for very reasonable prices.

I went to the gunshow in Kansas City yesterday. AR's and like guns were literally through the roof. $3000-4000. I did not see one reasonably priced. The closest thing was an SKS for $600-700. The price on it was probably double, but since they were relatively cheap beforehand, it doesn't seem that bad at this point.

I saw NO thirty round clips. One vendor had a decent supply of twenty rounders for $24.95 apiece. That doesn't seem too terribly bad to me, given the situation. Ammo was available, but I don't know what the prices were. High capacity pistols seemed abundant but I can't speak to the magazine situation with them.

Most of the assault rifles that were left were sub-par, at least in appearance. I've bought such guns before and they were fine after a cleanup, but they weren't cherried out guns for the most part. I did see two very pretty AR's. I don't know what brand they were but I saw the same ones, I think, at Tulsa a few weeks back. They were about doubled in price at $3000, IIRC.

The parts situation wasn't dire, but they looked somewhat sparse. The ones I priced though, were a lot less spendy than the guns themselves. I bought a set of cheap BUIS' for $65 and that's as cheap as you'd have gotten them for awhile now.

That has been my impression at every gun show since '08, Windage.

I wish now I had stock piled a few crates of "black rifles"
to trade for M1's,M1A's
or great old single shots!

It goes back much farther than '08. Perhaps I'm now officially an "old-timer", but I can remember the craziness during the original ban. I hadn't been attending gunshows too many years before that one, so maybe it goes way back or maybe that was the beginning of it. One thing that boggles the mind is that the market never seems to be saturated and people never seem to run out of money.

As to trading for stuff. Forget about the M-1's and M1A's, etc. They are in the same boat as AR's. So are SKS' and the like. People who deal in antique guns are generally disdainful of AR's and usually won't trade for them. You'd have to sell it and then buy. I don't know how many times some old fogey at a table who didn't want to trade would tell me "you can sell it and then come back". No shixt Sherlock. Advice like that virtually assures that I won't come back if I do sell what I'm carrying. It is for damned sure that these same dealers who are selling at these prices won't give the same money for things you've got to trade, let alone the guys who deal in antiques and normally won't trade. They for sure ain't trading at double what the price was two weeks previously.

This is the time to be a seller, not a buyer. Has no one heard the ancient stock market mantra "buy low, sell high"?

RS

"no habla Ingles" might not help ya around here, try Greek

I don't have an AR either, but I do understand they are ideal for routine coyote and hog control, all in all a near-perfect carbine for anyone on a ranch, that goes in spades for anywhere near the Border.

Birdwatcher

Birdwatcher

well, I sorted wanted one of these, guess I'll wait awhile...

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=322671571

Saw and held the 901 month or so ago here in FW. Selling price was 200 above the high retail. $2400 what they wanted.
Turns out it might of been a good buy if you could sell for that kind of money.
Just got back from the FWorth show.
No ammo (very small amount) Very few AR type. Had a laugh at the $1200 people wanted for the AK's.
Many brought in AR's for sale, $2500 range. People carrying 3 at a time trying to sale for that price.
Even 91/30 Russian for $300.
Guess lots of new people were out and about looking and buying weapons. Oh, pmags 30 rounds $50.00 bucks each.

Another gun show next weekend, wonder where the vendors will replace sold items in only one week.
But most all vendors that sold AR's and ammo were smiling and happy. Some ammo vendors didn' even show up today.

I laughed my fanny off at the 2008 Panic and have to shake my head in wonder at the dumpluckitude currently under way.
I'm "good" for now, if I ever need more than I have now, then I'll be dead anyway.
But 600 for an SKS is outrageous, and anything over 800 for a basic model AR is too much. And 900 bucks for a case of Barfy ammo?
I'm looking forward to the next show, just for the sociological education.

Gun shows around here have been a joke for 20 years.. Crap offered at 'new' prices, and new items offered at MSRP+++

I gave up on 'em years ago..

It's really sad; back as far as the late 70's and early 80's, one could go to a gun show and it was FUN! A whole bunch of guns from a myriad of dealers, and almost all at rock-bottom prices. You could get great guns at prices you couldn't find anywhere else. Then the largest retailers began to set up 10 ~ 15 tables and charge MSRP on everything, and there were people walking around with an abortion of a rifle slung over their shoulder asking 2 ~ 3 times what it was really worth. Later in the gun show timeline you had to be exceedingly lucky to find a good deal on a firearm you wanted to buy. Gun shows have become commercialized; they're no fun to go to any longer.

Occassionally we have a small gun show here, in Illinois of all places, where the tables are mainly rented by guys selling their personal collections. Those are fun to go to.

I swear some of these people that have tables at gun shows just do it for something to do. Some of the vendors try to actively move stuff, some there are sitting on guns so long the white tags with the prices on them are turning yellow. Make you wonder why they drag the stuff back every year.

There is one show in Montgomery that I usually go to but it's usually to buy components without having to deal with the HAZMAT fees. I will buy a rifle or handgun if something catches my eye. Lately I'm getting more interested in the lever rifles for some reason......one that is at least .35 caliber.

The only reason I've gone to a gun show in about the last 10 years was to look/buy a new handgun. Normally the ones here will have nearly every model of new models in every finish etc...Easy to compare them all, and normally at or below anything you find at a retail store and don't have to pay the handgun shipping. Other than that it's been a waste of time.

Same thing happens here in Iowa and Missouri when you stay away from the metro areas. I've got some fine deals on antiques, which I prefer, recently.

Good guns are where you find them. Sometimes the shows - sometimes shops. It is the crowd rather than the prices that I find ammusing.

I could care less about an AR - probably spent too much time carrying them for real. But as a result, have always found the cammo'd up wannabe crowd patently ridiculous. Even saw a advert the other day that buying some AR or the other earned you a "man card". Right. The really ridiculous ones here in the commonwealth are our militia. They have a booth at all the gun shows and are really into the stern for away stare look - those who could see over their guts. Would love to have had one of those boys in the back end of a C-130 at o'dark thiry over Sicily DZ - or better yet - Panama.

They have invaded one of my favorite gunshops as well. Black BDU trousers, harness and para-boots (Doc Martins?), and all the earnest talk preparing for the pending end of times. As if anyone of them would last an hour against a regimental combat team from the 82d if it ever came down to it.

I am all for anyone buying an AR who wants one (as long as they are reasonably sane). But I am getting a little concerned about the belief in a fantasy world to which so many seem to believe a battle rifle provides some sort of access.

I was into antiques for a long time. The problem is what somebody already hinted at previously, the same guys with the same guns. I've seen some of the older guys drag around guns that they must've had for twenty years. It would be comical if a lot of these oldsters didn't have enough money to pretty much drive the marketplace. They'll just buy a gun and shop it around for years saying stuff like, "you can't ever pay too much for a gun, just too soon," and whatnot. Well some of them bought theirs damned early.

IMO, a lot of people on the outside of the aisles have done as much as Walmart and the government, to drive gunshop owners out of business. "I can get that same gun at the show in two weeks for a hundred less," and the like. I've been an FFL holder and a regular guy and I'm as much to blame as anybody, but the fact of the matter is that you can't run a gun business with a for real storefront at cost plus 10%.

The latest, greatest gunstore around here is run by a guy who actually has a fair-sized shop at his house. It's now in a building separate from his home and is pretty danged nice. The problem from the buyer's point of view, is that he won't keep any stock. At any given time he's got maybe two dozen guns. His thing is ordering you a gun. And he won't trade. His prices on an order are indeed, extremely low. And he provides a great service AND he is a great guy. In the end though, all he's doing is making money off the government's own penchant for laws and regulations. $20 a gun for an order. If he was in something other than an outbuilding in his yard, he couldn't make it.

The little shows are a crap shoot IMO. Some are great and some are a waste of time. The big shows have so much stuff that even in times like these, you can always find something to make you part with your dinero.

Things like this do aggravate me to an extent. I bought a stash of lowers a while back just in case. Figuring I could buy the parts whenever.

Right now I"m on a deer hunting rifle build and I guess I"m glad I can scrounge parts off other guns to build this upper.

But then again I don't need this one, I simply want it. I can grab a BCG from another gun, strip an upper off a test bed upper and so on. Aggravating for sure, but at this point thats about all .gov is good for, to piss me off and aggravate me.

I'll go if I need a laugh.

I really appreciate the small town shows as well: Low or no admission fee, no parking fee and great deals!!! The big shows are bogus and expensive.

I'm guessing i could sell my AR'S , since i have 5 complete AR's which would be considered custom on the market and two new lowers which will be complete in a week and buy myself a new truck . Nah , will keep them , don't need another truck.