It's been awhile since I made a trip to a gun show. There was one going on this weekend and I decided to drop the $3 for admission. I took Res Jr. Little boys receive the news of going to a gun show with a level of glee that boarders on orgasmic. They look forward to the gun show with nearly the same amount of enthusiasm as Christmas at grandmas. I mean at the good grandma's, you know the one, every family has one set of grandparents that outshines the other, well that's the one I'm talking about. My son has all the internal restraint of whirlwind. His energy and enthusiasm only lasts about 20 min, or until he discovers that cement floors are hard and he doesn't want to wait for daddy to look at some old something another when there is something cool he wants to see only half an acre away.
In other words, a good time was had by all, but I didn't get to over indulge in my sight seeing.
There were lots of vendors, many more than normal. About 25% of these were what I call arts and crafts people. Some of them had some cool looking stuff, but to me, a gun show is about guns and gun related stuff. A swap meet or flea market is where that stuff belongs. The one non-gun related table that seemed to be doing a brisk trade was the guy selling freeze dried foods of different kinds. Other than him, the guys who buy and sell antlers seemed busy, but most of the rest were just taking up space better suited for gun stuff.
The raffle tables were out in full force today as well. At least 5 tables of gun raffles for different guns etc. One table had a vet in a wheel chair setting out front showing his stump. Part of me wanted to just hand him $10, the other part wanted to walk away. I walked away.
One last vendor and visitor note. There were a number of out of state dealers and visitors. I saw several folks from Colorado. This is very unusual. Some of them drove from as far as Durango. The dealers were trying to unload guns and mags and the buyers were picking and choosing carefully but they seemed to have money to spend at the high capacity tables.
On the gun side: everything you could want was available to be had. The prices were higher than what I'd want to pay, but then again I've gotten very selective and I've never been big into the black gun thing. AR's were available from several manufactures prices ranged from an average of $1,600 for no frils rigs from major manufactures to about $2,100 for more specialized units. AK's were about $500 to $800. FN's in the $2,000 range. It looked like the only "assault" weapons getting the BIG bucks were the M1A1's those seemed to pull in about $2,700.
On the reloading front: primers were a bit scarce and those that could be had looked old. All your general use powders were available IMR, Hodgen, etc they seemed to be going for around $35/lb. Speciality bench rest stuff wasn't available and good handgun powders were hard to come by. Brass seemed a bit pricey and at one table they were confused about the term "new brass never fired". To me that means its factory new not shot once with the primers still in the pockets and carbon fouling visible on the brass. Then again I might be old fashioned and according to my wife, a bit of a curmudgeon. Regardless times aren't hard enough for me to shell out $22/100 of 223 brass.
I saw a real pretty set of elk horn grips for a 45 that I would have liked to have had, but I've got better uses for $140 these days. I didn't buy a thing, but there wasn't much I wanted for sale so that's ok.
Any ammo to be had? That has been in short supply here for months now. Even the gun shows are dry.
ReplyDeleteYes there was some ammo. 223 was running about 55 cents/each 308 was about 85cents/each, large case lots of over 1,000 rounds was cheaper. I didn't spend any time checking out the surplus 7.62x54r stuff but there were sealed cans for sale of that and SKS & AK ammo. Most of your normal hunting ammo could be had but I load my own so I don't pay attention to that.
ReplyDeleteThe one kind of ammo not for sale was 22lr. I wanted to pick up a brick or two but didn't see any.
Id like to pick up some lake city 5.56 green top for my "combat loads". I have a lot of crappy 55 gr noise makers but I wouldn't trust it if I absolutely had to have a first round hit.
ReplyDeletethe green tip is going for a buck each the last time I could find any and it was being sold in 10 round strips, unpackaged.
There was green tip for sale but I didn't check it out so I don't know what it was going for.
ReplyDeleteGreen tip is really good quality ammo. Certainly among the best our government has ever issued for military purposes.
ReplyDeleteThey had ammo cans full of the stuff. If I knew you wanted it I could have got it for you. There are still places out here that get powder too.
ReplyDeleteI have plenty of powder. A couple of pounds does last a long time. My limiting factor is bullets.
ReplyDeleteI've got a source for those too, its out of MT. They are behind in production but they send it out as soon as they get it done. You can order direct.
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