Gunshow June 2013

[Niner]

Went to one in Mobile, Alabama today. I went around 10 AM to avoid the crush. Still hundreds and hundreds of people and the parking lot and the multi acre field next to it were nearly filled.

The frenzy seems to have slackened a bit from a couple of months ago. No long line to get into the door. There were plenty of black rifles of the M15 clone type for sale. The prices ran from around $750 to into the thousands depending on who made them and how they were tricked out. The milsurps seemed to be in a holding pattern on price. 91/30 Nagants were pretty much all $150. The M1 Carbines...not real plentiful...but still hovering around the long standing $700 mark. Enfields around $300, and Mausers, depending on what ...from junker sporters to K98K's were any price from $120 on up. Plenty of civilian shotguns and more than a few BP arms of actual historic vintage at mostly fair prices.

There were loading components and plenty of ammo...at high prices. The pound containers of powder...in assorted brands of unknown desirability as a choice for reloading particular calibers... were priced from $17.95 to $24.00 for the most part.. and not a bargain, but not a rip off either.

The largest surprise to me was the SKS rifles of all sources..Chinese being the most noticed. Whatever country of origin, they were being priced at from $399 to $600! The most seen price was $450. Seems totally over priced. However, if you consider the number of people that seem to be wanting a "semi-auto" military class rifle now days it's not all that surprising. A Chinese SKS has to have a better "quality" than many of the lower end, more expensive, M15 Clones made from an assembly of parts and offered as new rifles. And... the SKS was designed to accept a much more forgiving manufauture tollerance to function in a reliable way....and the ammo in 7.62x39 is still cheaper than what the M15's shoot.

[ian27]

Looks to have been a great show Robert!!! Alas we will never have anything like that here with our restrictions. But at least we still have handguns unlike the rest of the U.K

[DaveGreen1954]

Had a show in Raleigh today. Lots of vendors, not much of a crowd.
Large rifle primers were very scarce to nonexistent, Plenty of others, though. Powder was available from a number of vendors.
Ammo was in abundance. The short supply calibers (.22 Long Rifle) was there but still pricey. Everything else has calmed down for the most part. Mostly foreign manufactured ammo ruled the day with the throw-away steel cases. I did score some of my favorite Romanian 7,92X57. I like these because the berdan primed cases are easy to decap and reload and they're brass.

I found everything on my list except a Meprolight M21. Forgot my jug of Hoppes No.9 so I'll go back again tomorrow.