[yhtomit]

I'm excited, not having been to a gun show in several years now, and looking forward to what folks here have led me to believe will be a fun one.

Any other THR readers planning to be in attendance? If anyone would like to eat in common, pop a note here. (I myself might not be reading this thread before the show, but others might.)

timothy

[Mr White]

I thought the Harrisburg show was last weekend.

Edit:
I musta got wrong information. I checked MAAC's website and its tomorrow and Sunday.

The Harrisburg shows are pretty big. If you search hard enough you can usually find some good deals there. But don't go there expecting to find that elusive $500 Garand or that rare $350 M1 Carbine, cuz you definitely won't find them there. I think most things there are overpriced, and like any gun show, if you're looking to buy it, its one of a kind and was once carried by Dick Winters or Erwin Rommell or Jack O'Connor. If you're looking to sell it, the guy's seen 5 of them today, all in better shape and all for $100 less than what you're hoping to get.

[45Badger]

Enjoy, it's usually a pretty good show. I'm swamped tomorrow, but will try and make it up on Sunday.

[CannonFodder]

I'll be there tomorrow.

I'll be leaving Philly around 7:30 to get there by 9:30.

Any idea what the admission charge is?

[45Badger]

$8 admission (I'm pretty sure it's a MAAC show) and $5 for parking. You can find off street, but it can be a haul.

[CannonFodder]

Quite a good show - I had a blast. I didn't get any firearms, but I did get a lot of good gear.

Also, you really need to get the nuts from the lady selling them along the side wall. The cashews are phe--freakin-nominal.

[yhtomit]

I went today with the intent of buying a couple of things:

1) a tumbler, to clean up the brass I have been blessed with, as I gingerly tiptoe into reloading, and possibly some other reloading needs (scale, calipers, special die-cleaning die and the special die that cleans the die cleaning die, und so weiter, et cetera)

2) SOMETHING in the Evil Black Rifle category (or at least the Naughty Black Rifle category), but with a strict budget of $300 -- meaning that a stripped lower would be OK, if it was from a less prestigious finishing school, but a tricked out NFA item would not be, even forgetting the other complications that would entail.

So, based on the above list, I went in with some trepidation -- and though I ended up spending slightly more than I can technically afford, I suspect (nay, believe!) that I did so with good cause and won't regret any aspect of the day's loot, which actually ended up requiring three trips to the car. I know now why so many people come equipped with hand-trucks and dollies! I should have at least brought a shoulder bag, but (not thinking very hard about this question) I wasn't sure what the bag policy would be, and didn't want to trek back to the car to leave my empty messenger bag there. In sum (and in reverse order, roughly of cost / importance), I waddled away with ...

- a bumper sticker bearing one of my favorite sentiments, and one which I should have thought to memorialize as a bumper sticker long ago: "Only taxpayers should vote." Now on the right bumper, where it will get the most exposure in my usual parallel parking location.

- a copy of the 2004 Gun Digest Annual (I may be misrepresenting the title but it's not in front of me) -- I should have bought the 2000 one, too, for $1 apiece. When I have kids, they'd better have one hobby in common, or they'll surely resent this one ;)

- 4 shotgun slug loads (in paper shells); at a quarter a pop, they look like functional antiques :) Definitely for shooting and not collecting, though.

- two small ziplocks of .223 brass (heh heh heh -- but I thought I didn't *have* anything that would use .223 ...) -- each bag was $2; I haven't counted the rounds yet. It probably isn't the most efficient per-case way to buy, but I'm not ready yet to pay the big bucks. (Mental block, I guess.)

- 10 rounds of .223 tracer ammo, on a clip (wait, what's all this .223 business?). This, too, was $5 (terrible? great? normal?)

- EDIT: forgot to add, also picked up 5 ammo sorting boxes; used but not in bad shape, for $1 each. Since I was about to get some new from the same booth where I got the powder, primers, and tumbler, I figure this saved me a few bucks.

- 50 JHP 250-gr .45 ACP bullets, $5 the box -- if he'd had more at the same price, I would have bought more. Not a dead steal, but seemed a decent deal.

- For $13.50, 1 lb of Unique powder -- from my thus-far reading, this seems like the basis of a lot of nice middle-of-the-road loadings for .45.

- $20: 4 .50 cal lunchboxes :) I tried to wheedle (but only briefly and without too many crocodile tears) down to $4 apiece, but figured at $5 it wasn't too bad, since the ones I got are all in decent shape (I took the best 4 I could find of 10 or on the floor at the booth from which these came).

- Also $20 even: 14 chances (one of the periodic specials on tickets) at drawings for a gun (Barrett .50 cal is the top prize) or a Harley. And since all the money (so I was assured by the folks at the booth) is going to good gun rights causes, the Barrett I will surely soon get in the a mail is just a side benefit, right? :)

- $21: some large pistol primers, for reloading .45 ACP (the only die set I have, came with my Lee Classic Turret).

- A $25 NRA hat! As worn by Barbara Boxer at secret initiation routines during Mardi Gras! Taken from a Nazi soldier by General Pershing (or maybe General Grant) somewhere in occupied Iceland in 1933 (the part of the war They don't want you to know about) and kept in immaculate condition ever since by a little old lady who never drove except highway miles on every other blue moon, and kept her bathtub full of the hat equivalent of Cosmoline just to preserve it, and eventually died of excess tidiness! Or, well, the plain gold letters version (no scrambled eggs) -- just "NRA" on a blue ball cap, and NRA membership. I'm not 100 percent into the NRA, but I think they do more good than harm, and want to get the magazine, AND the annual cost was discounted to $25, AND AND joining today meant waived admission price -- that means, effectively, that I paid $17 for an annual membership, including the sticker, the hat and the magazine. I can't remember if I chose "Rifleman" or "First Freedom" -- the content seemed pretty interchangeable, from the samples they had on hand.

- Oh, and a Saiga sporter in .223. (If you read ahead, you lose the dramatic effect, and are only punishing yourself.) I saw fewer Saigas on the floor than I'd optimistically expected to find, and fewer yet in .223 of course, but I did find at least three tables stocking 'em; both dealers with mostly innocent looking .223 sporters like mine were selling them for $279; the snazzier one with handgrip and folding stock was in the mid $400s. I figure that I can add the pistol grip and other naughty features later.

So I'm suddenly armed for rabid paper and marauding tennis balls at a much greater distance than before; hopefully, in the next 12 or so months, I'll get to hit an Appleseed event. And sadly, my entire stock of ammo for it is ... some empty brass and a 10-rd clip of tracers :) I did look for .223 dies today, but they seem in short supply. (Speaking of short supply: though I clearly wasn't looking for one, I *specifically noticed* only a single Makarov, a Bulgarian, though there were some beautiful CZ-82s -- which I think are cooler guns anyhow.)

Overall, it was a fun show; it did not make me want to hit another show in 2 weeks (besides which, I was technically out of money *before* today's show ;)), but it was refreshing and fun. Yes, many gun-show (and gun shop) cliches played themselves out in the course of the hours I spent noodling past booth after booth, from beef jerky and survivalist blow-gun vendors to overpriced guns hailed for their (in some cases dubious) historical provenance, but there was plenty of good stuff. I was very impressed by two loading aids on display; one is a LoLu (did I spell that right?) for handgun calibers which cleverly holds down the follower in pretty much any autopistol magazine to allow fast loads ($35), and one is a special loader for Ruger's .22 pistols (Mk 1, Mk 2, 22/45, etc) which involves shaking the cartridges into groove within the transparent plastic doohickey, then just sliding them home into the mag -- very impressive. I think that was just under $30, and I was sorely, sorely tempted by both -- good thing he doesn't take credit cards, or I would have walked out with at least one of those things.

Anyone else who was there, did you walk out with anything? :)

timothy

p.s. I blame the founders of this site at least mostly for today's money explosion, for raising my interest in reloading and Saigas. Also, I congratulate myself in advance on single-handedly saving the American economy. If you wake up tomorrow and the trains still run, please thank me via PayPal.

[CannonFodder]

I went in with a budget off 250 bucks one two goals: a pistol-gripped shoulder stock and an 18.5 inch barrel for my Mossberg Maverick 88. If I could get a hella good deal on 7.62x39, even better.

How did I make out?

I too found a one-of-a-kind antique NRA cap for 25 bucks. In fact, I had just let my membership expire, so this saved me 10 bucks in going to the website.

I did find a nice adjustable pistol grip stock for for Mossy, and I'll probably put it on tonight. 68 bucks. Schweet.

I also paid 13.75 for an extra factory mag for my 10/22.

Large amounts of beef jerky were comsumed.

The nut lady sold me some awesome cashews.

And, I got an ok sighting scope for 60 bucks, marked down from 100. I'm pretty sure the dude was buttering me up, but I needed one. Came with a tripod and laser pointer.

So, in total, $180 bucks spent. Not a bad day's work.

[yhtomit]

"So, in total, $180 bucks spent. Not a bad day's work."

Nope, not at all :) You did well, and exercised great restraint. If I hadn't been so well past my reasonable budget even before entering the floor, I'd have looked for a similar stock for my 870. Though I didn't buy any, I also agree on the purchase of factory mags at shows like this; that's one thing that are a lot spottier to find decent prices on when shopping online (IMO, and in my limited experience).

I missed the cashews, but did greatly enjoy the wasabi corn sticks, wasabi peas and a few other wasabi items that I sampled; if my money hadn't been allocated to the above listed items, I'd be snacking on some of those right now, I imagine. New weight loss plan: "I'm on the gun diet!"

timothy

[45Badger]

You guys are making me jealous. Can't really afford the time tomorrow, but I think I'll be getting up early and heading north:) Just gotta be very efficient....

[yhtomit]

45Badger:

Have a good time, if you make it. Prepare to choke at much of the ammo's cost ;)

Note that the parking lot gets longer and wider if you should need to carry anything heavy to your car; parking close in (or bringing something with wheels, like I foolishly did not) will preserve your back a bit.

Are you looking for anything in particular while you're there?

timothy

[45Badger]

Generally a good show. Got in a pissing match with a female canine working an ammo vendor booth. She got twisted when I twisted a round out of an enbloc to identify the maker after she she could not tell me the maker. It was Greek, I moved on, and bought my 768 rounds of M2 elsewhere.

I scored:D Got a Ruger MKII Competition Model (slab side, stainless), excellent condition, in box, two mags, base/rings, owners manual, etc- $279 out the door:)

Also picked up a Walther P22 for my 9 year old. $277 OTD (decent price). His brother's Sig Mosquito is too big for his hands.

The 9 year old is on cloud nine. His older brother does not yet appreciate the incredible coolness of the Ruger, or the deal I got (he shoots a 1911w/ .22 conversion kit), and Mom still doesn't appreciate these things.:D

Keep an eye out for my divorce avoidance sale that will include a Sig Mosquito w/ 4 mags and probably a Kimber .22 Converion with 5 mags:D.

[yhtomit]

45Badger: You can always get that darn Mosquito out of your house by giving it to me. Heck, I'd even pay half of the transfer fee ;)

The thing about being a student in debt is how tempting things like a Kimber .22 conversion are -- "What a great way to save money! (on ammo)."

timothy



timothy

[alucard0822]

Missed the show this go-around, that lady does have some damn fine cashews, but the habanero pistacios are proof positive of a benevolent creator:D, hopefully by next show I will be a PA resident, and can give some of those evil, malevolent, or just plain sinister black boom sticks a good home with plenty of milsurp to eat.

[Cannonball888]

.

[Cannonball888]

An Ode to the gun show
By McUZI

Saturday's a coming And I can't wait
Gunna hurry on over, Cuz I can't be late
I'm going to the place We all love and know
The local overpriced nightmare gun show

I had to park my car twelve miles away
The walk to the door takes me half a gosh darn day
I go to the door and pay my entrance fee
Walk around the floor, to see what I can see.

I get a sample Beef Jerky that taste old and stale
Some lady's selling left over garbage from her last garage sale
I see a table with some hardware that's looking mighty fine
I pass a pair of homies gawking at a Tec-9
I get to the table and what do I see?
A gun I've always wanted. There just for me.

I ask the dude behind the table, (How much is this thing)?
I was hoping that the price was right and wasn't going to sting
He thought for a second, and rubbed his Grizzly Adams beard
His demeanor got somber, and his face looked weird

"This very gun was used by a NAVY SEAL
but I'm in a good mood, so I'll cut you a deal
Ordinarily, I'd need to get a grand for this gun
But I'll sell it for $800, howse that sound to ya son?"

I about soiled my pants!
"$800? EAT MY SOCK!
It's a worn out police trade-in ratty old Glock
I think you were drinking when you wrote your price tags
So you can keep your stupid Glock and your lame post-ban mags"

But I didn't despair, I just went on my way
The Class-3 table ought to brighten my day
The man behind the table was a sketchy old cat
With dark tinted glasses and a MOLON LABE hat

He stood there looking proud at all his full-auto goodies
The kind of guns that could give a gun-nut woodies
I asked him how much he wanted for the Colt M-16?
He snapped his head around and started to scream

"THESE GUNS AREN'T FOR SALE!
DIDN'T YOU KNOW?
I ONLY SHOW THEM OFF AT EVERY GUN SHOW!
I HAVE NOTHING IN THIS WORLD, NO KIDS, NO WIFE
WITHOUT MY MACHINE GUNS I'D HAVE NO LIFE!"

His arms were flailing 'round like a bat out of hell
And just at that moment, I caught a horrible smell
I felt kind of bad, but it still made me laugh
What he has is machineguns, what he needs is a bath

So I pulled up my shirt to cover my face
My eyes were tearing up like I got nailed with mace
I walked off quick, the smell was just too rude
Till I got to the table of the C&R dude

"This rifle is handpicked and personally chosen
by the Czar of Russia as the Worlds finest Mosin
Now lest you think it's out of your price range
I'll let this gem go for $200 and change"

I said "Dude, your nuts. Out of your freaking mind.
Those guns sell for $50, for the exact same kind"
He got really mad, and threw a hissy-fit
So I told him he could keep his outdated old kit

I needed some ammo, so over I went
To the ammo display in the green army tent
The ammo guy named Tom told me to come in
And look through the baggies in the little blue bin...

He said his 10mm ammo should be somewhere in there
Loaded by his drunk brother Willie, hot enough to kill bear.
I politely declined, and wandered back out on the floor
And slowly but surely made my way back to the door.

As I left the building. the promoter said "Have a nice day"
To which I replied "Your gun show was lame"
They asked if I had plans on ever coming back?
Yeah. Maybe the next time I'm strung out on crack

The moral of the story is "modern gun shows suck"
And are no longer the place to go if you want to save a buck
While there are things there that we'd all like to get
It's all just overpriced crap bought off the internet.