With reluctance and an apology, I'm getting on the "stop the madness" bandwagon...

This is exactly how I felt after the 1986 Hughes Amendment,when prices of machine guns started to rise to insane levels. Well, after all these years, the prices are many times more insane.

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Key word there.. A limited supply that dwindles as time passes will of course commend top dollar..
Yet we don't actually have a federal ban on AR's or magazines... Nothing more than speculation, pandemonium and greed working together.

This is good for the economy, also think of all the tax dollars the state is getting. I wonder what they'll blow it on... LOL

With reluctance and an apology...

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Apology to whom? For what?

The buying mentality on an online auction site isn't soemthing that's necessarily described as "sane" sometimes.

People tend to get caught up in the heat of the auction and even outbidding themselves, paying more than they intended. It's similar to gambling in that respect...people can get caught up in the action.

I was attempting to bid on a Marlin 783 bolt action .22 WMR to replace the very first rifle I bought when I was 18. (Mine was stolen a number of years ago.)

Marlin makes the modern equivalent (XT-22MTW), but it has a new trigger type that I'm not yet certain I want. The Pro-Fire Trigger has a built in safety that has me giving it the evil eye.

For a Marlin 783 in excellent condition, I would be willing to pay a bit more money than for a new version, just for the sake of having the 783 again. I found one in said condition starting for about $250, figured I bid a while and see what happened.

The price soon soared over $500. WAY in excess of what I was willing to spend.


I love that particular gun, especially for the sentimental value. However, realistically speaking, paying more than half a grand for a rifle I can easily buy two of brand new kinda puts the kibosh on the sentimental value for me.

Now, had this been at a gun show or a private deal person-to-person, I'm sure I could have gotten a better price because there wouldn't be any bidding to get caught up in.

Perhaps I'm wrong...but whenever you buy something via online auction, I don't believe you're necessarily going to get something as what the regular market would do for you. This means you have to be more careful not to get caught up in the heat yourself and to practice some patience.

Gotta agree prices are out of this world. I have enough guns for now and refuse to pay those kind of prices. As I need to reload and must buy supplies, I will pay the price necessary for that but nothing more for now.

There's several AR's out there over $2000.00 and getting bids. Even an LE6920 that just sold for $2200.00. My buddy bought a new LE6920 in Dec for just over $900.00.

I was going to make a joke about really wanting to hang on to my Colt but jumping on the bandwagon as soon as they hit $5000.00. That may not even qualify as a joke in 30 days.

I believe the high prices have helped increase the supply of firearms available.
Lots of guns are being pulled out of the back of the safe or closet and hitting the open market.
I know I sold my fair share and then used the proceeds to buy more guns.

Personally, I don't need to buy any guns or ammo because I've been putting both away for years.

IMHO The Unprepared deserve to pay a premium, why didn't they buy one 4 years ago when they elected a commie gun grabber.

karlsgunbunker said:

I believe the high prices have helped increase the supply of firearms available.
Lots of guns are being pulled out of the back of the safe or closet and hitting the open market.
I know I sold my fair share and then used the proceeds to buy more guns.

Personally, I don't need to buy any guns or ammo because I've been putting both away for years.

IMHO The Unprepared deserve to pay a premium, why didn't they buy one 4 years ago when they elected a commie gun grabber.

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I agree with this. I have plenty of guns, ammo, and reloading equipment so I can still be picky but if I decide to sell it will be at a profit.

At least the there are uppers to sell, I have a few uppers and it would take at the very least $1K to sell them. I'm partial to the platform and I bought mine when the buying was good

On the other hand I have been selling off several glock and 10/22 mags to the less fortunate.

I find anything offensive when you price out the average guy, who has been shooting all his life. Free enterprise the changes to an elitest economy. Guns should remain affordable to the average man, and paying over a thousand dollars for a basic rifle is no longer affordable. You need to add in the other options like scopes, mags, ammo, pretty soon you are over two thousand dollars which IMO, limits the amount of sportsmen from being active in shooting anymore.
Now they are selling AR's for 3-5000 dolars, that is no good for any of us, even if we can afford it.
http://www.nraila.org/get-involved-locally/grassroots/write-your-reps.aspx

gym said:

I find anything offensive when you price out the average guy, who has been shooting all his life. Free enterprise the changes to an elitest economy. Guns should remain affordable to the average man, and paying over a thousand dollars for a basic rifle is no longer affordable. You need to add in the other options like scopes, mags, ammo, pretty soon you are over two thousand dollars which IMO, limits the amount of sportsmen from being active in shooting anymore.
Now they are selling AR's for 3-5000 dolars, that is no good for any of us, even if we can afford it.

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Though I agree with the sentiment behind your posting, I wonder what your definition of "a basic rifle" is.

Over a grand for "a basic rifle" does not seem to be a realistic statement to me. I don't know where you're getting your rifles, but I can find plenty of "basic rifles" at any store like Dicks, Academy, and Walmart that are several hundred BELOW a grand.

Price Gouger? Guilty as charged!



So I had this brand new LE 6920, and I got this urge to take this new rifle and convert it to a Gas Piston system.. .which I did, which also required a fancy Daniel Defense quad rail that would work with the piston system... and I did, which also lost my regular BUIS, which I then replaced with samson flips... End Result: one VERY HEAVY carbine. LOL.

So I shot it a few times - boy did it run clean. But man, was that too much weight.

Then, along comes the pricing swell... and here I am with this AR15/bastardization that I never shoot sitting in the safe...

SO YES I TURNED GOUGER. I SOLD MY RIFLE FOR $2,500.



That being said, I added it all up in my gun ledger afterward... including the cabelas bulletproof safe, magpul furniture, wilson trigger group, pro mags, crate of XM855 and...

I made $127 on the deal.



Oh well, even when I tries to get on boards, I fails.



Tell you what though - it was a learning experience. Heavy AR = no fun, and I'm just happy I sold it without losing my shirt. Which brings me to the second part of this story - the real lesson: The ducats add up quickly on AR builds, so what often looks like an overpriced AR is not.

The obligatory picture:

Don't like it.....don't bid.

Guns should remain affordable to the average man, and paying over a thousand dollars for a basic rifle is no longer affordable.

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It's only been the last 5 years or so that they dropped In price to where they are affordable to the masses, hence the huge surge in popularity

In the absence of a huge inheritance, there's only one way people get wealty:

Buy Low, Sell High.

In the gun market, like the stock and real estate markets, there are those who get it exactly backwards. When a stock is going down, they look at their paper losses and sell, instead of doing what they should be doing, i.e. buying more shares while they're cheap.

On the flip side, when prices are sky high and still rising, what do they do? Why they jump on that bandwagon, and buy that condo in Miami at the top of the market. The inevitable crash comes, and they feel cheated.

If you weren't making regular and reasonable purchases of guns, ammo, and reloading supplies while they were relatively cheap over the last few years, you missed the boat. And if you're not selling to the lunatics who are bidding these prices up right now, you're missing another one.

And if you ARE one of those who are frantically buying at these sky-high prices, bless your little heart. Come to Papa.

I sold off my Saiga 16" .223 with a couple 30 rd mags for an obscene price. I used that money to further upgrade my casting abilities. Yesterday I made one hundred projectiles for 9mm, I've loaded them up with my 5k stash of small pistol primers and I'll be testing them at the range on Saturday. My cast and rolled .357 mag and .38 special has been excellent shooting.

If you came to the game late you have my pity and that's about it. I'm exploring newer options and better bangs for my buck. I figure I'm at least one year out from buying another EBR so now I'm back to building them on flats I'm doing myself in AK variants. I still had some flats for Yugo M70 underfolders laying around, I still have my bending jig and I got another one that's much easier to use (and more importantly reproduce). My AK .243 Win (used Galil mags) was a beast of a build that took over six months to get right (and went through four flats before I got it right, and yes they are heat treated, thank you aunt in-law with the kiln).

I'm not touching my brass cased factory ammo, I'm working on a series of projects in the mean time to become more gun knowledgable, and so on and so on.

If you don't have and absolutely need, then get. If you got, then sit down and hang out, maybe we'll get lucky and there will be a huge sell off.

I have to admit I was part of the madness. I get a bonus this time each year and starting last year decided I would purchase one gun each time. I got home from work and the wife already had $400 in new clothes for my six year old daughter sitting on the couch so I knew if I didn't buy right away I wouldn't have it. I found one online and called first thing the next morning and it was already sold out from under me. searched for a couple days and found one I wanted and ran down and bought it at the inflated price before someone else did.

If you don't remember the panic buying (madness) of the first BHO inauguration, it lasted almost a whole year. It began in October 2008 (right before the election) and ramped up to its peak right about Jan.-May 2009. It then lagged on to or through fall of 2009. This is how I remember it anyway.

So sit tight, this will linger for many, many, many months.

It is a lot like sitting in a rainstorm with no protection; it sucks, it's miserable, you have no idea how long it will last and you can do nothing at all to stop it. All you can do is sit there, grit your teeth and be thankful that you have what you have. When you focus on what you don't have, you get frustrated because there's no practical/affordable way to acquire it at the moment.

I have no problem with a guy reselling his $700 DPMS for $1500 to make some quick money. I do have a problem when the fear-mongering gets obscene in order to sell it for even more. "They are banning them soon with no transfers allowed, same with these $400 pmags I'm selling... Gonna need ammo, got a box of Wolf here for $200, might have a couple more at that price if yer interested..."

Sorry, but the OP wouldn't be complaining if those were HIS auctions, he'd be smiling at hips good fortune

I'm going the other way, giving instead of gouging. I have a buddy who finally realized he needs a rifle but couldn't find or afford anything he was looking for. So, I'm giving him a spare SKS I have. I'd rather see a good friend be armed than have an extra rifle I hardly ever shoot.

IMHO The Unprepared deserve to pay a premium, why didn't they buy one 4 years ago when they elected a commie gun grabber.

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That's not really fair as some people have just turned legal firearm ownership age or have otherwise recently "grown up".

I was talking AR and AK Chief. With the basics, 30 round mag, iron sights. They started at 7-$800.00 went up to 15-$1800.00. Came back down to $700.00 and now are at $3000.00. on Guntrader, selling at that price, and as high as 5 grand. This is just plain stupid.
This coming from a "Trader of 18 yrs", fulltime, I saw the same thing with stocks, go from 3 dollars to $500.00, then to $900, and back to $300, you need to know when to sell. When apple was 35 dollars we were trading it like AOL in the early 90's. Those people always get kiled because of greed. Now is the time to sell if you really choose to sell. The old saying is true, buy the rumor and sell the news.
This is the end of the rumor soon, now is the time to sell, I don't see them going much higher, I may be wrong, but I just feel it.There won't be a 10 thousand dollar AR, there are just too many and must come down. Maybe $1,000.00-$1,200.00 this year.

Enough with the greed comments. No one is forcing you to buy anything. But if you want it and I got it, I will profit.