Checked Out Selling / Trading an AR at Cabellas

"Well let's see. I can give you about $600 for it. And I won't even make you wait up at the registers to get paid. Lemme grab my wallet."

Many gun shops will not give you anywhere near the value for your gun that you will get selling (legally) yourself.

50% of retail is about right for trade-in on guns in my experience

NeuseRvrRat said:

50% of retail is about right for trade-in on guns in my experience

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I agree 100% at 50% or more. Big overhead and they have to go through the entire gun and replace anything that is worn or wrong. And clean it. The Gunsmiths time is not cheap. Then he has to figure what they can purchase a new one at. I doubt the manufacturer has raised the cost price to Cabellas yet due to the current situation. They may not even be able to for a year or more due to a commitment to carry their guns.

It's not just Cabelas'...gun shops aren't going to give you what the firearm is worth, since they must resell it for a profit.

You will always be better selling a firearm to someone versus selling it to a gun shop. Same applies if you are talking about selling a vehicle to a car dealership. Makes no difference which "widget" you are selling.

I know a local Gander Mountain that would say they buy at X price and told seller that they would sell it for Y price...and the seller comes back a few days later only to see that Gander Mountain has a listed price for much higher.

I'm sure they'd have turned around and listed it for $2500 or something.

also retailers are not going to take into account the hyper inflated prices. They still need to make a profit when people calm down.

After that inspection it would hit the shelves like any other rifle. Cabelas may charge a bit more than some of the online "shops" but they haven't participated in gouging. OP, if they offered you $1,800 and turned it for $3,000 you'd be mad at them and so would we so the lesson here is if you're looking to gash someone for double or triple your original investment Cabelas won't participate. Good for them and now you know.

So what do you figure the gun is worth and what do you figure you should have been offered?

Ron

A local guy I know owns a pawn shop. He has a guy wanting a S&W AR. He knew I had some. He offered $1100 for a S&W M&P15 (non sport model). While I won't sell it, I thought it was a great price for a "dealer/pawn shop" to offer. Which we have known each other quite a while...

If you still have your RRA stick it in the classifieds here. I will give you double their offer, I want one bad.

CharlieDeltaJuliet said:

A local guy I know owns a pawn shop. He has a guy wanting a S&W AR. He knew I had some. He offered $1100 for a S&W M&P15 (non sport model). While I won't sell it, I thought it was a great price for a "dealer/pawn shop" to offer. Which we have known each other quite a while...

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That means he has a buyer at $2200.....

I agree 100% at 50% or more. Big overhead and they have to go through the entire gun and replace anything that is worn or wrong. And clean it. The Gunsmiths time is not cheap. Then he has to figure what they can purchase a new one at. I doubt the manufacturer has raised the cost price to Cabellas yet due to the current situation. They may not even be able to for a year or more due to a commitment to carry their guns.

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Not so at our local Cabelas. They don't even clean much less "fix" purchased or consignment used guns. I've never heard of any other location doing this either. Also, no gunsmith on staff (purposefully).

Funnel

Teachu2, yep. That's about what I figured.

Does Cabelas do consignment? If so, that might be an option for the OP.

funnelcake said:

Not so at our local Cabelas. They don't even clean much less "fix" purchased or consignment used guns. I've never heard of any other location doing this either. Also, no gunsmith on staff (purposefully).

Funnel

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This has been my experience with a few used gun purchases at Cabelas. They will fix a problem in the first 30 days if you find one. Or refund your money. An exception is if they sell it "as is". I saw a P38 there for $250, as is. They bought it then later discovered the safety/hammer drop action was faulty so sent it to a gunsmith (not on staff) who examined it and said the repair would too expensive. I offered $225 and they sold it just to get rid of it. Fortunately the defective part was less than $20 and just required my labor in trial and error until I got it shaped right. No doubt the gunsmith was right that the repair would be expensive at his labor charges.

Anyway, no doubt they inspect used guns for obvious problems then offer a low price to insure they come out ahead in the long run, even with a percentage that lose money.

suppose MSRP is $1000.pre dec 14th it would be on the shelf for ~ 879.95
it cost the dealer ~700 (less if its a high volume store with that product)
used, even unfired but its been papered so they have to sell it as used...
for ~779.95. so 600 to you is fair. not nice but they have overhead so they can have ( use to anyways) what you want usually in stock for you.

bluntly; why would they pay you used what it cost them new?

But Clay, do you think they would price it for $779? If they did I need to give them more credit. Please, I am not trying to argue, it is a serious question. I have no dog in this show, so it really dosen't matter a great deal to me. I just figured they would gouge the used rifle. They price gouge used Colt Pythons etc..

You usually never get the money you put into it out

While I normally agree about the money you put into it. Unless you keep it a while and the value goes up, or with a panic like right now, the OP would have no problem getting their money back and probably a little more.

Sorry. Hit the the wrong button on my phone while typing on the post above. What I was going to say is that you usually never get back the money you put into a rifle unless you sell it through a private deal. I learned this the hard way about 7 months ago when I was trying to sell my Stag model 3. I had around $250-300 worth of aftermarket upgrades including a nice quad rail and flip gas block sight among other things which in my mind made the gun which had only fired a few hundred rounds through it worth around $900-950 and I wanted around $800-900 for it. I live 10 minutes from a Cabela's and I hate doing any kind of business with them because their prices are over inflated, the service sucks, and I've held some truly terrible used guns in my hands from their gun library that I wouldn't trust in a serious situation yet after bargaining they still want $150 more than any person who knows jack about guns would pay. They offered me $500, needless to say I walked. Pawn shop offered around the same so I started looking for a private sale and ended up selling to a friend for $700 after the good shooting buddy discount. It's frustrating but any commercial resale place doesn't give a hoot what you've done to it or added to your rifle so I would go for a private sale which you have the best private market in the world right now for this kind of rifle and sale. You shouldn't have to hard of a time getting it off your hands for the price you want.

Actually they, like all the other big box stores, will offer a percentage of the blue book price. That's actually a good deal when buying because they use the same book to sell.