yhtomit
Member
[This is my first post to THR in a long while, and my first time reading it in a while, too -- I just didn't read the site for several months as part of an effort to concentrate better on school. Not saying this was a *successful* effort, exactly, but Hey I hope to at least browse here more often than I have since last September.]
Earlier this week, I looked at the local Gander Mountain to see a) whether they had a Cz P-01 at an astoundingly, impossibly low price (No, they didn't, and not even one at a realistic price), and b) whether anything interesting was on the used shelf (when I'm home from school on break, hard to stop me from doing this at least once), and Well, Yes, there were quite a few. Ever thus. However, nothing really and truly grabbed me, until I spotted a Cz-75 in one of the shelves usually full of used guns. "$449?" Thought I, "That doesn't seem too crazily out of line with Gander Mountain prices on a used gun, but still -- too close to retail, and thus forgettable."
However, further inspection revealed it to be not used, but new (making it about $100 below that never-seen-in-the-wild thing called MSRP, and not *too* bad compared to prices I've seen online). However, I refrained from buying, knowing that I'd be around a few more days, and that reflection leads to better choices, there are more fish in the pond, that most of my cashflow is hypothetical, etc. Also, I'm definitely in the market for a concealable gun, and don't currently have one that I'm yet fat enough to consider anything but sore-thumb conspicuous. So, I was also taking that time to consider for the n-billionth time a Taurus Millennium P-111, a Keltec P11 or PF9, or similar pocket-9.
Went back today to see if that same gun was still in stock; the P-01 is higher on my list (everyone has a List, right?) and they still had none on hand, but the Cz-75 is still pretty well up there. I didn't see it! A shiver of disappointment, followed by much poring over the other guns in stock, which includes several which also occupy slots on that same list. There was one counter which was blocked by a fellow who (along with his family) was assiduously considering several guns from a particular counter; I wanted to take a closer look at those guns (at least to see what they were), but I know what it's like to be shouldered aside when pondering a purchase, so I tried to sidle around politely, waiting for a chance to see what was in that counter. When the clouds parted, there it was! The same Cz-75BD I'd seen elsewhere on Monday.
Not only that, but all the guns in that cabinet were marked with 20%-off tags (so I can see why he was poring with so much interest); I'd gotten wind of this when some sort of conversation among the staff behind counter had taken place, along the lines of "Hey, you know we have to take off all those 20% tags, right? That's for *hunting* gear, not for the handguns." Thus alerted, by the time I saw the Cz, it was just being taken out for its tagectomy ("tagotomy?"). I said "Hey there! Before you put that one back, I'm actually interested in it ... and it was 20 percent off a few minutes ago, right?" (The conversation was amiable, though.)
Turns out, there was still a smaller discount, tiered like the tax code, such that a gun selling in the bracket of the Cz ($400-$600, I think) would be discounted $60, rather than the $90 that 20% would have made. Since I'd been standing there patiently waiting (at least, I suppose that's why), the fellow who handed me the gun, seeing that I was very interested but didn't have my wallet out yet, intelligently offered to split the difference, making $75 off the $449 price, an offer I happily took. With the required call-in fee and taxes, therefore, it came in just a shade over $400.
For a new gun, and one I hope to be worth as much as current owners seem to consider it worth, I count that as a fair-enough bargain; I have fired a Cz rarely, but I very much like the feel of the Cz-75 line in my hand. (And it makes me chuckle that some of the money allocated to its purchase comes from money I earned this summer from a very nice and likeable but anti-gun professor of mine.)
Tomorrow morning, after a cleaning, it's time to shoot!
Cheers,
timothy
EDIT: By the by, the Cz came with two things I was very pleasantly surprised to discover (since I frankly went not needing to be convinced by any of the extras in the box, and didn't consider them): 1) it comes with a plastic mag-feeder doohickey (as did my XD), and I think these are brilliant and 2) glowing sights! From reading more about them, it seems like *all* current Cz-75 variants come by default with either the simple glowing ones like mine or (as an default on some models, upgrade on others) the brighter tritium ones. Never had glowing sights before, despite *liking* them, because of the additional expense. Now, one the cheapest guns I've ever bought is the only one that has 'em, and I didn't even know until I got home -- funny world.
Earlier this week, I looked at the local Gander Mountain to see a) whether they had a Cz P-01 at an astoundingly, impossibly low price (No, they didn't, and not even one at a realistic price), and b) whether anything interesting was on the used shelf (when I'm home from school on break, hard to stop me from doing this at least once), and Well, Yes, there were quite a few. Ever thus. However, nothing really and truly grabbed me, until I spotted a Cz-75 in one of the shelves usually full of used guns. "$449?" Thought I, "That doesn't seem too crazily out of line with Gander Mountain prices on a used gun, but still -- too close to retail, and thus forgettable."
However, further inspection revealed it to be not used, but new (making it about $100 below that never-seen-in-the-wild thing called MSRP, and not *too* bad compared to prices I've seen online). However, I refrained from buying, knowing that I'd be around a few more days, and that reflection leads to better choices, there are more fish in the pond, that most of my cashflow is hypothetical, etc. Also, I'm definitely in the market for a concealable gun, and don't currently have one that I'm yet fat enough to consider anything but sore-thumb conspicuous. So, I was also taking that time to consider for the n-billionth time a Taurus Millennium P-111, a Keltec P11 or PF9, or similar pocket-9.
Went back today to see if that same gun was still in stock; the P-01 is higher on my list (everyone has a List, right?) and they still had none on hand, but the Cz-75 is still pretty well up there. I didn't see it! A shiver of disappointment, followed by much poring over the other guns in stock, which includes several which also occupy slots on that same list. There was one counter which was blocked by a fellow who (along with his family) was assiduously considering several guns from a particular counter; I wanted to take a closer look at those guns (at least to see what they were), but I know what it's like to be shouldered aside when pondering a purchase, so I tried to sidle around politely, waiting for a chance to see what was in that counter. When the clouds parted, there it was! The same Cz-75BD I'd seen elsewhere on Monday.
Not only that, but all the guns in that cabinet were marked with 20%-off tags (so I can see why he was poring with so much interest); I'd gotten wind of this when some sort of conversation among the staff behind counter had taken place, along the lines of "Hey, you know we have to take off all those 20% tags, right? That's for *hunting* gear, not for the handguns." Thus alerted, by the time I saw the Cz, it was just being taken out for its tagectomy ("tagotomy?"). I said "Hey there! Before you put that one back, I'm actually interested in it ... and it was 20 percent off a few minutes ago, right?" (The conversation was amiable, though.)
Turns out, there was still a smaller discount, tiered like the tax code, such that a gun selling in the bracket of the Cz ($400-$600, I think) would be discounted $60, rather than the $90 that 20% would have made. Since I'd been standing there patiently waiting (at least, I suppose that's why), the fellow who handed me the gun, seeing that I was very interested but didn't have my wallet out yet, intelligently offered to split the difference, making $75 off the $449 price, an offer I happily took. With the required call-in fee and taxes, therefore, it came in just a shade over $400.
For a new gun, and one I hope to be worth as much as current owners seem to consider it worth, I count that as a fair-enough bargain; I have fired a Cz rarely, but I very much like the feel of the Cz-75 line in my hand. (And it makes me chuckle that some of the money allocated to its purchase comes from money I earned this summer from a very nice and likeable but anti-gun professor of mine.)
Tomorrow morning, after a cleaning, it's time to shoot!
Cheers,
timothy
EDIT: By the by, the Cz came with two things I was very pleasantly surprised to discover (since I frankly went not needing to be convinced by any of the extras in the box, and didn't consider them): 1) it comes with a plastic mag-feeder doohickey (as did my XD), and I think these are brilliant and 2) glowing sights! From reading more about them, it seems like *all* current Cz-75 variants come by default with either the simple glowing ones like mine or (as an default on some models, upgrade on others) the brighter tritium ones. Never had glowing sights before, despite *liking* them, because of the additional expense. Now, one the cheapest guns I've ever bought is the only one that has 'em, and I didn't even know until I got home -- funny world.
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