AR's stacked like cord wood

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Keep your ears open. It is quite possible some people that purchased AR's to resell got stuck with them. So if karma takes hold, financial reasons could force some sells.
 
Did buy one this weekend at the small LGS that didn't scalp or crazy price hike. NIB Base M4 with 10 GI mags, $750. Says he still made a small profit.
 
I'd like to see how the scalpers are going to peddle the .22 ammo they hoarded while this panic was ongoing ! I hope they have to practically give it away, then the guy's ol' woman will raise cane til' he can't stand it. lol Live with it Homer ! :banghead:
 
For the perpetual dreamers, unless the economy collapses and people need food more than an ar you won't see 200.00 new ar's no matter how low sales get.

Wishing hoarders get stuck with product to sell at a loss and get nailed by the other half is plain childish. Those who have bought to keep are doing just that. Those who buy cheap and sell higher are constantly turning over inventory and turning ammo into currency now, not later.

The other factor the dreamers don't grasp is that many buyers bought to keep. Don't need the money and if the value drops they just hold onto it and don't give a second thought.

The true concern is at the manufacturing level. Backed up inventory means low production which means a trickle down in labor, material cuts and possible closure given the amount of ar startups in the last 5 years.
Less competition could mean higher prices down the road.
 
I keep seeing this "flipper" bashing and I am not sure I understand. People took advantage of a peak in demand and turned a profit. Isn't that what the guy selling "fresh" vegetables out of his truck does? You don't really think those baskets of perfect tomatoes came out of his garden do you? Maybe you didn't notice the large boxes saying "vine ripe" tomatoes that are laying around.
People buy houses at low prices and flip them. People buy cars and flip them. People buy ammo and flip it. That doesn't mean I have to buy it.
And why would you think that these guys are going to lose money once the price settles? If they have been buying .22 at Walmart then they will still have only $20 or so in a brick so the WORST they will do is break even.
I haven't sold a round of ammo or a gun during this panic. I have bought several guns and a few boxes of ammo here and there. I hold no grudge against the people and companies that took advantage of the situation. The ONLY place where I saw consistent pre-panic pricing on guns and ammo was at Walmart and that fact doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about that company.
 
Was at wallyworld last night and they had a few AR's. DPMS Sportical for 649, Bushmaster M4 949 and a couple Colt (I think socoms) for about 1500.

Only ammo was some 6.8spc and bunch of shotgun ammo.
 
I keep seeing this "flipper" bashing and I am not sure I understand. People took advantage of a peak in demand and turned a profit. Isn't that what the guy selling "fresh" vegetables out of his truck does? You don't really think those baskets of perfect tomatoes came out of his garden do you? Maybe you didn't notice the large boxes saying "vine ripe" tomatoes that are laying around.
People buy houses at low prices and flip them. People buy cars and flip them. People buy ammo and flip it. That doesn't mean I have to buy it.
And why would you think that these guys are going to lose money once the price settles? If they have been buying .22 at Walmart then they will still have only $20 or so in a brick so the WORST they will do is break even.
I haven't sold a round of ammo or a gun during this panic. I have bought several guns and a few boxes of ammo here and there. I hold no grudge against the people and companies that took advantage of the situation. The ONLY place where I saw consistent pre-panic pricing on guns and ammo was at Walmart and that fact doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy about that company.

What you failed to understand is that the gun and ammo flippers are selling them at a very inflated price without doing anything.

When you flip a house or a car, you have to do some work to it to increase the value. You cannot expect to buy a run-down house or non-working car for cheap, then re-sell it for a big profit.

On the other hand, when the ammo and gun flippers do it, they just resell the ammo at a higher cost with no actual increased value added to it. For example, people will buy a brick of 22lr ammo from Walmart at $25/box and re-sell it for $75.

There is a big difference.
 
What you failed to understand is that the gun and ammo flippers are selling them at a very inflated price without doing anything.

When you flip a house or a car, you have to do some work to it to increase the value. You cannot expect to buy a run-down house or non-working car for cheap, then re-sell it for a big profit.

On the other hand, when the ammo and gun flippers do it, they just resell the ammo at a higher cost with no actual increased value added to it. For example, people will buy a brick of 22lr ammo from Walmart at $25/box and re-sell it for $75.

There is a big difference.

I understand what they are doing. They are getting up early and heading to the local Walmart or Academy and camping out and then paying their cash to buy a product that is in demand. They then take that ammo home and post an add on Gunbroker or Armslist or wherever and people bid the price up to $75. They then take the ammo to the USPS or Fedex and ship it to the buyer. They spend at least a 2-3 hours to buy and sell three boxes of .22 ammo on which they will "profit" $150.
Apparently they are filling a need in the supply chain or people would not be buying the product from them. I certainly am not making a 5 AM, 30 minute trip to stand in line at Academy and get my 3 boxes.
I am not advocating what they are doing. I understand that they are taking advantage of the situation at hand in order to make a profit. I am merely saying that there are apparently many people out there that are willing to pay for this product and service that they are offering. If we don't like what they are doing then just DON"T BUY THE AMMO from them. Either go to Walmart at 5 AM or wait until it becomes available. Online prices on 22LR are already at $.09 per round which is $45 per brick. Many online retailers were offering 22LR at $75 per brick a couple of months ago but I promise they were not buying it at Walmart. They were taking advantage of the situation just like Bubba and Lamerle are doing.
 
I understand what they are doing. They are getting up early and heading to the local Walmart or Academy and camping out and then paying their cash to buy a product that is in demand. They then take that ammo home and post an add on Gunbroker or Armslist or wherever and people bid the price up to $75. They then take the ammo to the USPS or Fedex and ship it to the buyer. They spend at least a 2-3 hours to buy and sell three boxes of .22 ammo on which they will "profit" $150.
Apparently they are filling a need in the supply chain or people would not be buying the product from them. I certainly am not making a 5 AM, 30 minute trip to stand in line at Academy and get my 3 boxes.
I am not advocating what they are doing. I understand that they are taking advantage of the situation at hand in order to make a profit. I am merely saying that there are apparently many people out there that are willing to pay for this product and service that they are offering. If we don't like what they are doing then just DON"T BUY THE AMMO from them. Either go to Walmart at 5 AM or wait until it becomes available. Online prices on 22LR are already at $.09 per round which is $45 per brick. Many online retailers were offering 22LR at $75 per brick a couple of months ago but I promise they were not buying it at Walmart. They were taking advantage of the situation just like Bubba and Lamerle are doing.
You act as though they are doing you a favor. If they didn't get up and clean out the store as soon as it is put out it would be there later when you showed up and you would pay 1/3 the price.

If you want to pay someone stupid prices to get ammo for you then so be it. Me, I am not so lazy.

Sorry, you can apologize for scalpers all you want. They are not providing a service. They are leaches and are only feeding off the gullible.
 
I did not buy my ARs to sell. But when the price went silly I sold them. The guy that bought them was smiling when we parted ways. So now I'm A leech? replaced one this week. For less than half what I got for A similar rifle. The prices get silly again I will sell again.
 
I did not buy my ARs to sell. But when the price went silly I sold them. The guy that bought them was smiling when we parted ways. So now I'm A leech? replaced one this week. For less than half what I got for A similar rifle. The prices get silly again I will sell again.
No. Now, if you ran around buying every one in town with the express purpose of scalping it would be a different story. Kinda like the guy I encountered this weekend who still had the WalMart tags on and was asking a cool 2k.
 
During the worst part if the panic I posted an add on armslist offering free .22 ammo in small quantities only if it is needed for a kid to shoot or or to eliminate a varmint.

I got 2 emails: both thanking me for helping out the shooting sport. Really blew my mind that people were paying $50+ for a brick of ammo but apparently no one "needs" 25 rounds of .22 for free. :confused:

Says a lot about the desire to hoard. The .22 shortage is far from over. You might be able to get it for .09 relatively easily online but we are far from seeing federal bulk regularly at wally world.
 
You act as though they are doing you a favor. If they didn't get up and clean out the store as soon as it is put out it would be there later when you showed up and you would pay 1/3 the price.

If you want to pay someone stupid prices to get ammo for you then so be it. Me, I am not so lazy.

Sorry, you can apologize for scalpers all you want. They are not providing a service. They are leaches and are only feeding off the gullible.
Well if we want to get offensive then I will state that while I may be lazy because I don't want to go to Walmart at 5 AM I was not stupid enough or broke enough to NEED to buy ammo from flippers. Once again it is a situation of supply and demand. No different at all from a guy that buys a house for $100k, puts a month and $25k in the house, and then sells that house for $175k. He uses his initiative and knowledge to turn a profit. Bubba uses his initiative and turns a profit and you call him all kinds of bad names.
Complaining about these guys may make you feel better because they are doing something you don't like but it doesn't make them bad people, just opportunists. As has been stated ad nauseum "just don't buy their products". On Gunbroker don't bid on them. It's really that ssimple.
 
I will say that we are likely to see some pinched sales of AR's and other guns (Glocks for example). However, I doubt we will see the market awash with $500 AR's or $300 Glocks. Most people won't want to take the hit, but a few people will. The problem is that there is going to be demand for these pinched sales, so I doubt the price will fall that far. There are quite a few people out there waiting to nab these sales.

This being said, there are a lot of non-gun people that bought guns by camping out, or buying off a friend, or going to a gun show. I have a feeling that when some of these people get pinched, the will resort to pawning their guns but won't care enough about them to get them off of pawn. I've been cruising local pawn shops looking for a few things, and I think there is potential for some decent deals there.

In my area, people haven't clued in yet and I still see overpriced AR's and other guns on-line. I don't know why people continue to pay $500 for a used Gen 3 Glock when you can find one new, with just a little bit of effort, for $530+tax ($580 out the door). I would pay the $80 premium to buy a new gun. Are there really that many people who can't pass a background check, or don't want a gun "papered" to them that the market is that tight?

Assuming nothing crazy happens, I think the next 2-3 months will continue to see the settling of the used gun market. I think things will get really interesting come november/december. I think we may see more people in a pinch looking to make sales then, as well as in Jan/Feb of 2014.
 
If I had another $1100 laying around I'd buy another Colt.
A friend of mine and I keep saying that we are going to buy up a few reasonably priced low to mid range AR's (some Colts and Sigs on the higher end, some S&W, bushmaster's, and windhams, etc.). Maybe buy up 10 total and wait for the next panic. Well, we always say that, and then realize that 1) we don't have $10K laying around between the two of us and 2) it would turn us into gun dealers, rather than people who casually sell guns out of their own collection.
 
A friend of mine and I keep saying that we are going to buy up a few reasonably priced low to mid range AR's (some Colts and Sigs on the higher end, some S&W, bushmaster's, and windhams, etc.). Maybe buy up 10 total and wait for the next panic. Well, we always say that, and then realize that 1) we don't have $10K laying around between the two of us and 2) it would turn us into gun dealers, rather than people who casually sell guns out of their own collection.

Easy way out on that one.

If you buy firearms for an investment, find a local FFL that'll handle the transfer when you decide to sell to someone. You might lose $20-30 off the sale for their troubles, but you won't run afoul of the 'for profit' statute, as the firearms go through a dealer.

I've got many rifles that I bought for investment. Is it a good investment? Time will tell. But I'm not turning them over on short term sales. When I do decide to sell (retirement, need money, whatever) they are there to fund my next great adventure.

If I casually sell a rifle now and then, to trade up, I'll generally sell directly to someone. ATF isn't likely to peg you as a dealer if you're simply reorganizing a collection. E.g. I have several arms up for sale right now, so I can fund a Sako TRG. Expensive gun, I need to sell several other firearms to get the money.

That doesn't make me a dealer, it makes me a collector, reorganizing a collection. I'm not selling for profit, I'm selling to fund a different firearm.
 
I keep seeing this "flipper" bashing and I am not sure I understand.
Same here. Individuals are free to buy whatever they find for sale, and they are free to price it at whatever-the-heck price they want and offer it for re-sale. That's what freedom and the free market is all about. Are people advocating for some sort of socialist law that limits what people can buy or sell, or how they can price it??? Are they saying that the seller should somehow "qualify" to sell at a higher price or otherwise justify the asking price to all that might disapprove? All of that is fundamentally absurd, IMO.

Am I happy that I haven't been able to find any ammo that I want at prices that I'm willing to pay at this point in time? NO. Do I think the people who are selling or buying at what I believe are crazy prices are somehow in the wrong? No. That's called the free market, and it's the best system going, by far. BUT, I will be happy when demand drops a bit and prices and availability return to more historical levels!
 
What you failed to understand is that the gun and ammo flippers are selling them at a very inflated price without doing anything

So what. This is the fundamental expression of capitalism. Maximum return for minimum work. Every business or individual that sells ANYTHING is trying to get as close as they can to getting something for nothing.

Sorry, you can apologize for scalpers all you want. They are not providing a service. They are leaches and are only feeding off the gullible.

Feeding off the gullible is a time-honored practice that is one of the cornerstones of American civilization. I didn't buy a single round of ammo at inflated prices during this "crisis", but I have nothing but admiration for those who did and still managed to make a profit off the stupid and weak-willed, of which we have a surfeit in our society. Anyone who buys into fear-mongering and confuses "wants" for "needs" deserves to be fleeced.
 
I'm an AR noob, in the scheme of things, but purchased my XM-15 after the first great panic in 09, for a nominal, amount, you'd have thought I'd have learned,but even I was skeptical that this panic was ever going to end. We're seeing magazines back to normal, (12.30 Pmags at Midway).With the black guns, and mags appearing to have returned to normal, and non-outlandish prices, let's hope 22 ammo is next, 5.56 has eased up, as well as 7.62*39, maybe we can see a return to normal ammunition prices, like we've seen, with AR 15s and mags. LOL, I've heard the "let's buy........ in large numbers and resell during a panic" line, but haven't heard of anybody local with the nerve to buy and release yet. Pretty sure that would require an FFL, but It's kinda grey IMHO. Still people were immensely fearful this time around, and if I live through another panic, maybe I'll have a better bearing of what's actually going on, or if it's gonna be 94 all over again.
 
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I went into the local Bass Pro yesterday. Pretty well stocked on rifle ammo (sans .22lr). Lots of 5.56 and .223 available, much to my surprise, and at pretty close to prepanick prices - about $12/20 for plinking ammo. Had .308 FMJ ammo available as well at about $1/round. A couple of ARs on the shelf, at what appeared to be normal(ish) prices. Low pistol inventory, and even lower availability of pistol ammo - no 9mm, or .45 at all with the exception of some Hornady ZombieMax(?) at $1+ per round.

Ammo at local walmart is nearly non-existant (availability of shotgun ammo being a given by this point), though I did manage to grab 3 boxes (max allowed still) of 7.62x39 ammo at about $5/box.

Hoping to make it out to the new Gander Mountain Firearms store tomorrow to see what they have, and how their prices compare.
 
I was in Walmart yesterday and they had 4 AR rifles in the case. I didn't look to see much about them but one was a DPMS for $619. I walked over to the ammo case and they had several different types of handgun ammo. Multiple boxes of .38 sp, 40, 45, and one lonely box of Tula 9mm. Most of it was WWB so I bought two boxes of .45 and the box of 9mm and replaced most of what I had shot earlier in the week. There was also a full shelf of Tula 7.63x39.
Naturally I had to go back today and get something I forgot. They still had several boxes of 40 and had only sold one box of the 7.62. All prices were at normal pre-panic levels. I think the 7.62 was $5.19. All 4 of the ARs were still in the case although I guess they could have sold them and restocked.
 
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Didn't ever say I wanted a law did I? People are free to be a@@ hats, people are free to be suckers, people are free to be leaches. I am free to call them such and shame them into ethical and moral decisions about treating fellow shooters as they would like to be treated and not prayed upon for measly profit and greed. There are more important things in life.
 
Local Walleyworld has a Colt w/Magpul furniture at $1250. That's $100 more than I paid last October.

Inflation has not been that hot. Price needs to drop on down a tad.
 
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