Report from the Louisville National Gun day Show

[greg531mi]

After Driving 6 hours to the show, the parking was terrible, they had a car show at the same time at the fairgrounds.....Finally got a place to park, and walked forever, and then found out that they wanted a extra $9 on top of the $10 to also get in the MIlitary Show!!!!! After paying $10 each, my son and I went into the Gun Show.....and said heck with the Military Show. The place was packed, at times with narrow aisles, it was at a crawl.... There were a lot of HIGH PRICED GUNS.....never saw so many Winchester 66's, 73's, and 86's!!!!! There were a lot of Carbines and Garand's for $500 on up... There were also a bumper crop of Cased Double Barrel Shotguns.... The knive dealers were a plenty, book dealers galor, and not much lower priced guns...... Regular $1200 guns were $2100, and the best bargain seemed to be some Mil-Surp Snipers from $800 on up to $5000.... G-43's could be had for $2600.....Should have brought my deed to the house, but couldn't get the wife to sign over her share, and then the shack could only buy a couple of these overpriced and in bad condition jewels....
On the plus side, the Dealers seemed nice, and saw some friend's there, and never had a bad word said, but some darn LOUD alarm that was set off every 5 minutes gave me a real headache :banghead:
On the way home, I finally got my deer, just north of the Michigan Border, son and I are fine, but the deer was DOA, and the Chevy Malibu was wounded. We limped in Coldwater, and called the Sheriff, and got a report. Then, finding out the water was from the windowshield wiper fluid, we got the wounded Mal back home. I wish I could have brought the deer home too, but had no rope or way to bring it back, I donated to a couple of locals.
What a fun trip, now that I seen the National Gun Day Show, I don't need to ever go back....

 

[kikilee]

Like you I went one time. It is an "E" ticket attraction.

 

[a454me]

I went also , this is usually a good show but with th new construction at the fairgrounds , poor parking/access , and the car show it was not as enjoyable as it has been before . But I'll probably go back .

 

[yesterdaysyouth]

if you wanted it, it was there... just depended on the depth of your pockets... i just couldn't give $850 for a 3" 629.... or $750 for a IBM carbine.... or $800 for a rack grade garand... or $15000 for a stocked luger... my favorite was the $550 mint condition k-31.... i did see some decent deals on used sigs, mostly p220's....

if it wasn't so crowded you could have actually stopped and talked to some of the dealers, most of which were very happy to talk the talk...

i didn't see a single bag of jerky, not one beanie baby, not even any 24K gold stamped jelwery.... i did see more cap and ball, more pepper boxes, more flintlocks than one man should ever see though....

i do think a gun show is the only place you can jam that many people into one building and not hear a single cross word all day long... i stepped on plently of toes, and heels, and bounced off quite a few more people, but never a problem...

and lets not forget the cowgirl... oh yeah, the cowgirl, "stick em' up"!!


yes mam'!!

 

[a454me]

Oh yeah the cowgirl , very impressive in a large room full of guns and men .
All decked out in denim with a matched set of big guns and she was wearing a pair of revolvers also ( Rugers I think in a double cowboy/girl rig ), quite a change of pace . YEEHAW !

I guess I enjoyed the show more than I thought !

 

[Selfdfenz]

Thanks for the report. Sorry about the car.

To a certain degree all the gun shows I attend seem to have the same issues you saw.

-Too many way-over-priced firearms and models of no interest to me
-Walkways are too narrow and over-crowded
-Parking is difficult (seems like the dealers all want to park at the door and make the buyers walk)
-Ticket prices are too high

I would add that the local shows here have too much non-gun related stuff and the % of junk firears is way to great. There is one local dealer that I still do some business with. He comes the closest to having the right price and the right stuff occassionally.

It's sad. For years I bought just just about all my guns and ammo at shows. Now, like you, when I go I end up seeing no deals on what I want or not seeing any examples of the desired models. I come home with nothing.

I do the Internet thing now for almost everything and have a local FFL for transfers.

On the upside, I always enjoy thaking my son to the shows. He always finds a few "must haves" and that makes the trip worthwhile.
Best

 

[DamnedDirtyApe]

Younger son and I went, and generally enjoyed it.

Biggest beef I had was the smoking - they apparently suicidally allow it in that building, and the net effect of thousands of bodies, hundreds of cigarettes, pipes and cigars burning, and no AC or ventilation until about 2.00 pm was sickening and overpowering at times. Some people thought that was why that fire/smoke alarm screechy kept going off.

Otherwise, a great gun show. Some prices were completely off-the-wall, most were at least reasonable. I enjoyed a rare day with my grown son, and we had a couple of meals together during the trip. I said hello to the navigator of the Enola Gay, which was cool.

Note to dealers: PRICE your wares. I was not willing to wait while you finished your sales or chats with folks, or finished your lunch, nor did I want to shout out what I wanted to know. Almost everything I buy in a gun show that's shooting related is bought on impulse, including guns, and when the moment passes, and I've had enough of being jostled and shoved and stepped on at your table, I move on, and you've lost me. If you had priced it, I would have waited a little longer, and maybe taken it home with me.

 

[cgv69]

Thanks for the report. It made me feel a lot better!

I was wanting to go but decided on the Friday that money and time wise it wasn't a good idea. From what you guys are saying, I didn't miss much.

I would have been really bummed to find out I missed some great deals but I'm not into large crowds so even if they were there, I doubt I would have stayed long enough to find them.

 

[Ky Larry]

The same dealers have the same guns that go from table to table. I haven't been to a decent gun show in several years. Same stuff, nothing I want, and all of it over priced.
Yesterday was just beautiful so I spent the day at Clear Creek Furnace shooting range at Cave Run Lake. Much more enjoyable than fighting the crowds.

 

[Mr. Mysterious]

The one thing that really ticks me off about gun shows is when the dealer has the box from their supplier...the very same supplier that we can buy from. Think SOG, AIM, Century, etc. Then...these very same products are priced at a 20-100% premium over the current going place on the website(s).

I always get upset at the parking situation also, if you are paying to go to an event, and the parking lot is owned by the place hosting the event, then parking should be free. This goes for sporting events, concerts, fairs, etc.

Sorry, about your accident greg531mi, hopefully you had a nice drive through Indiana. You should come down for one of the big shows in the Indy area, it will save you two hours or so. Or, next time you are going through Indiana, let me know and I'll give you some of the good shops addresses so you can hit them up while passing. I find that if you plan a couple stops on a long drive the drive feels MUCH shorter.

MrM

 

[yesterdaysyouth]

The one thing that really ticks me off about gun shows is when the dealer has the box from their supplier...the very same supplier that we can buy from. Think SOG, AIM, Century, etc

yeah you wouldn't bah-leeve how many k-31's i saw with the AIM tag still attached... then there was the guy with 4-5 cases of those lugers from SOG...

 

[Nitram68]

Too bad. Sounds like a good day to have stayed home?