Show report

Made it to my first local gun show in quite a while today - first one since last summer as a matter of fact. I'd noted the inventory issues with most of the online companies I deal with, and I've read the recent reports in various gunblogs & forums about what has been going on.

Well, I can only say, similar madness reflected here in Virginia. Fortunately, I was more there to windowshop than anything else.

Yes, ARs, AK-clones, Glocks etc. were all available at the show - not in huge numbers, but not empty racks. However - prices had bypassed the roof & were headed for orbit on a Saturn V trajectory. Anything possibly affected by a return of the '94 laws was similarly priced. Even saw a few of the new US made AUG clones and the PTR/HK91 clones - both priced again about double list.

Magazines - much of the same - anything hi-cap was at least 50% higher than what I saw it at last summer. A number of dealers even had signs up in various forms of "No haggling, stuff is hard to find, take what you can get."

P-mags - almost impossible to find, and priced double list. AK mags - lots of surplus beat up stuff for high prices, don't even ask about the Bulgarian good ones.

Even FAL mags STARTED at 15 dollars for used.

77-grain 5.56 - non-existant, as was cased 5.56 or 7.62x51 (unless you like Wolf steel-case, in which case I saw ONE vendor with some). Pretty much everything was in the 20 round boxes & not a lot of those.

"Tacti-cool" gear - plenty of cheap, imported nylon like at any show. The quality stuff was again almost impossible to find - although prices hadn't jumped like the other stuff. Saw a couple of things from Eagle, a few of the other good brands - but not even a lot of Blackhawk stuff around. On the other hand, the Chinese apparently are still sewing & exporting like no one's business...

The vendors I know well enough to talk to said it's mostly just troubles getting inventory in right now. A lot of people aren't even taking back orders right now, as they have no realistic idea when they might get filled.

Soooo - makes me glad I have what I already do, and am not desperately trying to stock up as some are. It will be interesting to see what the next few years hold for the industry as a whole. A lot of new companies formed in the past 8 years given the need for military and contractor gear and equipment - and I have a feeling that 5 years from now about 70% of those will have folded. Even with the law enforcement, recreational shooter & airsoft market crossover, I just don't think there is enough money going to be left going around to keep all of it open - so it will be survival of the fittest as it were.