Mainsail
Regular Member
imported post
The Kel Tec RFB I just bought uses FAL metric magazines, purported to be the most readily available and inexpensive magazines in the universe. I, however, have found them very difficult to find. I picked some up in Lakewood for $20 a pop and they were well used. Searching online they are running about the same, price and condition, plus shipping. So I headed to the WAC gun show in Puyallup figuring there would be tons of them there.
Nope. More on that in a bit. I hadn’t been to a gun show since the mid 80s when I was stationed in California. The gun atmosphere was very different in CA back then too BTW. Entry to the WAC show was SLOW….like “what the heck is going on!” slow. The actual Puyallup Fair has 100 times the people trying to get in and I never waited as long. The ladies working the registers looked like they were moving in slow motion or hopped up on old lady drugs.
As I walked around the show, I didn’t notice any prices that were any better (on guns or ammunition) than I could get every day of the week at Mary’s Pistols or Cabela’s. Most things were priced higher, if you could even find a price at all. [Personal peeve: I absolutely hate to find an item with no price on it. That’s done because the seller wants to be able to price by trends at the show, or laziness.] Accessories were priced the same or higher than I can find locally or on the internet. Most of the stuff I saw was airsoft grade junk, few quality names at all. One of the mags I bought in Lakewood was faulty, and I took it back the next day and exchanged it. That’s something I couldn’t do with a show purchase. Most of the tables didn’t have any company name displayed anywhere.
I did find two cosmoline packed new-old-stock FAL magazines for a decent price, good enough that I’m wondering if the seller might have made a mistake. The table across the aisle had some for 3x more for used beat ones.
Conclusion. Why? I think the WAC and the sellers are (figuratively) shooting themselves in the foot. Poor service and high prices. Seriously, if the WA legislature, after some crime with a gun show purchased firearm, wanted to ban the shows altogether in the state, I wouldn’t feel motivated to so much as write an email, much less march or anything else.
The Kel Tec RFB I just bought uses FAL metric magazines, purported to be the most readily available and inexpensive magazines in the universe. I, however, have found them very difficult to find. I picked some up in Lakewood for $20 a pop and they were well used. Searching online they are running about the same, price and condition, plus shipping. So I headed to the WAC gun show in Puyallup figuring there would be tons of them there.
Nope. More on that in a bit. I hadn’t been to a gun show since the mid 80s when I was stationed in California. The gun atmosphere was very different in CA back then too BTW. Entry to the WAC show was SLOW….like “what the heck is going on!” slow. The actual Puyallup Fair has 100 times the people trying to get in and I never waited as long. The ladies working the registers looked like they were moving in slow motion or hopped up on old lady drugs.
As I walked around the show, I didn’t notice any prices that were any better (on guns or ammunition) than I could get every day of the week at Mary’s Pistols or Cabela’s. Most things were priced higher, if you could even find a price at all. [Personal peeve: I absolutely hate to find an item with no price on it. That’s done because the seller wants to be able to price by trends at the show, or laziness.] Accessories were priced the same or higher than I can find locally or on the internet. Most of the stuff I saw was airsoft grade junk, few quality names at all. One of the mags I bought in Lakewood was faulty, and I took it back the next day and exchanged it. That’s something I couldn’t do with a show purchase. Most of the tables didn’t have any company name displayed anywhere.
I did find two cosmoline packed new-old-stock FAL magazines for a decent price, good enough that I’m wondering if the seller might have made a mistake. The table across the aisle had some for 3x more for used beat ones.
Conclusion. Why? I think the WAC and the sellers are (figuratively) shooting themselves in the foot. Poor service and high prices. Seriously, if the WA legislature, after some crime with a gun show purchased firearm, wanted to ban the shows altogether in the state, I wouldn’t feel motivated to so much as write an email, much less march or anything else.
