Went to a gun show with the idea being to hold a bunch of different handguns, figure out what will work best for concealed purposes but still give me enough bang, and if the price was right maybe end up with a .22 handgun for snakes and training. Ammo is expensive. Walked away with two VERY lightly used handguns. Smith and Wesson M&P .22 Compact, and a Bersa .380 to use as my concealed. The feel of the Bersa was just awesome and the price was a bonus. Up until that point, I just didn't like the feel of anything that would also be easy to conceal without printing. I'd love to carry my full size .40 auto, but in TX there's rarely such thing as "jacket weather." The M&P .22 was just a good price for a really nice handgun. Gonna have some fun on the range tomorrow... I mean, in my backyard.
Here's a fun story, otherwise known as "Lessons in Packaging Rifle Barrels." For the custom KIDD rifle I've been working on for too long, a Shilen 22" Varmint taper barrel was originally purchased. Unlike the reputation Shilen has earned, the barrel just never shot well even after being sent back and re-lapped. It was sent back a third time and sat forever without updates from the maker so it was decided to just get a refund for it and buy a new barrel. This new barrel was a 20" KIDD heavy taper, hand selected by Tony Kidd for quality and melonited. It was shipped to me back in October, first time I'd seen a barrel shipped in a flat box rather than a tube (remember this), and my joy turned to horror after unpackaging the barrel: At some point, the box was dropped and landed on a corner- the same corner the breech end of the barrel was resting against without any packaging to protect it. There was brown packing paper in the box to keep it from rattling around, but nothing for the ends of the barrel itself. Stupid. The ding itself was not just ugly- it wouldn't allow bullets to start chambering and would have prevented the extractor from functioning too. I immediately shipped it back to KIDD and they repaired it by gently chamfering the edge of the breech to remove the damaged portion, which works. I had to scrape a bit of material out of the barrel channel for the new barrel to fit but it wasn't bad, and when I took it to the range for testing the rifle finally came alive. Like consistent groups approaching 1/4" at 50 yards and no bigger than 1/2" alive, which put a big smile on my face after so many frustrating test sessions in the past. Worth the wait. So now I'm just waiting for a Leupold VIII 6.5-20X EFR scope with a custom silhouette reticle to arrive (I already have Leupold QRW rings for it) and then this KIDD will finally be released into the world. This project saw two moves and a broken hand on my part since the start and was an absolute journey to reach this point. I can confidently call it my finest work yet and take pride in the work I've done. Tl; dr: Package barrels in a heavy tube with padding on both ends like you're supposed to, and I'm glad to have this rifle about done and out of my shop!
It's either laugh out loud stupidity or some ironic open carry troll. Either way, no that isn't how they work.
I'm an AK "enthusiast" so I can identify most AKs fairly well. That is a Yugoslavian Zastava N-PAP generation two chambered in 762x39. No that is not how they work. I can't come up with any good justifications for doing that.
It's prohibited in their terms of use. https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full Guessing they have some leadership that doesn't exactly like guns, or are trying to cover their asses up lest someone were to go on a lawsuit spree after an incident.
I knew it was because it was prohibited, I just didn't know why it was prohibited. Someone gave me a Bass Pro gift card, and the total was about $3 more than the gift card. I was going to pay the extra $3 from PayPal. Only one of the items was ammo, the rest was not, and the whole thing was rejected immediately. So, the "items" have some sort of pre-determined flagging on them? How does that work? The PayPal people scour the SKU numbers around the internet, and code any ammo, guns, dildos, and bongs so they aren't allowed? I honestly had no idea that this sort of censorship was in PayPal. I guess it's odd to me that caterers can be sued for not cooking for a gay wedding, but PayPal can refuse to allow their service for items they deem objectionable, and everybody's okay with that.
Not trying to start a political argument in this thread, but the difference is that presumably, it's not that paypal is denying service to you, only that they're refusing to process ammo sales. So you can still use paypal's services, but just can't buy ammo through them.
What are the best ways to go about selling a gun? We have just one we are trying to sell and I'm not sure how to go about it. A lot of the usual ways I'd sell something are out because of the nature of the item.
That really depends on your state and its laws. The best thing to do would be to contact a licensed dealer/broker who can assist you with it. Many (not all) will have an FFL and can broker deals for just about any kind of firearm including class 3. Just make sure its currently legally owned...
Best meaning easiest, or best meaning getting the most for it? One way to get a combination of both is at a Gun Show. There is one around here at least once a quarter. You can go to gunbroker.com or gunsamerica.com to get a general idea of value. (Unless you're talking about some unique or rare high-dollar gun.) Then, you cruise around the gun show, and the dealers at the tables will ask you "what do you have there? How much do you want for it?" and you negotiate from there. I'm not sure why @VanillaGorilla stopped posting but you could PM him if he's not dead. And, if you want to take Juice's suggestion, but you're not sure who that dealer/ broker might be, you can call a local range, and ask them who you should talk to.
I'd say a gun show sale to a private person is how you get the most for it. Selling to a dealer will most likely end up in a price raping. Most dealers don't want it and will only want to sell it back for profit, therefore they offer you half of what it's worth. Selling to a person will get you more of what you want for it. What is it, btw?
Again, it depends on the laws in the state she resides. Many states allow face-to-face sales at shows, but some require an FFL dealer regardless of it being at a show. You're in the south, so it's probably more lax.
If you go armlist prepared to be low balled AND offered a Hi Point as a trade to lower the asking price. Every. Time.
I sold a pistol to a local gun shop a couple years back. I originally bought it for $375, put probably 3k rounds through it over 4 years, and ended up selling it for $280. I always took very good care of it, so it looked great, with no holster wear, no blemishes anywhere. Original case, mags, and lock were included. If the gun you're trying to sell is in good condition and relatively sought after, don't rule out going local and trying to negotiate a fair price. Worst case is that you can't make a deal and you go somewhere else. What're you looking to sell?
El husband picked up a couple .223 semi auto Saigas right online as the import ban was announced. It is brand new, never been shot, and we're including one magazine with it. We live in Alabama. We do have gun shows at the Fairgrounds periodically...sounds like that might be the best way to get the most of it. I don't need it gone asap or anything. Probably won't be doing armslist. I think that is the site that el husband jokes about getting trade offers of pit bulls for his guns. I was worried that it would be cost prohibitive to go to a gun show but I really haven't looked into the cost, but then I wouldn't have to ship it anywhere (shipping a gun sounds like a nightmare). He buys most of his guns online and has it shipped to a dealer, where he pays a small fee for them handling it. They are all legal. The attached image is the Saiga, just in case you wanted to peek.
I tend to share a bit more backstory to my work here than other places, and this is along those lines. I felt like shit all week thanks to a bad cold. Starting a checkering job is tough enough already, since the first lines you cut are the "master" lines that the entire rest of the pattern is based off so you absolutely cannot screw them up in any way- they have to be deadnutz straight and true or you are just plain screwed. A couple weeks ago I drew some initial patterns onto the stock just to map out what had been in my head onto the actual piece to scratch up and then erased it all so I could do a bit more touch-up and finishing work on the stock in preparation for the next step. Then I got sick just as I was ready to start. I went down to my shop on occasion during the week just to look at the stock and curse at how I just couldn't approach the job. Frustrating. Friday came around and I was feeling a little better health-wise, and feeling a little more confident personally after shining for management after a tough week at work, so I felt really good after giving a professional stockmaker a phone call on my way home from the office to ask some stock repair questions that led to him giving me some nice encouragement. I got home, totally loaded myself on cough and cold medicine so I could buy at least a few hours of feeling up for the task, and drew the final patterns onto the stock. Then I got feeling really ballsy and said "screw it" and went ahead with tracing the master lines with a razor blade to cut a clear path through the wood grain for the teeth of the checkering tools. Cutting in the master lines and first few layout lines followed, and the rest is now history. Tl;dr, this is what a really productive weekend for me after being sick and unable to work all week looks like: This is 24 line-per-inch checkering (count 'em if you want), and indeed finer than the 20 lpi work I've always done previously. Real precision scritchin', yah. However thanks to this Australian walnut being some dense, fine pored stuff, it cuts way way better than even the best black and claro walnut I've worked with previously. Finally, I brushed on a bit of the alkanet root tinted sealer that I started the finishing process with to firm up the bare wood a bit and help start filling the now opened pores before I start the process of re-cutting each line to full depth. Got lots more work to do, but I'm happy with it so far. I'll share this with y'all too, since it wouldn't be a project in my hands if I didn't really fuck it up somehow. Some of the border lines along the top edge of the pattern somehow got all wonky and crooked when I initially laid them out, and it looked like shit. I could have just kept them in place and some people wouldn't notice, but it really bothered me. Part of why checkering is so difficult is the mistakes are very visible and difficult to repair, so I felt a little crazy when I started creating tiny V-shaped wood shavings from a scrap piece and super glued them into the bad lines. Then I wet sanded over them with some finish to flatten everything and smooth it out while filling up more lines and gaps. The next day it was ready to be re-cut- you can see where the lines needed to be with the graphite pencil line along the top here- and I'll be damned if anyone can see where I filled in those lines now. Again, a little crazy to do this but it paid off. I've been designing a new checkering cradle in my head over time too and just ordered parts. We're talking a reinforced laminated cherry wood and carbon fiber main beam and ends. The fore-end will be attached with a steel rod in the barrel channel, fixed to the cradle through a rotary bearing and adjustable for length, and the butt end will be held to an adapter attached to a ball joint fixed to the cradle. This will negate any issues in alignment between varying heights from end to end and will allow for perfect rotation around the axis of the stock while locking it in place. Cue excitement building for parts to arrive. My current cradle is just cobbled up of scrap pieces I had around when I first started checkering a few years ago and has enough repurposed junk and duct tape to make Red Green tear up with pride so it's about time I stepped things up. Only my tolerance for junky cheap creations that somehow get the job done and demand for work has kept it out of the burn pile. I thought about trying to make an aluminum framed thing but I can't weld, it would cost more, and I'll be damned if several layers of solid cherry and heavy weight carbon fiber won't be stiffer than a ____ while absorbing vibrations more too. Oh man, turning that rickety jig into a fireball is gonna be fun!
Question for those who conceal carry: Where do you carry (both on your person and in your vehicle), and what is your favorite type of holster? I've already taken and passed the cert class (249/250 on the range qual, bam!) so I'm a few weeks away from my license coming in. I'd like to get comfortable with a few different methods around the house. I just received a belly band I ordered on amazon, great reviews, works as advertised. Extremely comfortable and with my little Bersa .380 you can't see it at all. Downside is that it takes a lot longer to deploy. I also ordered, and am awaiting the arrival of, a leather IWB holster, but I am not sure the position that will ultimately suit me best. I cannot carry at work because of the whole "guns in schools" thing, and I'm thinking about one of those magnetic holders to keep it under my dash in the truck but would love to hear ideas about that as well. Other than at work and places where it is expressly prohibited, I intend to carry at all times.