The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on January 30, 2010

to the gun show?

Lizzy, my father in law and I went to the Saratoga gun show today. Of note:

• Ammo prices to be back down to reasonably sane levels.
• Several vendors had black rifles, with prices being reasonable. New SR 556 and Sig 556 rifles were in the $1500 range. I didn’t see a Sig 516, but considering it’s not on their website yet, that’s unsurprising. There were also some very nice US and Russian production AK’s for about $800.
• Stag arms is also apparently doing a piston drive AR for a reasonable price as well, the Model 8. The price on that was very close to MSRP, however, at $1100. Still, it’s an $1100 piston drive AR, which is a bit more the speed I’m looking at.. just not today.
• I was very tempted by a fixer-upper M1 Garand (visible rust under the bluing, lots of bluing worn off, crappy plastic stock) for $700, but I didn’t even bother to pull it off the rack because the last thing I need right now is another project.
• There was a tempting Savage in .30-06 with crappy scope for $270, but the barrel had some visible rust on it as well. Once again, I could have fixed it up, but if I was going to buy a Savage, I’d want one of those accu-triggers. Still, that’s a rifle you can not feel bad about getting a little wet out in a stand or something. But, I passed.
• There was another nice Remington in 7mm Rem Mag, for $575, but it was too nice. Nicely blued, beautiful wood, but I’d feel bad getting that one wet.
• I did, however, find a used Taurus PT145 (this the current production one, mine is older) for $300 (with the two factory mags and standard white dot sights). I’d had my eye on the newer and smaller PT745, but after handling the 145, it really wasn’t that small This looks to have been someone’s carry gun, given a decent amount of wear at the muzzle. However, the gun is clean, the two mags brand new, the feed ramp slick, no sign of wear at the ramp, etc. Carried a lot and shot a little, by the looks of it, which is always a good thing.

So, weerdbeard can stop nagging me about replacing my .25 auto.

Category: Guns
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