Melgamatic

If you look in Shotgun News, there are multiple places that sell "everything but the lower receiver" kits for $500 or so. Add the price of a lower receiver ($120 in every other place, around $220 in NJ) and you have an entire rifle for around $720. Note they have dozens of different kits, different barrels, etc.

Given that decent Garands are between $900 and $1100 depending on barrel, etc, I would guess that you could sell these for at least what you paid for them in the retail market. The prices on these rifles most likely stayed the same or went up, not down by 40%!

I disagree with our NJ laws about "assault weapons" but I disagree even more with the crappy way they were written. When they banned adjustable stocks, they meant folding stocks, short weapons, etc. It should have been setup so that adjustable length stocks were ok as long as they could not be made so short that the rifle would be too short for the law. In other words, if I had a rifle with an adjustable stock that allowed the rifle to adjust from 40" to 45" long, who cares? On the other hand, if I had an adjustable/folding stock that allowed the rifle to be either 40" long or 20" long, that wouldn't be allowed. It's not just the concept behind the laws that is offensive (and it is), but the terrible implementation.

Mine has an "O" and a "U" next to the safety. You can move the selector side to side around 5mm when it's on safe, and the one that is shown is the one that fires first.

Another factor is that the shipments arrive, or are distributed to the departments, at weird times. I know that the Woodbridge store often gets new supplies around 3-6pm many weekdays. The one nice guy who frequently works at the gun counter (blond with a funky eye) tells me that he'll often be surprised by what has shown up while he wasn't looking. A few times he's told me that he was sure they were out of something, walked to the ammo cages to confirm, and been surprised that they'd been restocked. So it may just be the person on the phone was remembering from the last time they looked. On the other hand, I never trust any person on the phone at any chain store; I am sure you are right and they don't really bother to look.

At least the long guns you should try to sell here, you can probably get at least as much as the store would offer. In my experience, stores offer very little for "used" guns... How could the commerative Garands be that inexpensive? You can't get a decent one for that price, let alone a special one.

Doors are closed, plane is away from the jet way, you just committed a federal crime, and although you'll be off the plane quickly, it will be in handcuffs. (Wasn't there an LA Law episode about this a million years ago?)

I used him to install a front sight on my rifle. He did a lousy job and I wound up doing it myself. I put new front sights on three of my rimfire rifles and peep sights. I have to post some photos. He did a great job fixing a couple of revolvers for my buddy, and fixed a Kimber problem for me, but I guess every bodfy has positive and negative stories...

I've actually found a lot of primers lately. I ask anytime I'm buying other stuff, and a least half the time they'll sell me 500 or 1000 from a drawer. They aren't putting them out, or selling more than 1000 at a time due to hoarders, but they're out there. All the places in PA I visit have had lots. The powder dealer had them at the start of Saturday, but sold out pretty quickly. Mail and internet, well I haven't seen them in stock for a long time.

There is an excellent gunsmith at NJ Firearms Guild in Rahway.

This weekend they appeared to have every brand of reloading die in almost every size. Didn't specifically look for 380, but I saw no blank spaces on the shelves. In fact, they had RCBS Competition dies for 223 and 308, and every dealer has been out of those for months!

308 is an easy round to reload, and the parts are available. Just bought 500 Sierra Matchking 168gr bullets at Midway for around $120, and also some new brass at Cabelas. Varget powder is easy to find. So, you can have match quality ammo for around 50 cents a round. I did not enjoy shooting my LR-308 once I realized how terrible the trigger was. It was like moving a 8lb weight across sandpaper. I just installed a Timney trigger, and now that rifle is one of my favorites.

I must not have looked that closely. I'm loading everything I shoot now myself, so not paying as much attention to ammo prices. I'm also not sure I would ever buy reloaded ammo from someone else. Too many chances to go bad, I think. I've seen a few handguns which had been blown apart due to bad handgun ammo reloads. Most times in rifles you can't get a double charge (my 223 load is around 94% of case volume), but you can easily double charge most handgun cases. I dunno. I saw a guy actually buying perhaps 50 boxes of the reloaded stuff from the people in the back. So much that they let him open the fire exit door to bring the stuff out to his car. I thought to myself, there is a guy who should be reloading!

I went, got there around 9:30 or 10. $7 to get in, no line at the door. Place was pretty small, a typical wedding caterer sized hall. There was a big new mostly bolt action rifle dealer and a case seller in the front hall. To the right was a very small room with a knife dealer and a book dealer. That rifle dealer had a bunch of very nice Sako rifles that called to me, but I resisted. The main room was not very big, but there was some stuff there. Lots of NJ not legal ARs, some very cheaply priced. One bigger dealer near the door had a lot of rifles marked "NJ OK" which was nice. There were two ammo dealers, one near the door and one all the way in the back. Both had OK prices. The one place had brand name 9mm, 45ACP, 380, etc, at reasonable prices. One dealer had powder and primers, but no useful primers as far as I could see. Bought a few pounds of Varget, which I use for my match 308 rounds, and IM3031, which I use for 223. I bought a Rock River complete lower parts kit for $80, and a DPMS panther non-adjustable "traditional" looking stock with buffer for $69. Oh, the one place that always has magazines for everything was there (I think it's Ed's Sporting Goods), and they had new in the box Browning Buck Mark magazines, so I bought three for $24.95, which is pretty cheap and out of stock everywhere on the net. They also had 10-round AR-10/DPMS LR308 magazines, and a lot of 10-round AR-15 mags for NJ residents (in addition to the 1000's of 20 and 30 round magazines every dealer had). There was one guy that had a bunch of decent looking Russian surplus rifles for $125; can someone tell me what those were? There were plenty of shotguns, etc. They had all the GSG varieties, and the place were I bought my parts had every kind of GSG accessory, as well. The fact that you could buy brand name AR-15 style rifles for $600-800, and that there was powder and ammo to be bought tells me that the rush is at least slightly calmed down. This sale was around 10% of the size of the Forks of Delaware Historical Arms Society-sponsored show I saw at the Allentown Fairgrounds in May, but probably had as much stuff I was interested in, at better prices. Again, I think the rush is calming down just a little.

I've been thinking about an S&W model 629, either http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&pageSize=10&published=1&beginIndex=0&resultType=2&attributeName1=Model&attributeValue1=629&attributeValueType1=STRING&attributeValueOperator1=EQUAL&isFirearm=Y Either the 6" classic or the 7.5" Hunter. They are pricey, but I like the finish better than some other company's.

Never mind, found it. http://newsite.appalachianpromotions.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53

I can't find a Bristol, PA show this coming weekend Aug 8-9. The gun show calendar doesn't have it http://www.gunshows-usa.com/penn.htm Do you guys have a link?

He doesn't need the FID to purchase rifle or shotgun ammo by law, but by practice he does. Dick's requires a FID for any ammo purchase, as do more and more independent dealers. Also, new gun concepts push more and more calibers into the pistol ammo world; 410 shells are clearly pistol ammo now thanks to the Judge. He also needs a FID to shoot at most ranges, join all clubs, etc....

The only Desert Eagle I've shot is a very large 44 magnum version. It was very heavy, not very accurate, and the mechanical aspects of it were quite poor. It was very hard to move and lock the slide back (at one point we had one guy holding the frame and another guy pulling the slide back), and we had a lot of FTFs. I am sure this model was not a good example, but it turned me off to the brand. I overheard a salesman at Cheyenne showing the same 44 mag model to a customer. Told him they always had tons of used examples in stock, since people would buy them, use them a little, and then sell them back. But, I know people love them, so I assume that the one I tried was just an atypical crummy unit.

LTD ammo has a sale on cases of PMC Bronze 223 right now, $339 for 1000 rounds. http://ltdammo.com/index.php?main_page= ... ucts_id=75 In stock, and they deliver to NJ no problem (I ordered a few cases earlier of different things). -Melgamatic

Two things about C Products magazines: 1) In the recent past, orders from C Products have taken multiple months. If they currently have the mags in stock you may be lucky, but it took me over 2 months. 2) Many people are sceptical about whether or not the C Products methodology of conversion to 15 rounds meets the "easily non reversible" requirements of NJ. They basically pinch in the magazine so the follower can't go below a certain level. You could certainly reverse the process at home in your workshop without too much trouble. But you couldn't do it easily at the range, so you decide if it is non-reversible enough for your legal comfort. I have a bunch of both, and my 10 C Products magazines are largely unused at this point.

Dunkelbergers in Stroudsburg is very close by, around 10 minutes according to google maps. http://www.dunkelbergers.com/ Very good selection of rifles, especially hunting and shotguns. Also, decent reloading supplies, and they almost always have powder and all sizes of primers. Also, every kind and brand of ammo. They had limits for a while, didn't seem to have any last time. They will not sell a NJ resident any kind of AR rifle, but any thing else is ok. -Melgamatic

I ran a national sports car racing body for a few years, but it was very stressful. More recently, I've completed the Targa Newfoundland 4 times in the past 5 years, getting as high as 8th place overall. I also raced in BMW CCA Club Racing for around 10 years, finishing about 60 races around the country. I have two race cars at home that need some work; I haven't been to the track except to instruct at driving schools for a year or two.

Plus a 4-6 month waiting for the order to be processed. I ordered 3 books from the CMP on 4/8/09 and they arrived yesterday......

I agree with the $250-$300 range. Surplus CMP 30-06 goes for around 50 cents a round when available. The surplus 308 a little less. Maybe $350. What is the headstamp on the ammo? Is there an "LC" on the 30-06 for Lake City?