I finally got my ducks in a row to carry out a roadtrip to the Saxet San Antonio Gun Show, the largest in central Texas, along with Dwight and Mike. (With two large dogs to board, the logistics can be daunting.) My last trip to a gun show was a few years ago, so I wanted to see how The Great Gun Buying Panic of 2020 has changed things. Here are some observations that people of the gun may find of interest.
We got there at about 11 AM, and while sales seemed brisk, they weren’t “if you see it you better buy it or it’s gone forever” brisk. At a glance all regular rifle and pistol manufacturers and makes in the usual calibers seemed to be there, with the possible exception of Glocks. Usually they seem to be plentiful, but I don’t recall seeing the usual arrays of new Glock cases. Then again, I wasn’t looking for a Glock, so I might just not have seen them, or the dealer mix was Glock-lite.
I was looking for a Smith & Wesson M&P15 in 5.56 NATO/.223, and boy prices have gone up on those. Used to be you could find them in the $550 to $600 range. You could find them in stock boxes at the show, but they started at $998. Supply and demand has driven this one through the roof.
My less scientific survey of pistol prices suggests they’re up as well, but not as much, and I got the impression that quality name-brand models were generally up some $100 to $150 over a few years ago.
Ammunition prices were also up, and business also seemed brisk, but didn’t suffer from the “put it out and it’s gone” condition people seem to be finding at their local sporting goods shops. I bought 50 rounds of .45 ACP ammo for $25 (and brass, not steel). That’s up from the 33 cents a round I used to pay, but not up as much as I expected.
Again, I wasn’t looking for them, but reloading supplies seemed nearly non-existent. The Great Primer Shortage of 2020 continues apace.
The San Antonio Gun Show was a whole hell of a lot more diverse than the average antifa riot, with Hispanic, black and Asian attendees. It also seems to skew younger and with more women (maybe 25%) than in previous years.
Out: The weirdo Nazi memorabilia dealers you used to find at gun shows last century. In: People selling quilts, water softeners and beard oil (two different vendors for the last).
While we were in San Antonio, we tried to hit various Half Price Books locations. Two trips were successful, but but two others stores (including the Broadway location) were inexplicably closed, with locked doors and “closed to foot traffic” signs on the windows.
On the way to the show, we had some excellent breakfast tacos at Lucy’s Tacos in San Marcos, which is just a trailer next to a convenience store with three picnic tables under a vine-covered gazebo.
On the way back, we had some fine German food for our Saturday Dining Conspiracy at Alpine Haus in New Braunfels.
There are still a lot of gun shows in Texas on the calendar between now and the end of the year.
Tags: ammo, AR-15, Dwight Brown, food, Glock, Guns, Half Price Books, San Antonio, Smith & Wesson, Texas
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2020 at 2:23 PM and is filed under Guns, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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I just finished two days at the Asheville NC gun show.
My impressions were that there were no primers but some power and a good supply of bullets. I didn’t price them unfortunately. Used dies were $20-25.
Defensive ammo – especially in 9mm – was a dollar a round plus. Federal HST was $50-70 for a box of 50.
The only thing I bought was 20 rounds of 00 low recoil buckshot for $25.
Prices were higher. I was there Saturday. A couple of years ago going to a Gun Show looked like a Retirement Home. Most of the people were Men and the average age seemed 50-60+. A few Blacks and older Hispanics were there (after all it IS San Antonio). Over the Years it has changed. First more Women and not just there with their Men, younger and several together. Then younger families with young kids. More Blacks and younger Hispanics. The average age has really dropped. Far, Far more diverse. It is just what Gun Shows and the US needs.
Well, it is not as diverse as it could be, after all there were no Biden masks, signs, or anything else. Didn’t see any Antifa or BLM types either. They maybe keeping undercover but I don’t think so, they would have to THINK to do that.
I attended the St. Charles, MO Gun Show this past weekend and was surprised by the diversity of attendees. All antendees and sellers were pleasant and welcoming.
Weirdo Nazi memorabilia? Do you mean militaria dealers? WW2 was kind of a big deal, and so dominated available militaria, but I don’t remember ever encountering some generic “weirdos” peddling Nazi crap.
You used to have guys that only sold Third Reich stuff and Nazi memorabilia, not more general WWII relics.
It’s been a while since I went to the Saxet, I might need to go again. I probably ought to go to up my stock of 38SPL and 357 ammo. There used to be guy selling Soviet surplus items, very interesting. My wife, who went more often than I did, worked with him to get a genuine mink winter hat in my size. It’s very warm but, like heavy winter coats, it has a limited use here in San Antonio. I have worn it on business trips to very cold places – gladly.
My wife is a crack shot, her dad started her shooting when she was six. She had the high marks at her CCL class.
The firing line at my gun range in Houston looks like the UN. There are the standard beer-gut Bubbas, but also lots of blacks (seemingly, predominently women), Hispanics and Asian families. Last weekend, I saw what looked like a 12-year old Asian girl banging away with an AR-15. If Mom and Dad are out for the evening and a home invader comes to call, I can easily see her grabbing that firestick to protect herself and little brother in his high chair…..
The Nazi memorabilia dealer was always at the back, next to the table with the John Birch Society pamphlets, and that was pretty much all they sold. They were either old and obese or they had a tweaker aspect to them.
In addition to all of the other atrocities and monstrosities on can attribute to the Nazi’s, they ruined my favorite dagger pattern, the ‘Holbein” pattern of Swiss dagger, by using it for their dress uniforms. F_ckers.
(Q) “weirdos” peddling Nazi crap. (/Q) is exactly right.
You couldn’t have missed them if you had been to gun shows unless you are playing the three wise monkeys on the subject because you are one of them.
They were there. And in some instances they still are.
And they are weirdoes and they were selling nazi crap ONLY because they wanted to emphasize that they were nazi sympathizers.
“Ooooohhhh . . . look at me and my nazi cr@p! . . . I’m a nazi weirdo because of my nazi cr@p, see? . . . And “heil” this and “heil” that and I’m a nazi . . . And I love nazism . . . And I sell only nazi cr@p because I want people to notice how nazi I am with my nazi BS . . .” and so on and so forth.
2 + 2 = 4 and a nazi weirdo is a nazi weirdo.
And playing the three wise monkeys on the subject makes you a nazi weirdo, too.
Because when there is an elephant in the room and you go “what elephant? . . . I don’t see no elephant!” it is YOU who has a problem.
Nice Communist rant there Comrade. Communists and Nazi’s are just different sides of the same coin.
$998 for an M&P Sport II AR!? That’s obscene. Three yrs ago my wife’s cost half that from Sportsman’s Guide. It’s gotten ridiculous out there. Hopefully this craziness will settle down & sane prices return.
If Trump wins, then yes, prices will go back down. If Biden wins and Democrats push to ban them, not so much.
Yes, some were general WW2 memorabilia, but too many were just Nazi stuff. As a Jewish gun nut friend put it, they needed to display their swatiska flags appropriately: ina toilet
Not sure why this was in pending filter, but it’s been approved.
Welcome to BattleSwarm, Mr. Cramer! I know I’ve linked to your work in the past…
[…] The last point accords with my own experience at the San Antonio gun show in October. […]