Tulsa - Sooner Gun Show this weekend - anyone going?

[Honeybee]

Don't forget that they have to add a few bucks to the price of the merchandise to pay for the table! That doesn't come cheap.

 

[blacklabelmongo]

Almost seems like a capitalist move to jack prices last minute in attempt to merge with those damn democrats to keep people from wanting to attend and continue the use of their 2nd amended right to own arms.

I am very glad to see Plowshare Arms at this show, they are very nice and down to earth people (visited with them at the metcalf show) and gave me a great deal on a pistol AND it included a credit on some hydrocoating from hydro customs for my purchase with them.

Wasn't impressed on the prices of Ammo, pretty sad when I leave a show to score rounds from Academy...

 

[kevin brown]

Gun shows are dieing!!!!!!! The Liberals who run citys like Tulsa don't like guns. Washington doesn't like guns. They have tried for years to ban Gun shows and had no luck. So what is the next thing to do up the prices of rent they add sir charges then parking fees and what ever they can think of. Then dealers have to raise there prices higher than what you can get on line with shipping. Or higher than Sports World Sooner Guns or even higher than Gun World in Okc. And then gun owners stop going to the gun shows. Dealers stop buying tables and the shows come to an END.

 

[Madpap]

Yep I like to stroked out when I seen the price. I paid and walked around and was very disappointed in the quality of the show looks like wannamacher will be the only gun show I attend from here on out. i was looking for a magpul ctr milspec stock cheapest i found was 82. I mean really now when you can get it shipped to you for 56 with no tax. I will spend my money where it counts not to fatten somebodies pocket. Never again grand national[/QUOTE
Where can you get a CTR for $56??

 

[uniquediversity]

i actually did pretty well from this show. i picked up a cz 527 with a muzzle break integrated in the barrel for around 150 less than what the appraisal was. i was happy.

 

[ez bake]

me neither! it was some guy there who was kinda rude. i asked him if he ever heard of OSA or okshooters but he said no. My friend said he picked up a knife from the table to look at it and the guy got really mad and told him to drop it. He then spent about a minute placing the knife as evenly spaced from the next one as he could.

i liked the show though. Not worth $15 but there were a descent amount of milsurps there to interest me. I also got a shirt with an AK47 on it! cant wait to wear it to school!

That's funny - I think I was right behind you (was your friend a girl?).

I watched him drive two customers away by being rude, and then I asked him about a trade with my Spyderco Nishijin R (a Sprint-run, that is new enough that he didn't even have in stock) for his Spyderco Dialex Junior (which is a knife that's been out for a little bit and hasn't exactly been an overwhelmingly hot seller).

He asked to see my knife (which was in the box) so he could look up the number on his phone (presumably on Spyderco's website since he didn't have any in-stock himself) and his eyes got really big and he hesitated and then told me that he couldn't trade straight across.

I just sort of paused and then asked if he was sure, and he said that he would need about $45 on my end. I then told him to give me my knife back and to have a nice day. He tried to justify himself and attempted to start negotiating but at that point, I wasn't really interested anymore.

Now I should probably make note of the fact that his knife and mine are both worth exactly the same (retail on Spyderco's website), but I can find the Dialex Jr. just about anywhere for upwards of $20 cheaper than he sells them (I'll be honest - he's rarely the cheapest on any of the knives I've bought from him, but I like to support the local folks). My knife isn't exactly available everywhere online and since it's a Sprint run, there will only be 600 (or 1200) made. The cheapest I can find my "R" right now is $139 (the Dialex Junior is available on Cutleryshoppe.com for $123.20).

If I had to guess as to how much he'd charge had he gotten my "used" knife (based on the fact that it is a Sprint-run, and that it's not even available at every distributor out there yet), it would probably be in the neighborhood of $160-$170 (he lists the Junior for $145 right now).

Now he's perfectly within his right to want to make money (especially in a trade for a knife that he didn't get from a distributor, so technically he can't say it's NIB), but his attitude towards me and the fact that he started out so far out of whack (you can sheer a sheep many times, but you can only get lamb-chops once - he went straight for the lamb chops) just really turned me off to his shop altogether.

It's not like there's a huge markup on knives to begin with so even at his prices, he doesn't make $50+ on every knife he sells.

The sad thing is that I think he genuinely wanted my knife judging from the look on his face once I told him to give it back. Before the show, I was planning on buying an Al Mar Hawk and/or the Dialex from him even if he wouldn't trade but after the low-balling, his attitude towards me, and seeing his customer-interface skills with some of the other folks walking up to his table, I looked at both, but just couldn't do it. I'll order both online or hit up Little Joes in OKC if I want to support the local folks (might be time to go give The Gadget Company another chance as well).

I'm guessing that he didn't recognize my voice (I hadn't told him my name by that point) or the fact that I've purchased over $1000 worth of knives from him this last year.

I'm not saying I won't ever shop with him ever again, but the guy doesn't exactly have a bunch going for him in my book. He doesn't have a store-front, so you have to pay tax and shipping unless you see him at a show. His prices aren't the best around and he rarely has anything that I can't find anywhere else (to his credit, occasionally he does have some harder to find stuff).

I just didn't need the only reason I went to the show to be a disappointment on-top of the surprise extra cost to get in (followed by 1/3 of the tables at the show being half-full or empty). I was kind of bummed until I found that Sig 1911-22 (I will say that I bought some Aguila Sub-sonic .22 ammo as well, so I probably need to get out and shoot some suppressed .22 this next week - that'll make me feel better ).

 

[OkieDon]

Looks like I'm not the only one miffed at the surprised "surcharge". I also found the show lacking. That seems to be the case lately with these smaller shows. I only found about 3 or 4 custom knife makers there. Was hoping for a few more but I understand it being hard to pay for the tables and the drive there for those from out of town. It also seems harder to get decent deals on guns anymore. I understand all about making a profit, those guys/gals aren't there for their health. But when you're $50 to $80 higher on the same rifle Sports World or Academy has, it's hard to justify spending your money at the show.

What also gets me is that the Flea Market on the other side of the Fairgrounds was free to get into. Why didn't they charge a surcharge for that?

 

[AKguy1985]

If they want to keep charging $15 i wont be going anymore.

 

[Kid Glock]

If they want to keep charging $15 i wont be going anymore.

I prolly won't either. Even with the vet discount, I thought admission was high for what the show offered.

 

[hipshot]

All the guys in my island decided not to renew our tables for the next show due to the high addmission cost and the fact that Dennis Deiner told me personally at the last show that he would not go up to $15.00 on door price. He then tried to justify it with a surcharge add on by the fairgrounds? I am not sure about that due to the flea market still being free to enter? We figured that this show was crowded because A. Tax refunds are in and B. folks had already gotten there and decided to come on in but won't return to another sooner show, I heard several complaints and promises of no return due to high cost of a crappy show with alot of empty tables. The promoters go up in prices and figure they will take crap for awhile then it will level off and they will still make their money and that works in alot of cases but I don't think so here? I mean Wannenmachers fills up upper and lower levels and only charges $12.00, Diener justifies that by saying his prices are good for 2 days? How many people actually go to a shrinking show twice? I was actually going to start going to OKC to set up at his shows also, Kinda glad this happened now instead of later.