Well, there was this post about the first sub-$400 AR I’d seen…$399. Can they get any cheaper? Apparently they can:
From the guys at MGE Wholesale.
Here’s the thing, lads – what we are experiencing right now is the after effect of, basically, the entire firearms industry following the conventional wisdom and thinking that Clinton was going to win the election. That’s not disloyalty, that’s just the way it appeared to be headed. No one really thought Trump would win. As a result, the firearms industry girded up for a Clinton victory by making as much stuff as possible to have ready for the inevitable post-Clinton-victory buying panic that would ensue. And then….Trump won.
Imagine that you are in a business that relies heavily on Christmas for your big sales season. You know Christmas is coming so you lay in as much of the holiday stuff as you can…Santa themed sweatshirts, reindeer antlers, tree ornaments, little plastic snowmen, all the Christmas stuff. You hit the bank for a little extra capital so you can really have the shelves stocked for that big Christmas rush. And they cancel Christmas. And now you have all that crap sitting in the warehouse and every day you have it in the warehouse you are. Losing. Money.
So, you sell it at bargain prices…sure, you lose money but it’s less than what you’d lose by not selling it at all. And the bank wants that loan they gave you for inventory repaid sometime soon. So…..blowout sales.
That’s what has happened in the gun industry. Those 10/22 mags I got? That’s a really good example. And that’s going on with guns, magazines, and other related materials right now. If you have the money, now is an amazing time to get some smoking deals that will not happen again. (Because, really, what are the odds of this sort of political upset happening again?) But if you can shake some money loose from your budget, now is an amazing time to buy the kinds of things that the industry was betting Clinton would come down hard on.
I don’t think you could even assemble an AR out of parts for less than $379. Might be close though.
Interestingly enough, I’m not seeing the same kind of crazy door-buster sales taking place among the high-end rifle makers. Knight’s Armament, Noveske, Wilson Combat, LWRC, etc. aren’t nearly as phased by the current dynamics in the firearms market.
Suppressor companies are dropping a few decent sales–although I haven’t seen any real wow-factor deals. Those suppressor sales, however, are largely in response to the post-41P and pre-HPA dry spell the industry finds itself in.
Not to try to discount your analysis, but there may be other factors. Such as, like oil, there are too many gun companies and too few customers with disposable income. Oil is cheap right now as far fewer customers can afford manufactured products of any kind due to global growing unemployment and overcapacity. Less oil is needed, even as extraction costs more. It has nothing to do with the “fracking miracle”. More folks here are getting less hours at work or don’t have two income families anymore, or all the extra is now going to medical insurance, and after the gun companies increased production in response to the Obama Decade, now there are less dollars to buy all the new capacity. I don’t think we can blame the Colt and Remington company problems just on an election ramp up. My two cents anyway.
I think that the idea of there being too many manufacturers and not enough consumers has some merit, but that’s not really a new thing. These ‘bargain basement blowouts’ have only been since the election. Prior to that, the gun industry kinda had a little homeostasis going on…they produced enough to sell and didn’t produce more than that. With the ‘guaranteed’ result of a Clinton presidency, I’m sure the smart money said “make as much product as we can….the consumers will buy it all when the new administration starts getting around to new gun laws”. And this was, I think, a reasonable course of action at that time….after all, no one really thought Clinton would lose. And while the market may have been saturated in terms of consumers already having bought their own supply of guns/mags, I think that there was still a huge market for people who wanted to buy $4.95 magazines to resell for $50 each a year from the election and that was where manufacturers were targeting – the speculators. Certainly the wholesale distributors remembered the 1994-2014 era of “Man, I wish I’d bought a million of these things when they were cheap”. As it stands now, we are already seeing the industry starting to layoff and consolidate. I think that, given the perpetual military demand since 2001, and Trump’s proposed dramatic increase in military spending, companies may start refocusing on the non-civilian market. Regardless, even if there are too many companies and not enough consumers, I think that can only bode well for the consumer and the market – the old and sick will be winnowed out and the survivors will be the streamlined and responsive companies, and consumers will have better products at better pricing.
I have noticed M3 Pmags have been scarce ever since the Marines officially adopted them…M2s are cheap and everywhere…but I haven’t been seeing the M3s at gun shows…you can find them online but not at “bargain” prices…those higher end AR makers might have been behind in production due to prior demand and will then weather the downturn just fine…but who knows
On the Del-ton web site it’s still up with a MSRP $697.44 so even with dealer costs added to it this is a very good buy. http://www.del-ton.com/DT_Sport_p/dtsport.htm
I received my package of 10/22 steel lips mags from Zero, excellent deal, Thank you! Now to pick up more ar-spares and web gear for each boomstick.
I was at a Cabelas today and happened to spy a sign advising their gun buyers not to buy any used AR pattern rifles unless they were in .308. Their used gun rack was positively stuffed with AK’s as well. Guess the market’s pretty saturated.
This is a much better deal than the $400 ATI Omni Maxx someone had mentioned a few weeks back.
The barrel is nothing special, but if you’re actually training with your rifle, it’s a simple and not-terribly-expensive matter to replace a shot-out AR barrel with a decent one. Buy a decent cheap rifle, put a few thousand rounds through it in training, and then upgrade.
Sure, a Colt 6920 is going to be a “better” rifle. But for what you’d pay for that Colt you can get this rifle and a thousand rounds of XM193 or similar ball.
Looking at the specs for the Delton shown above, you’re getting a decent forged 7075 upper and lower, a bolt carrier group with a Carpenter 158 bolt, no-frills “GI-style” stock and handguards that are serviceable (and that cost little to upgrade if necessary). Have no experience with the fire control group Delton uses, but as long as it’s not soft MIM’d or cast junk it should be OK. The charging handle may be 6061 instead of 7075 — keep an eye on it for cracks at the front. A 7075 charging handle can be found for as little as $15, so preemptively replacing (or just stocking a spare) is not a major expenditure.
The same is true of the $400 Anderson mentioned here. Decent 7075 upper and lower (and buffer tube and charging handle), “GI-style” furniture that is at least functional, unimpressive barrel that will be adequate for training at least and can be replaced.
A cheap rifle — so long as the corners being cut are cosmetic, not functional — and ammunition in one’s hands beats a “top tier” rifle that’s still on the dealer’s rack or that you can’t afford to feed. Look for a solid core — forged 7075 upper and lower receivers, bolt carrier group that has a Carpenter 158 bolt and the basic “mil-spec” stuff (chomed interior, proper staking of the gas key screws, etc), 7075 buffer tube and charging handle — and the rest can be added as possible/necessary.