Grayfox54

I had the same thing happen to me last year. Heard the knock on the door and the guy was leaving as I opened it. I also asked about the signature and got the same response. Good thing I was home.

The days of cheap Mil-surps is gone. Never to return. My late friend had about a dozen SKSs and I think it was 6 Mosins. He didn't pay more than $100 for any of them. When we sold them in 2017 prices started at $250 and went up depending on what it was. One Yugo SKS brand new, still in cosmoline went for $450. And I had them marked low for a quick sale. BTW: sold them all in one weekend at a gun show.

These days a decent M1 Carbine starts at $1000 and just goes up from there. As for where to find, well good luck with that. They just don't exist as plain Mil-Surps anymore. Nobody stocks them. You're gonna have to either watch the auction sites or just get lucky. I have two of them and love those little rifles.

Absolutely. They're great guns. But there are just so many other options these days. Besides, younger folks don't even consider revolvers these days. Only us dinosaurs still believe in wheel guns.

This one snuck up on me. I didn't even know about it until I happened to see their ad on Armslist this afternoon. This one is by Great American. Its at the Shriners Temple on Shelby Oaks. I've been to their shows before and honestly wasn't impressed. I don't need much right now, so I think I'll let this one pass. Just throwing this out there if anybody in the area wants to go.

I only own one firearm that has a brace and it came from the factory that way. I doubt it'll ever be a problem. I don't own any of that other stuff. FRTs, 80% or such. But I don't want to see any of that stuff banned either. It would be just one more step in the plan to destroy our rights. I think the most likely outcome will be the ban of any new production of these items. But the stuff already out there will be allowed to stay.

The vast majority of .38 carriers go for the small frame snubbies due to concealability and/or light weight. Larger revolvers have more or less fallen out of favor. There's just too many small semi-autos these days plus the current focus is on ammo capacity. I rarely carry a 4". However, my favorite carry revolvers are 3" S&W K-frame (medium frame) guns. I have 3" Models 10 & 13 that a carry at times. Although the Model 13 is actually a .357, its usually loaded with .38 Special +P ammo.

We've know or at least suspected this for years. ATF has finally admitted it. ATF has 1 Billion gun records

It sure is pretty, I'll give it that. But I think I'll stick with my plain old P-226.

So sad to leave young children behind.

My neighborhood has underground utilities, but its fed by poles just a block away. Doesn't take much to put my whole area out. Day 6 and my disabled friend is still without power. A neighbor of her's is keeping her informed. Apparently its just her street and a couple in the immediate area that are out. Maybe 50 houses total. Right now MLG&W has bigger fish to fry. They won't even give an estimate as to when it'll be restored.

S&W is suffering from the same malady as hundreds of other well known manufacturers of many different products. In the beginning they built their name by making the best quality and longest lasting products they could. They took real pride in what they made. But somewhere along the line the bean counters took over. Quality takes second place to cost. QC is minimal at best. Let the customer be the beta tester. Make it as cheap as possible and get it out the door. I dearly love my S&Ws. I collect them. However, none of mine have locks and only one has any MIM parts. I haven't cared much for anything S&W has made since about the mid-90s. Its sad how far they've fallen.

As much as I love the 1911, these just ain't my thing. Way outta my budget too.

My gas logs burn a ton of gas and runs up the utility bill. That's why I rarely use it. But its a good flame and kept the den/kitchen area nice and warm. It kept the rest of the house tolerable. I actually had to turn it down after a couple of hours. Only ran it at about half.

I'm finally back. Here in Bartlett my power went out at about 9:30am thurs morning. It came back about 1:30, But went out again at 4:00pm. I have lanterns and fired up the gas fireplace. Funny thing is that I've lived in this house 32 years and I doubt those gas logs have been turned on a half dozen times. But I sure was glad to have them. I stayed warm and toasty. All in all I did quite well considering. Power came back on around 9:00pm Thurs and all is good. The streets never did ice up. I drove around the area some and lots of limbs and full trees are down. It was a mess! On Friday I heard on the news that 350 trees were reported down. That's just what was reported. No telling how many people have limbs or parts of trees down. Some streets were completely blocked. I lost a couple of large limbs, but no damage. I've mentioned my disabled friend before. She lives in the Frayser section of Memphis. Her power is still out now. I went and got her and her dogs Fri morning. They've been staying in my guest room ever since. Supposedly her power should be back by midnight tonight. But no promises. They're saying some folks may be out until the end of the week. For me the biggest PITA has been my cable was out. No TV and no internet for 5 days. It just came back on a little while ago.

Greg nailed it. Collectors will pay big bucks for just the right item to go with a pristine collectible gun. It completes the set as it were. Complete tool kits (screwdriver, cleaning rod, mop and brush) sell for big bucks. Especially if still in the original, unopened package. Prime example is S&W factory stocks. Up to about the 80s, new gun buyers at that time routinely took them off a new gun and slapped on a pair of goodyears or other aftermarket stocks. Many were simply thrown away. Gun shops often had boxes full of them for about $10 a set. But S&W quit making wood stocks years ago. Originals are getting hard to find. Many collectors want to return used guns back to factory original. Now days, depending on the condition, style and wood, these stocks routinely sell for $150-$500. Some go for even more. An original set of "Cokes" in like new condition could bring as much as $1000. A few years ago I bought a refinished 1930s .38/44 HE. Being refinished, it had little collector value. However, it did have a set of excellent condition period correct Service stocks on it. I took these off and listed them in the S&W Forum For Sale section at half the price I paid for the entire gun. They sold in less than 10 minutes. I really should have asked for more. Never underestimate what serious collectors are willing to pay.

Is it just me or does it seem that Americans today just aren't as tough mentally as the older generations? I'm talking mostly the under 30 crowd, but some older folks as well. When I was a kid, (1950s/60s) we were taught right from the start that life is hard. You gotta learn to deal with it. Not everybody made the team, you don't get trophies just for being there and you had to punch the bully in the nose to get him to leave you alone. It seems to me that many Americans were over protected as kids. They weren't allowed to experience failure. But the truth is that failure is the best teacher. Then one day they were thrown out into the real world and SURPRISE! They suddenly realize that they aren't special. In fact, almost nobody gives a #### about them! And most of all they come to the realization that you're completely on your own. Is it any wonder that when life poops on them that they can't handle it? I really think this is why we see so much mental illness in the general population these days. They were never properly prepared for the real world and many of them cracked under the strain. I'm interested in your thought on the subject.

Don't confuse crazy with stupid. Many crazy people are perfectly capable of serious and intricate planning of what they want to accomplish. Its their motives that are insane. But also bear in mind that their motives make perfect sense to them.

No idea. I found it at a gun show some years ago. Paid $700 for it. I posted it on the 1911 Forum a couple of years ago and even the experts over there were stumped. The trigger, grip safety, thumb safety and slide stop are from an original "Black Army 1911". The slide shows the classic two tone coloring of a WW II re-arsenal job. Best guess is that it was cobbled together by some unit armorer out of spare parts. But there's no way to prove it. What I do know is that its a genuine Army issue pistol and it shoots better than most. I'm fine with that.

My mystery 1911. All G.I. parts. A mixture of 1911 and 1911A1 parts. 1914 Springfield U.S Arsenal frame with a Colt slide. Looks like brand new. All parts are properly military marked. But no arsenal rebuild marks. Best anybody can figure, this gun was put together from parts. By who or why is completely unknown. Just another Army issue 1911 mixmaster.

Hindsight is 20/20. One of the best friends I ever had was a retired Police officer. Medically retired due to an on-the-job injury. During his career he worked patrol, narcotics and undercover. He was shot twice, cut twice and had numerous broken bones. In all four of the serious attacks it happened so fast and so unexpected that he couldn't react until after he was already injured. None of his attackers survived their encounter. He described Police work as hours and hours of routine, tedious boredom broken by occasional moments of sheer terror. Police Officers are daily asked to deal with the worst our society has to offer. It rarely goes as planned. I support our LEOs and whatever they have to do to go home at the end of their shift.