Big E Gun Show = SUCKED!

Rockrivr1

Rockrivr1

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Maybe it was just me, but the place seemed to be ony half full. They tried to make it look full by spreading the tables out, but you could drive a truck through some of those isles. I remember a year or two ago the place was so packed with tables that the isles could only hold two to three abreast.

Not to mention there had to be 60%-70% Knife, accessories and parts vendors. Very disapointed in this show. I went in with a whole list of things I was looking for and I left with all my money and not one damn thing. That's just WRONG!!!! Found a number of the things I was looking for but as typical the prices were high on some and down right unbelievable for others. Not a lot of haggling room either. Oh well.

Problem is, I'll still go to the next one. Glutton for punishment I guess.
 
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Of course we could just stop going to gunshows and close the "gunshow loophole" for the anti-gun crowd and let them concentrate on other areas to screw us.

[sad]
 
The only reason I would go ( didn't this time ) to the Big E show anymore is for the Sherluk lady and the air gun guy from CT. Other than that, I'd rather go to the Marlboro show and the Manchester, NH show. Springfield used to be a great show but I believe that something has disappeared from it and isn't worth the effort unless I'm desperate or bored. Sorry to see you didn't have a good day there.

Joe R.
 
The show has to be great for me to use the gas and pay the tolls, entry and parking. Lately it isn't worth the trip. I will go to Manchester because it isn't that far of a ride. Beyond that I can get what I want for the same of less at the local gun shops.

The promoters of these shows have to wake up and start making them GUN shows again if they want to survive.
 
I got nothing against the parts guys as long as they part are gun pats - that's obvious an intrgral part of these shows as many regualr shops just don't have the parts inventory some of these guys have and they know thier stuff most often too. The knife guys - it's a gun show buddy. Don't waste the table space. usually it's the "crapitcal" cheap low quality crap anyways. Promoters see the $ and let 'em have the tables though. I don't even bother going to any MA shows. Same stuff up here but at inflated prices.
 
Rockrivr1 said:
Maybe it was just me, but the place seemed to be ony half full. They tried to make it look full by spreading the tables out, but you could drive a truck through some of those isles. I remember a year or two ago the place was so packed with tables that the isles could only hold two to three abreast.

Not to mention there had to be 60%-70% Knife, accessories and parts vendors. Very disapointed in this show. I went in with a whole list of things I was looking for and I left with all my money and not one damn thing. That's just WRONG!!!! Found a number of the things I was looking for but as typical the prices were high on some and down right unbelievable for others. Not a lot of haggling room either. Oh well.

Problem is, I'll still go to the next one. Glutton for punishment I guess.
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I have never found the Big E show to be worth the drive. 90% junk and 10% over priced junk.[smile]
 
I went today. I was able to buy 6 pre ban Sig P-226 Mags for $180 bucks . THe mags are all in excellent shape. The local stealers in my area want $50 a piece for beat up old mags. For me it was worth the ride,plus it got me out of doing some yard work. I expect Manchester will be better ,plus much closer
 
rscalzo said:
The show has to be great for me to use the gas and pay the tolls, entry and parking. Lately it isn't worth the trip. I will go to Manchester because it isn't that far of a ride. Beyond that I can get what I want for the same of less at the local gun shops.

The promoters of these shows have to wake up and start making them GUN shows again if they want to survive.
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I agree with you. You should chat with Jim McLoud, if you know him, on his thoughts about gun shows and what he'd like to see happen in that business. We can only hope!
 
BlkHawk73 said:
The knife guys - it's a gun show buddy. Don't waste the table space. usually it's the "crapitcal" cheap low quality crap anyways. Promoters see the $ and let 'em have the tables though. I don't even bother going to any MA shows. Same stuff up here but at inflated prices.
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Umm, have you bothered to read their fliers/mailings?

Mine says "West Springfield Firearm & KNIFE Show" on it.

Now I really don't care about knives, but it's their show and advertised as such.

I fully agree that The Big E shows are nothing but a waste of time and I no longer go. I find Marlboro or the Concord, NH show to be a lot better. Some of the same overpriced stuff, however.
 
The Big E shows have been "shrinking" each year.

The dumb-ass rules of the Big E (not promoter) . . . to wit, the $5/car parking for vendors each day, no ammo sales in buildings means many can't sell ammo along with their guns/etc. Kills their profitability. That's why Marlboro is pretty close to capacity (capacity = 500 tables) most times and Big E, even when "partnered" with the "Winchester Arms & Collectors Assn" (125 tables advertised of the 800 total advertised) which exhibits most guns starting about $3K and going up from there, hardly reaches 50% of the advertised total.
 
FPrice said:
I hoipe you guys left something good for me to buy on Sunday.
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Depends on what you're looking for. I saw some stuff that was interesting, but it was mostly at the high end of the price scale. One guy had a small number of Enfields, but they weren't all that good. One was a No 1 Mk III that had been redone at Ishapore and not well. In fact it looked like the same type of hack job as on the No 4 Mk I I bought from Classic Arms and sent back.

Same guy had two "Jungle Carbines" that were obvious fakes. One was built on a No 1 Mk III receiver. The other was on a No 4 Mk I receiver but had an electro penciled Model Number, Factory designation, serial number, and manufacture date. Not to mention that whoever did it didn't even bother to lighten the receiver. I'm not saying that the guy who was selling them did it, but he definitely should have known. Especially at the price he was asking.

Tombstone had a pretty nice No 1 Mk III for a about $250.00 and I'm sure I'm going to kick my self for not asking what they'd take for it. I've bought from them before and they're pretty decent to deal with.

All of the handguns seemed high, at least the decent ones.

I don't think it was the usual ammo guys there as the guy I dealt with was older than the NY guys and he was polite and answered questions without a snarl. He had some .303 British at $12.00 for 32 rounds. British surplus from 1961.

All in all, I don't know if it was worth the 90 minute trip I think I"ll venture no further west than Marlboro in the future.

Gary
 
I'll miss this show all together. No one from my area is going up and I really can't afford anything at the moment.
Marlboro had quite a few interesting SKS rifles, were there any at Springfield?
 
Garys said:
I don't think it was the usual ammo guys there as the guy I dealt with was older than the NY guys and he was polite and answered questions without a snarl. He had some .303 British at $12.00 for 32 rounds. British surplus from 1961.

All in all, I don't know if it was worth the 90 minute trip I think I"ll venture no further west than Marlboro in the future.

Gary
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It was the New York guys, just that the son wasn't there. The father was running it this time. I happen to be listening in when a guy next to me asked him what he thought about Taurus handguns. He went into this whole tirade about how bad they suck and that they blow up when shooting them sometimes. [rolleyes] The guy next to me seemed pretty confused and he was walking behind me back into the show. I basically told him to ignore those comment and I gave him the web address to this site and a couple other for him to do some better research. He seemed relieved to get some place to look for advise. Gotta love when people give bad advise without any hard facts.
 
stinx said:
I went today. I was able to buy 6 pre ban Sig P-226 Mags for $180 bucks . THe mags are all in excellent shape. The local stealers in my area want $50 a piece for beat up old mags. For me it was worth the ride,plus it got me out of doing some yard work. I expect Manchester will be better ,plus much closer
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Except you could've got 6 pre ban sig p-226 mags off gunbroker for $120 without spending any gas or paying an entry fee.

Gun shows around here are a total waste. Anybody know if it's just MA or do they suck everywhere?
 
Well, it was a small show, wasn't it?

The guy in the ammo tent made a prophetic remark. Someone mentioned some ammo as being a collector's item and the guy said, "In the future this (the ammo) will all be collector's items.".
 
This was my second time and I probably won't be going back. Too much crap and not enough of the newer guns. I was looking for a WASR and found a couple but nothing worth running to buy.
 
BlkHawk73 said:
I got nothing against the parts guys as long as they part are gun pats - that's obvious an intrgral part of these shows as many regualr shops just don't have the parts inventory some of these guys have and they know thier stuff most often too. The knife guys - it's a gun show buddy.
Click to expand...
I was pretty pleased with the guy with all the American mil-surp parts (Garand, carbine, M1A, etc) at the Marlborough show. Picked up some spare parts for my Garand (extractor spring on my rifle works, but has a nasty kink in it - this guy had spares, so I got one) and a cleaning kit for it. Yeah, I know I use the cleaning stuff on my bench, but I just want it to be the way it was when a GI carried it. I also found an Army manual for my carbine, too. Parts guys are great.

As for the knife guys... Yeah, I buy my production knives from Smokey Mountain Knifeworks, usually, but there were several custom knife smiths there at Marlboro. I was seriously drooling over some of that stuff; very nice work. And as LenS pointed out, is IS billed as a gun and knife show.

Rockrivr1 said:
a guy next to me asked him what he thought about Taurus handguns. He went into this whole tirade about how bad they suck and that they blow up when shooting them sometimes.
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Well... I'm pretty unimpressed with the Taurus triggers (the ones I've tried, with the exception of Len's PT111, have all been pretty gritty), but I never heard that they blow up. Don't think a manufacturer could stay in business, much less prosper as they have, if they sold guns that blow up. [rolleyes] I just wish they'd work on their triggers. And get their guns MA compliant, of course.
 
DietCola said:
This was my second time and I probably won't be going back. Too much crap and not enough of the newer guns. I was looking for a WASR and found a couple but nothing worth running to buy.
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Can't remember which show it was at, this was about a year ago, but I saw several SAR1s for reasonable prices (around $350). I kick myself to this day for not grabbing another. They're some of the best Romanian AK clones available to us Mass residents.
 
I stopped and had a chat with the rep from USFA. They have some very nice single action revolvers that will probably never be available in MA. I didn't ask why they bothered to set up a display.
Looked at some outrageously overpriced Lyman receiver sights, new (old stock) ones for $100, junkers with missing parts for $50. Looks like I will have to buy on ebay again, for half the price.
Bought some '03 Springfield parts for reasonable prices from Second Ammendment Sports, out of Westbrook,ME. He had a good selection of US milsurp parts.
Saved about $20 buying powder and primers in the ammo tent. The selection of primers is rapidly decreasing. I have limited funds and am trying to buy 1 or 2 K of primers at each show, hoping to lay in a couple of years supply before they all dry up.
I had a rifle to sell but did not get a single inquiry through the whole show and didn't see many folks actually buying guns. I talked to a friend at one of the tables and he said that he had only sold a few dollars by noon on Sunday and probably wouldn't take a table at future Springfield shows.
Gas, addmission, and parking prices are starting to become an issue with me, and I only live 1/2 hour away.
 
Big E gun show

Went to it today and found a nice collection of used guns building wide. Sure you get the "crap" that doesn't belong there, but it fills the coffer of the gun show host. As for good prices, there weren't much too had.
 
crak said:
Except you could've got 6 pre ban sig p-226 mags off gunbroker for $120 without spending any gas or paying an entry fee.

Gun shows around here are a total waste. Anybody know if it's just MA or do they suck everywhere?
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2 points here.

1. It pays to do your homework. Checking Gunbroker, which isn't known for low prices before going, especially on things you're looking for.

2. Mostly, it's just a few shows that suck, but, prices are going up faster than some folks realize, especially on ammo.

Now, I've been to the Big-E show once, and I wasn't overly impressed with it.

Folks, make it up to Manchester; or to West Lebanon, NH/White River Junction, VT for the show in February or March (both West Leb and WRJ are the same weekend, across the river from each other). There's frequently some deals to be found then.
 
I went up Sat morning and was not all that impressed. I did have my eye on a couple of FN-49s but i didn't really budget all that much for this trip and they where around $675-$695. I did get some hot sauce some jerky and a Chinese SKS stock from the parts guy for $12. All in all it was not worth the time or money for the trip.
 
We usually go , but didn't make it this year due to me having foot surgery and still recovering. We look at it as entertainment and sometimes find some deals. All depends on what you are looking for.
We'll probably make the Dec show.
 

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