I had some time to kill before our monthly gun club meeting last night so I stoped at a local Shinders. While looking over the various magazines I noticed that the current isue of SGN was about a quarter of what it use to be. It's been a couple years since I've bought a copy and I can't say I actually pay attention but I was just wondering if anyone knows what happened to it?

The Gun List began publishing and the internet grew [see, e.g.: http://www.sturmgewehr.com/webBBS/semi4sale.cgi ].

One issue a month is a "new" slick format.. the other 2 are the older style ones, from what I've seen.

The manufacturers got all up in arms about wholesalers publishing holesale prices. you used to be able to look in there and see what bill hicks or RSG or badger or any number of big time wholesalers were selling stuff for. Now none of them do that it is all retail prices.

I remember a guy at Joes telling me what he paid for a certain shotgun and I asked if he got it from Hicks and he just froze, He knew that I knew he had lied to me and was caught. I was a much smarter customer when I knew the whole sale price. i had no problem with them making money off the customer, I just was against paying 100% markup.

I know of no gunshop that markup there guns 100 %. How much of a markup should a gunshop have?

For the guidelines that I believe gunshops should use, just look at your nearest carton of milk; it's either 1%, 2%, or... nonfat?

Whatever the market will reasonably bear. Bill's, for example, seems to mark up their guns a lot more than any of the other local gun dealers; you pretty clearly consistently mark up the guns less.

What's fair? In a real free market, we don't have to worry about that.

But when purchasing from Mark sometimes you get a "bird show".

Actually I think Mark is very competitive price-wise if you can wait for a show to pick it up. Plus I would rather purchse from a smaller dealer that I know rather than a large operation.

.02

Me, too, on both counts. The only time I've seen other local dealers beat his prices were on fire sales -- like when the Dicks (heh) bought Galyans. They were selling stuff below wholesale, and even Mark can rarely do that.

Most people would be surprised at the small margin of profit in the firearms business. I would starve to death if that were my only income.

Very true. Do to the fight with Minneapolis to keep a gunshop in the city, I have cut back to the point where......well let say your comment about starve to death is right on. Today we had our hearing about giving away ammo when you buy a knife. If we lose this then we are about out of the game.

It is terrible what they are doing to you. Unfortunately, they have deeper pockets than us and use that to their advantage. We can only starve so long and they know it. Good luck with your battle.

I expect a gun shop to make money. I have no problem paying certain retailers a fair amount of money to get what i want. I quite often pay Al at Al's gun shop $50 over what is published price for guns he orders in for me. Pay about the same at same at Gunstop, When Kieth owned the Outdoorsman I would pay about 10% over actual cost.

I was talking about an incident where I knew that Hicks was advertising some Franchi shotguns for I believe it was $279 or so and Joe's wanted $499.00. I have not bought much from sportsmans warehouse because i know they have the ability to make the money on the clothing and access. same as Gander. They may only make make $25 to $30 on a rifle, but they are making $20 or more on shirts, jeans, hats, tackle boxes. all items which seem like nothing but make more than enough money to runthe store on. They routinely sell clothing at 70% off in clearance and thy still make a few cents. Those vests and camo suits and cold weather gear all cost little and sell for a lot.