Why....

[MuShuGordon]

Are the prices on GunBroker so unbelievably high? I see 20 round boxes of 270 on there selling for $30 more than you can buy them elsewhere when you factor in shipping. Also, when the heck did it cost $15 to ship one box of ammo? Are these people out of their minds? No wonder no one is buying the stuff.

[VBshooter]

A lot of them are still playing the shortage game,,THey got it ,you want it ,you pay for it..It's whatever the traffic will allow,, If you look there often ,, you can get good deals but it takes patience to wait for them,,,I''ve bought a good amount of ammo from them a lot cheaper than the local dealers here were charging...

[BluemontGlock]

Vote with your $$$$

they will get it eventually, or not...

[zephyp]

The ONLY thing I would consider buying on gun broker is primers simply for the reason they are almost (almost) impossible to come by elsewhere. There is plenty of cheap good ammo to be found on the net. If you really need primers take a big gulp and pay double for them on gun broker, that is about $0.06 each. If you need ammo try Ammo to Go, Cabelas, or any other online shooting outlet.

[Vahunter]

I saw a box of winchester white box ball .380 ammo with a starting bid of $144.00. 100 rounds That's why I reload.

[MuShuGordon]

Oh, wowzers. The girlfriend's dad is supposed to teach me how to reload in a month or two and luckily he has about 30,000 large rifle primers lying around, so I think I can reload a few times without worrying about where the next ones will come from. I bid on some 270 brass and some idiot kept driving the price up on it. I was like, you are crazy man, but hey, its ok.

[zephyp]

Best thing to do on gunbroker is find the deals that have "buy now" options. Check the price and if you want it buy it with no bidding.

[MuShuGordon]

Best thing to do on gunbroker is find the deals that have "buy now" options. Check the price and if you want it buy it with no bidding.

Please Master Jedi, I am your padawan, enlighten me with more knowledge on the world of guns. I seriously am trying to learn as fast as I can.

Have you ever had luck with talking to people on there about their prices and seeing if they will come down on their price at all? Especially for shipping of the product. I see Buy It Now on some of the ammo, and the price is about what it would be in a retail store, then the shipping is the cost if they were shipping a block of lead across the ocean.

Also, can the sellers end the auctions early if a lucrative deal is worked out?

[zephyp]

Not buy ammo I would from gunbroker. Primers only. Hard to find they are...Hmmm.

As I stated earlier the only thing I would buy from gunbroker is primers unless you're after ammo which cannot be found elsewhere and right now that is doubtful. The exception may be .380 FMJ. If you want primers and live out of NOVA or away from the larger towns I would first search your local stores. Exhausting that I would do a quick google to see if by chance anyone had them in stock. Probably not. Then I would go to gunbroker and find the primers you want with the "buy now" option. You can find them for roughly double the regular price with decent shipping. I have found a couple of folks willing to haggle, especially if you are a repeat customer then they will give you first dibs on cheap prices or hard to find items - like more primers!!! I've seen small pistol on there for around $50/1000 + 15 for shipping which is not too terrible a deal considering they generally cant be found elsewhere. AFAIK the only way they can end the sale early is if you select the buy now option.

For ammo, a much different story. If you're like me and order on-line there are several places well stocked and you can find almost anything you want at a decent price and decent shipping - except for .380 FMJ. When I'm looking for ammo (usually 9mm or .45 ACP) I start at Ammo to Go then Cabelas (both easy to find with google). Midway USA sometimes has a deal or 2. If you're after ammo for an AR or Ak thats all over the place at good prices. Btw, the primary reason I order ammo on-line is its harder to find up here in NOVA unless I'm willing to fight beltway traffic to drive across town. Last, ammo engine is a good site to use when browsing for ammo -- http://www.ammoengine.com

And finally finally last but not least, our sponsor Rick sometimes has ammo in stock and he gives us a 10% discount and sometimes deals on shipping. I generally dont check there because he's not had 9mm or .45 for a while --- http://vagunforum.net/announcements/dis ... l-t67.html

Hope this helps. Please dont hesitate to ask if you need help. Between everyone here you will find an answer - and most of the time the right one...

[VBshooter]

ON GB they can't dicker a price due to the auction rules,,, A good trick is to look for a Starting Bid and a Sell It Now that are every close ,sometimes 1 or 2 bids will get it.. Also when checking, On the right side at the top change the search to highest price first.Then you can scan it from top to bottom till you get to where you want to be.. Some guys will start an auction at a penny and let it ride,, If interested put them in the folder My Auctions and watch them,,Often they don't go very high and can be had cheap. Compromise your wants , a bit less at a good price is still a deal. take it when ya can,, A Dutch Auction can be good if you catch the right one..Sometimes there's a lot available at that winning price, Much like EBay it's a matter of wait and see, Try these too ,sometimes it's good and others it's not #1 http://www.auctionarms.com/ #2http://www.vaguntrader.com/

[pedal_pusher]

i don't buy anything from GB...anymore, cause i had a couple of problems with items i paid for and never got. one was a $800 pistol and GB did nothing. i had proof via fedex which was the supposed carrier that no item was ever shipped. i emailed GB over and over and got no response, i even tracked down their corporate phone number which rings off the hook.

many people hate GB for this very reason... someone needs to make a better gun auction site with a comparable paypal like funding system. whoever does it will make a killing, cause it's the right time to do it.

[pedal_pusher]

one more thing about high shipping costs, a lot of sellers pad shipping when listing an item at a lower price to attract buyers. it's the latest online auction gimmick. whatever the item sells for, they are guaranteed to make up the difference.

[VBshooter]

Very true,,, You really have to do your homework to deal with them...After awhile you get good at calculating costs in your head and can look through a lot of ads really fast...Too bad about the pistol,, Sadly for buyers with an issue GB and others make sure their ass is covered legally and can;t be held liable..I know this won;t help that old situation but make a habit of using Postal Money Orders, In the event you get taken you can get the PO Inspector General Involved due to their being possible mail fraud ,,which they don;take lightly... They will persue the matter and get to the bottom of it...

[pedal_pusher]

In the event you get taken you can get the PO Inspector General Involved due to their being possible mail fraud

i have been down that road too... the post office is worthless and the PO general's office has nothing to do with that, as told officially. all those issues go through the special investigators office which is the most chaotic branch in the whole organization.

i won/bought a sig trailside back in '03 on GB and after the auction closed, i called the seller who said all this BS about being a devout christian and follows the letter of the law... yada yada yada. so i believed i was dealing with an honest person plus he lived in a tiny maine town so it wasn't like i couldn't track him down. i sent a check (something i never do) after we agreed he would ship UPS and email a tracking number. well, i never got my trailside and he cashed my check. over the course of a month he gave me bogus UPS tracking numbers and after i got UPS involved, we discovered he was lying. then he said he made a mistake and shipped via the postal service and had a tracking number but after my own investigation, i found that he wrote my address in such a way to send the box to a special handling dept which makes finding packages impossible within their network. so he knew what to do to create a working tracking number and after a period of time the box would be redirected back to him.

he of course played like he was getting scammed (what scammers do) instead of trying to help me locate the package and he refused to give me the serial number. he said he would only give it to law enforcement or government so i called him officially and he still refused. at this point i had given up all possibility of getting the pistol but wanted to nail him.

i contacted the post master general's office, a nice voiced lady answers and takes my name and number and promises someone will get back to me, i did this 6 times and no one ever called. i called officially and immediately was directed towards someone who said "this office does not handle those issues" and directed me towards the special investigators. it took two months to get an investigator assigned to my case and we chatted on the phone, he was not aware of the cracks in the system that allowed my guy to scam people so, he said he would look into it.

another month passes and he calls me but, not to talk about the case, just to chat which was unprofessional. i asked how long has he been an investigator and he said over 10 years. he said he had been busy working another case and hadn't had time to address mine. i asked, what are his offices policies regarding firearms related cases and, he said they're the utmost of importance and take precedence over all others. i then asked if his current case was a firearms case and he said "no, it's some other bogus thing". <-- this is why there is so much crime within the postal system... no one cares! so nothing was ever done on my case and i called the post master general's office to complain and no one ever called me back.

[pedal_pusher]

oh btw... i have 4 trailside mags for sale if anyone is interested!

[MuShuGordon]

How much are they? $1 + $150 shipping? Ha. Got you.

Thanks for all of the advice there Zephyp. What is typically the going price on primers? So I have something to reference them too when looking for them online?

[zephyp]

How much are they? $1 + $150 shipping? Ha. Got you.

Thanks for all of the advice there Zephyp. What is typically the going price on primers? So I have something to reference them too when looking for them online?

No prob. Around $30/k depending on where you get them.