On my way from the post office to the grocery store my car veered off into the gun store parking lot. Honest, the car did it, not me. When I got the owner's attention I pointed down into the glass case and said I want to look at the 22. First he picks up the tiny NAA single action off the top shelf. I say below it. Next he pulls out the Glock Model 22 off the middle shelf. I say not that! With a skeptical expression picks the 8 3/8" 17-4 out from between the unlikely to sell Nazi dagger and Italian cap and ball revolvers on the bottom shelf. It has all the Ts, a barrel pin, and is in excellent condition with slight rub marks on the ejector rod and the hint of a turn line. After handing it over he scurries back to yackity yack some more with his serious customer. I asked for a price then barely hear mumble 95. Then I asked him to repeat the price loud enough for an old shooter to hear it. He answered O.K., $500, OTD if it's cash today. I only left with enough bills to buy gas to get me home then to the bank in a week but I had the $500.

Fortunately I had .22 cartridges and food at home. I'll stay home, finish painting the last few spots on the house, get some other chores done and shoot in the back yard. I have no enthusiasm for taking grandmas on hot dates anyway.

Shop online? Only a brick and mortar gunshop can pass on the good local rumors and serve free hot coffee.

The purchase of a gun; any gun, is always better with a "good telling", of how it came to be.

__________________
wanna do right-- not right now

Come on - pictures!

__________________
Tony

Support him ?....mines probably eating steak and lobster right now.

__________________
Paul
S&WCA #2726

Oh man, I feel your "pain".
HA!!

Car just happened to swerve into gun shop parking lot yea right ! Now seriously how did you program your automobile GPS to do that and how did it know which gun shop that 22 was in come on man we are all like minded .How did you do it?

Free coffee? I was at my lgs yesterday to pay for shipping a 10mm to Alaska
And had to wait a few minutes for him to finish feeding his neighbors chickens. While waiting the mailman arrived with a signature package that my lgs called me from across the highway to accept. When he finished feeding and collecting eggs I was rewarded with a dozen fresh eggs. Thats a good friend and dealer. Not what you find on the internet.

Wait until the car is a driverless model; the technology already exists.
One or two trips and it'll know just where to turn and park.

Expect your collection to grow tenfold.

Hey, I just get in one of my rigs and it automatically wanders around stopping at gun and pawn shops. Its like I have no control over it or y wallet. I have learned to live with this odd paranormal behavior.

Almost any K22 is well worth $500 and eating some beans and noodless

I love the LGS. Best deals I've ever had have been in my back yard.

My "LGS" of choice is actually a garage with an FFL. I have such a hard time around here finding decent used S&Ws at reasonable prices that for the last few I've bought, I go to him... actually HER, since his secretary actually does all the work on the transactions. It dawned on me as I was getting my latest, a 15-2 for my next build, that she wasn't getting any additional benefit from her extra work on her FFL duties, so when I went to pick it up, I took her an inexpensive bouquet of flowers. You would have thought I'd done the nicest thing ever, but let me tell you, this is a service worth more than silver and gold to me! Now if I could only get hooked up with a GOOD gunsmith who was reasonably close and could indulge my flights of fancy!

Froggie

$500 for a 3T long tube 17-4 and he threw in coffee? Nice deal I love my long tube 17 and 48-4s. They balance much better than you would think. Good score.

__________________
Jim
Many K and N Frames

The traditional, meaning not full lug, "long tube" K22s are my favorites for one handed bullseye. That's what they were balanced for. The sight radius helps too.

My "new" 17-4 has walnut speed loader Targets. Before 1980 the not so expensive revolvers that came with Targets got walnut and only top of the line models routinely got goncalo alve Targets. I'm curious when walnut Targets were phased out.

Cars were driving themselves into gun store parking lots long before GPS existed. I think my first 1973 model car could smell the Hoppie's #9.

My LGS guy is mostly into plastic fantastics and black rifles. Once in a while, he takes in a Smith on trade, or outright buys it (steals it, actually), then he immediately calls me. I guess he knows a sucker when he sees one. I went over there the other day wearing a cut down .38-44 3 1/2 " with stags that I swindled Old Bear out of, and he (the LGS guy) asked me if I was getting senile. Since I had it loaded with 158 gr hard cast Keiths at about 1200 fps, I asked him what he had that could match that. He sorta thought for a minute, and said no, but he had 17 rounds of 9mm in his gen 5 Glock 17. I told him I only needed two, the other four were for varmints.

You can't blame a business owner for stocking and becoming more expert in guns that sell. Because this is a rural area the guy in town sells a lot of used hunting rifles and knows quite a bit about them. Also, since timed pistol matches are popular here he's good with 1911s and other guns for the matches.

It is not just that long barrel revolvers do not appeal to the unwashed masses. The gun business is seriously depressed nationwide. My guess is that he expects S&W revolver prices will soften and the store needed cash flow.

Guess I'm lucky. My LGS will take my money then when we are in social setting he will buy me a cocktail. I have leaned to like brown beans and rice. hardcase60

__________________
You want me to do what?

If it isn't our cars it's got to be our late father who steers my brother and me into gun shops. We like to think that Pop is watching out for his boys and hoping that they enjoy life. My brother and I were feeling very happy coming from the Cleveland Clinic who told me that my heart with its clogged artery was not going to make me a walking time bomb. So instead of taking the freeway back to my brother's house for some reason we were inspired to take US 322 through the towns. We ended up going by a little strip plaza with a gun shop in the middle. We made a turnaround and went into the shop. In the second case was a gun I never thought I'd ever see, much less have a chance to buy. It was a Series 70 Colt 1911 heavy long slide by the late Jim Clark. I put down 20 golden dollar coins for a deposit and my brother and I found a bank and got the cash to buy the gun. Our cars keep going to this gun shop and my last acquisition was a Smith & Wesson Model 27 in the box. All in all, how would we have found that shop in a neighborhood we had never been to before?

Back when I was not in as good a financial position as I am now I called it, "well I guess I'll be eating grass in the back yard now" after a unplanned impulse purchase. Now mind you I'm still as impulsive but I am better heeled these day's. I also like to support my local LGS's for my firearm purchases, the one and only internet firearm purchase I ever made left me a nervous wreck!

__________________
Stay safe people!

I had to survive on mac-N-cheese & Ramen noodles for about a month before being able to buy many guns. After buying one wasn't a whole lot better cuz I was saving for the next one.

I bought my last gun, an S&W 28-2 before I remembered that on 9/15 income tax estimate payment was due. Oops, lots of looking through the freezer until my check shows up.

Very thankful for my first two 'retirement jobs' working p/t at a couple of shops. Otherwise, I'd have never been able to acquire some of the stuff I did.
Now that we're moved, find myself in the land of Mossbergs, AR's and Glocks. Kinda sad.

__________________
Ret'd LEO
SWCA #2275