Bud’s Gun Shop is the biggest online retailer for firearms in the world. Well, besides Gunbroker, but they don’t count since they don’t actually buy any guns. And every year, Bud’s likes to release a list of the top 10 guns they’ve sold to let us know what’s popular. Last year’s list didn’t really surprise us much and they’ve just published their new tally. So, what is America buying?

1. Mosin-Nagant M91/30 7.62X54R Very Good Condition
2. New Ruger LCP .380
3. M10-762 Semi-Auto AK Style Rifle 7.62×39
4. SOVIET NAGANT M1895 REVOLVER W/ ACCESSORIES
5. Mossberg 500 Cruiser 12g 20″ 8rnd CB PG
6. Ruger LC9 9mm w/ Lasermax Laser
7. TG International FEG AMD-65 7.62×39 AK Variant
8. Ruger LCP .380 2.75″ w/Lasermax Laser
9. Ruger LC9 7+1 9mm Bl 3 dot Adj Sts
10. Hi-Point 00916 9MMC/P 3.5 8RD POLY AS
11. Used S&W Police Model 10 38sp Square Butt
12. Hi-Point 34510 45ACP/P 45ACP 9RD POLYMER
13. Bushmaster CAR15 223 16 BSH REDDOT
14. Taurus 1738031FS 738 TCP 380 1MAG NO CASE
15. Ruger SR9c 9mm Compact
16. Ruger P95 9mm Stainless, w Rail 15 round
17. Ruger SR9c 9mm Compact Black
18. Smith & Wesson M&P15-22 A1 Style w/Compensator & Collapsible Stock
19. Used S&W Police Model 10 38sp Round Butt
20. Rock Island Armory GI M1911A1 Mil Spec .45

No surprises there. Well almost. The Mosin Nagant and Ruger LCP retain their top spots (namely because one is a $100 rifle and the other is probably one of the finest carry guns ever devised), but the Nagant revolver placing so high was kind of a shock. Especially since 7.62 Nagant is probably the only caliber under .300 Win Mag that’s more expensive than 300 BLK.

Know what’s interesting, though? Look at that list and tell me which company you see pop up more than any other. Makes sense that they’re running out of inventory these days…

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55 COMMENTS

    • As tempting as it is, I just can’t bring myself to get one, no matter how cheap they are because I know it would just become a safe queen. I’d rather pay $900 for an M1903 and shoot the same ammo as my M1 Garand. That’s my thinking, anyway. But I can’t argue with the alternative logic: cheap gun, cheap ammo and big boom. I certainly see the appeal.

      • I take mine to the range almost every time I go, which is at least twice a month. I buy my surplus ammo in bulk and pay $148 for a crate of 880 rounds. It is so much fun. I have put less money into this rifle (including ammo and accessories) than any other gun I own and I enjoy it by far the most. There is something rewarding about working the bolt action and letting the iron sights center on your target. An added bonus is watching all the girls in high heals that came with their boyfriends jump and wince when I start shooting it.

  3. Hmmm…was expecting more AR…have been interested in the M10 ak style rifle…not sure if i want the handguard tho…

    +1 for the Mosin Nagant, its a very good rifle for first time gun owners, rifle is cheap to buy, simple to use, ammo is cheap and plentiful

    • you cannot beat those s& W model 10 trade-in’s for $269.00. a super dependable quality gun . 38 +p will get it donw and the wadcutters are a pleasure to shoot.

    • you cannot beat those s& W model 10 trade-in’s for $269.00. a super dependable quality gun . 38 +p will get it done and the wadcutters are a pleasure to shoot.

  6. Buds won’t ship state-compliant ARs or pistols to Connecticut for some reason. Everyone other retailer will, but I guess it’s too intellectually challenging for them. Their search engine is also straight out of the 1990s garbage.

    • Their search engine is also straight out of the 1990s garbage.

      It’s true, their search engine is absolute shit. Just now:

      Search for “mosin 9130” you get two results.
      Search for “mosin 91/30” you get zero results and “Did you mean Mosin M91/30?”
      Search for “mosin m91/30” you get five results, one of which is one of the two results from the first search, but not the other.

      This is typical no matter which gun you’re looking up, you need to think of all possible permutations and then search for all of them individually to make sure you get all the results.

    • Their policy says nothing about Pistols. I ordered my German P226R from them. As far as rifles, chat with sales and you may get a different answer.

      • I had an order for a state-compliant Bushmaster and a Glock. I got a call from sales telling me that they wouldn’t ship either to CT. I could have a shotgun, blot-action rifle etc., but it was “too risky” to sell me the legal items I wanted. Needless to say I have not tried ordering from them again, as there are so many better internet retailers.

    • I wonder how much business experience Buds has with Hoffmans? When I lived in Connecticut they were always incredibly rude, if they bothered to talk to me at all. I went in frequently out of boredom but never did business with them.

      Considering Hoffmans is kind of THE gun store in Connecticut, Im sure Buds has done business with them. Maybe they turned Buds off?

  8. Hi-point…really?

    I can’t buy from bud’s. The local gun stores will not accept a FFL from them unless it’s something they won’t carry, tack on 20% if they do, and the pawn shops and other ffls have ridiculous fees.

    • go to gunbroker.com and click on find an FFL link. I had about 10 near me and sent them the form email and found prices varied btwn $15 – $50. I also let them know I was shopping around on price. The $15 one has been very responsive via email and I am meeting with him soon to pick up a new purchase. love competition

    • Let them know that they can do the transfer and pocket a reasonable fee, or not do the transfer and get nothing. It’s nothing personal; just business.

    • You need to find an FFL who doesn’t have a gunshop. In my area we have a clock-maker shop and an art gallery which bother make a few easy dollars doing FFL transfers.

      • Really. I was looking at a Taurus, went to the local dealer, who told me that Taurus wasn’t making anymore, even though it is still on Ca. roster, and he does not have and cannot get. So I say, well, Bud’s has ’em. How much for an internet transfer? $65 bucks, says he!

  9. I got the direct email from Bud’s Gun Shop but the top 10 list was titled with “Top 20 Best Selling (in stock) Guns of 2012.” So were there out-of-stock guns that deserved placement?

  10. seeing all of the Ruger’s listed makes me glad I bough Ruger stock. Now, I have to decided whether to dump everything the day after the election or not . . . . .

  11. Nice to see Rock Island up there. In a sane world a 1911a1 in GI spec should cost around $250 bucks at most, but at least they are keeping it in the $400 range.

  12. No surprise. Times are hard and people want a deal on their guns. The basic 38 revolver is all the handgun the majority of us will ever need. Note I said need, not want. Throw in a mossberg shotgun and you have most basic needs covered.

    As for the Ruger’s, you can spend a lot more on a pistol and not get a lot more, if any real world performance for your money.

    In trying financial times people can’t justify 1500 for a self defense pistol when they can get near identical performance for 400. YMMv.

    • Well said. They are definitely moving the guns with low prices.

      I imagine AR sales are pretty strong, and also that many of those are being bought locally, but that’s also an impression I get from gun stores being absolutely crammed on the weekends and weeknights.

    • Ha, gotta love Cali. No Model 10’s or 1895 Nagant revolvers for you! Not approved, far too dangerous for you civvies. (yeah, I know, SSA, but Bud’s still won’t ship)

      • I can and have bought M10’s in Ca. I can also buy 1895’s in Ca. and have seriously considered getting 1 for my gold panning trips. If I destroy it or lose it to the river or cops I’m out very little. Same reason I kept a M44 Mosin in my old truck for my fishing trips into the boonies.

        Truck and M44 are gone now but they served their purpose. Gave the truck to a son and when that M44 was a battered rusted wreck I gave up in a gun buyback and used the money to help buy my SKs.

  13. 3 of the top guns are of the micro .380 Kel Tec copy genre. 2 more are 9mm versions of the same. A lot of pocket carry going on, out in the world.

  14. I could swear that there are three-and-a-half months left in this year. Am I the only person in the world who thinks these lists should wait until the year is over?

  16. The Ruger SR9C in black/stainless #15 and all black #17 are great pistols. I’m somewhat surprised to see the only shotgun on the list is the stock-free pistol-grip Mossberg 500 Cruiser with heat shield.

  17. My only issues with the Mosin rifles from Buds is they come very packed in cosmoline and they are are a bear to clean. Even after getting it cleaned, things do not always work and you need to tinker to make them work. For example, the bolt being to tight with a round in the chamber or other similar issues. I have put together several for different people and its a PITA each and every time.

    I do not see any of those issues as being ok for a first time shooter

    • Two words: Boiling Water.

      Pouring boiling water in the chamber and down the barrel worked wonders for my Mosin.

      Dry it well, then oil it.

      I’d cleaned the barrel with standard bore cleaners until it looked clean, pouring boiling water down it dislodged chucks/sheets of cosmoline and now the bore is fairly shiny and since the water also melted cosmoline out the the chamber, the rifle cycles smoother too.

      • I’ve heard good thing about people completely disassembling the Mosin and running the parts through the dish washer.

        Sounds like it would work, but I didn’t do it that way because the idea of all that Cosmoline in the dishwasher skeeves me right the hell out.

        • Disposable cooking pans from the grocery store. Boiling water and simple green. And while you have it all apart get a roll of cork gasket material from the auto parts store and shim the action bolts and the barrel, you tube videos will show you how.

          Before you put it back together chuck a shotgun cleaning brush into a poer drill and thoroughly clean out the chamber are too eliminate sticky bolt.

          Do this and even the first time shooter will have an intimate knoledge of his rifle that will serve him well.

    • Yeah blame Buds for their Mosins being caked in something the Soviets put on 40 years ago and also preserved the rifle.

    • Go to autozone, get a can of spray on engine degreaser, coat the Mosin in it inside and out, rinse after 15 min… Good to go.

    • I disassembled mine and put it int he bathtub with the hottest water. Put a ton of soap in too. Took enough cosmoline off to fire. Gun still feels oily, mainly the stock and bleeds cosmoline when heated up through firing. But ok results.

      • With cosmoline caked surplus, the best I have found is break the rifle all the way down, all the metal goes in a bucket of mineral spirits, let it soak, scrub with a toothbrush risnse and oil. As for the stock wrap in paper towels, seal it in a black trash bag and put in a hot place (inside of a car or attic) bleeds the cosmo out.

  18. I was thinking about ordering from them, but I stopped visiting their website once they introduced the scam known as the penny auction. I honestly don’t know if they still run it, but I decided to purchase locally.

  21. That’s pretty sad. I wish gun people weren’t so poor that these were their choices. Then again, those that aren’t, aren’t shopping at Bud’s

  22. I need to get one of the LC9s at some point. I have a LCP that I love and wouldn’t mind having another 9mm carry gun.

    NW

  23. I am shocked, SHOCKED! that the top 20 list does not include even one Smith&Wesson New Model No. 3 top break in .44 Russian. I mean, look at all those other Russki – caliber guns.

    As an aside, the 1895 Nagant Russki revolver will shoot .32 S&W Long (which is almost as hard to find as 7.62 Nagant). I would NOT try .32H&R Mag in that revolver, since you have no idea which batch of Stalin-era steel went into the cylinder.

  24. I never in a thousand years would have guessed that Mosin Nagant rifles would be on that list. I bought mine about 20 plus years ago for something like $40 or $50. It’s ugly, it’s heavy, it’s way too long, but it was cheap. But I never figured that they would be popular.

    • The LCP is the “finest carry pistol ever devised”? In what parallel universe? The primary purpose of a carry gun is to deliver fast, accurate, powerful hits to an attacker — a task for which the LCP basically sucks, with its tiny grip, underpowered ammo, long heavy trigger and crappy sights. It’s a great gun for someone that wants a psychological “rabbit’s foot” to carry around as a magic amulet of protection, without the “inconvenience” of the size and weight of a gun they might actually be able to shoot, in a caliber that might actually stop an attacker.

  26. Bud’s Black Friday 2014 turned into a black eye!

    Customers’ attempting to complete purchases on Black Friday specials found that budsgunshop.com was constantly giving error messages. As of this posting I have been unable to find a single FaceBook post that a customer was able to complete an order.

    Once the web-site issues were resolved the sale items were either sold out or the price had gone back to normal.

    I believe that most folks understand that there can be technology issues that cause web-sites to crash or not perform correctly, especially when on a busy day like Black Friday. Bud’s should have conducted some damage control, issued an apology and offered their loyal customers an olive branch. Instead they deleted over 868 posts on FaceBook from upset customers and then blocked those customers from making additional posts.

    Having worked in customer service for one of the top three cell phone companies and worked during similar type issues (weather technology outages or decisions from upper management that our customers didn’t like) I will say that attempting to silence your critics by deleting negative reviews is not effective. FaceBook isn’t the only social media web-site available.

    I hope that Bud’s is able to recover. Even if they do I will think that their time as the top online seller of firearms may be done.

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