I’ve got a number of friends who work in the firearms business as distributors. They’ve been at it for a while, and they usually give me a heads up whenever they see trends developing. One of those friends just gave me a heads-up about something he’s seeing that might make you reconsider doing your shopping at the last minute . . .

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year for everyone in retail sales. From Prada dresses to Taurus handguns, anyone who sells something expects to be in the black for November and December even if the rest of the year’s been a downer. Even when the economy is in the crapper, those two months account for a ridiculous percentage of the year’s sales.

Usually there’s a little slack in the distribution system for firearms. The factories tend to have a little bit of product on hand, ready to go even after the distributors have had their fill. But around Christmas, distributors tend to up their orders in anticipation of the coming buying bonanza and take out most of that slack. Kind of like what happened to Ruger early last year when they stopped taking new orders.

That’s during a relatively quiet year. Add in the coming presidential election and the current trend in firearms, and you’d better believe that the orders are going to be bigger than ever. At least, that’s the prediction from my guy. And what that means for consumers is that there isn’t going to be much left for your local gun store to re-stock once they’ve chugged through their inventory.

So the advice I’m getting, and passing on to you, is to do your firearms-related holiday shopping now. Get it out of the way, stash it in the closet and laugh maniacally when the ready reserve of guns and equipment runs low and prices start to climb. The fates are conspiring to make this one of the most gunpowder filled holiday seasons ever, and while that’s good for us gun owners (growing the popularity of guns and all) it isn’t so much for our pocket books.

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22 COMMENTS

  1. But if distributors have them, doesn’t that make them available to customers? I’m not quite understanding the logic here.

    • He is saying that we have a classic supply and demand problem demand is increasing and the holidays will put even more demand on one side and we already have a supply problem with some manufacturers actually stopping new orders for a few months as they couldn’t keep up so prices are going to sky rocket and all be labeled with a bow saying Christmas special price of 299 for your 99 dollar heritage 22

  2. Gun safe is full. Even have to leave my Mosin in the corner next to it. It’s bolt is locked in the safe though. I wasn’t planning on gun buying soon. But ammo is another story. I need to pad my supply.

  3. Three things are certain, death, taxes and ammo and gun prices will rise. I am looking at some K-38’s from the 50’s that a few months ago where $430 and now are close to new prices. Everyone is jumping on the fear bandwagon.

  4. My next gun purchase will be a 12 gauge shotgun though I’m not sure yet what make, model, and configuration. No rush at all. I’m going to soon focus on buying SHTF things such as a tent, backpack, outdoor clothing, cooking stove, first aid kit, etc. I’m also going to take a revolver SD class. There is a cast-iron cookbook that I want. Lastly, I need to buy new tires for riding my bicycle in the wet winter months.

    • FWIW, I really like the Turkish-made Weatherby shotguns (SA-08 and SA-459 TR) that we just got. They’re gas-operated semi-autos which come with a nice simple action system that uses your choice of heavy-load or light-load valve bushings.

      The Stoeger semi-autos are apparently made by the same factory, but come with an inertia-reaction system instead of gas-operated.

  5. In the last 2 weeks the local gun stores have suddenly gotten in a lot of stuff that normally would take 1-2 months and a prayer. I’ve asked if they thought that meant that the gun suppliers think Romeny will win, but they seem to think it’s the pre-Christmas stuff coming out. In any case it seems to be a win…

  6. I only buy used, so I could care less. Scored a excellent Dan Wesson 15-2 pistol pack and a very nice 6.5 x 55 Mauser this week, so I’m good for the moment. Also, am I ever going to be able to post in Firefox again? What’s up with that?

    • You will love that Dan Wesson if it is an early one (before Dan Wesson lost control of the Company). I’ve had my .357 pistol pack since about 1978, and it’s the second most accurate handgun I own.

  7. So is TTAG going to do Black Friday / pre-Holiday shopping guide?

    I suppose stocking up on ammo is never a bad idea… just got my order in recently from Sportsman guide and I liked that it came with a (used) milspec metal ammo can. Hurray for rubber gaskets to seal out air / moisture.

    • Only problem I’ve had with SG is that they use very flimsy boxes. I’ve had a couple of ammo orders where the contents had almost spilled out after bursting the box.

      Oh, and shorting an order by several hundred rounds, but they made good on it immediately.

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