Notes from the gun shop...

Yesterday was a slow one.  Even the number of stool sitters has declined.  In this part of Virginia we've ended the "regular gun season" (deer season allowing "all" firearms) and moved back into bow season.  I only sold two guns, both Christmas presents.  We are seeing more high quality firearms walk in the door looking for a buyer.  The hot item yesterday was a 5½" barreled Ruger flat-gate Single-Six with 40xxx serial (1956).  No box, but in very good to excellent condition. 

Bears are still in and there are reportedly a lot of them out there this year.  I've heard it said that "bear are the new deer", i.e. as common as deer used to be.  The consensus is that the deer really suffered from the deep snows (deep for this area) we had for so long last winter.  The good news is that there is plenty of  hard mast and we should have good survival rates, depending on weather.

Back to firearms...  Sales do seem to be down now.  The manufacturers must be hurting as well because we learned that Smith and Wesson will be reducing prices on all firearms.  Sigmas will be reduced to $299 MSRP.  That's $13 less than current jobber prices!   I imagine many dealers are worried that they will have stock that can't be sold for enough to cover costs. Definitely a deflationary trend.

Ammo prices seemed to have dropped slightly, in some "cases" but I don't think this is a trend.  We continue to read that China is once again buying huge quantities of the metals used in ammunition.  This will tend to keep ammo prices high. 

I am constantly amazed at the penny-wise pound-foolish ways of some customers.  For example we had a fellow who drove 82 miles round-trip to the store to buy 4 Chicago screws.  He wanted 6 and for what he spent for gas in his truck he could have ordered on-line and had them delivered to his home and saved as much as $2!  No, it wasn't an immediate need item.