General GunTuber thread

[Mikoyan]

I wonder if in the future we'll see actual gun makers selling more or less mundane general production guns at a premium as 'Ian McCollum editions' with gaudy FW engravings on them the same way you'll see 1911s named for some boomer gunwriter like Wiley Clapp.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, we're HALFWAY THERE

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Guns have always attracted people with "fuck you" money and, with the concept of simps on the rise, I wouldn't be surprised if people overpaid on auctions solely because Ian's fingerprints were on them. I don't mean to rag on him personally, I just mean buying with intent to sell is always a risky proposition along the lines of his views on "investing" - short term or long term, sometimes it just doesn't work out.

And frankly if a guy buys low and sells high that's kinda the point isn't it?

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Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, we're HALFWAY THERE

For all the shit we give the WWSD rifles the fact that the guys successfully pooled their resources, got their shit together, built a product as promised, marketed said product effectively, and made a good amount of money on it is all pretty commendable. And at the end of the day the WWSD may not be the wunderwaffe that the marketing promised but it's not like the thing's a bad rifle.

 

[Mikoyan]

And frankly if a guy buys low and sells high that's kinda the point isn't it?

For all the shit we give the WWSD rifles the fact that the guys successfully pooled their resources, got their shit together, built a product as promised, marketed said product effectively, and made a good amount of money on it is all pretty commendable. And at the end of the day the WWSD may not be the wunderwaffe that the marketing promised but it's not like the thing's a bad rifle.

I genuinely like my KP-15s. (Thanks Russell!) and I combine them with uppers I build. I actually really like the concept.

The full build rifles are trading a bit on the personalities involved though.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

And frankly if a guy buys low and sells high that's kinda the point isn't it?

There's also the entire concept of what "low" or "high" is with a low sample size, the rifle was not exactly swimming in waffenampts and Rommel didn't leave a missing page of his memoirs under the buttstock. I've been out of the milsurp scene for many years now but 2.5k for a stunted Mauser, with a mismatched bolt to boot, seems a tiny bit high.

marketed said product effectively

Russell is probably going to bitch, but I do remember seeing that they're not selling out. To the point where more colors are considered a waste of investment.

 

[Only A Retard Sometimes]

Celebrity premium buys of anything are fucking retarded. Sometimes it's a durable bump, the whole 'provenance' thing but it's heavily dependent on how big that person is right now.

Hey, I'd love to have one of james earl jones' guns. IIRC he has owned most (if not all) of the Walther WA2000's ever imported at one point. Lots of rare old pistols too.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

Hey, I'd love to have one of james earl jones' guns. IIRC he has owned most (if not all) of the Walther WA2000's ever imported at one point. Lots of rare old pistols too.
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Well that's a double whammy at that point. You're paying for a WA2000 that was also owned by Darth Vader.

 

[Synthetic Smug]

Now I'm wondering if I should flip the copy of Pistols of the Warlords I'm getting from the Kickstarter. Culture wars are there to be cashed in on.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Russell is probably going to bitch, but I do remember seeing that they're not selling out. To the point where more colors are considered a waste of investment.

I think that expecting them to sell out would be a bit but given the general oversaturation of the AR market as a whole they've carved a decent little niche and having Brownell's as a distributor is pretty good.

 

[Mikoyan]

Hey, I'd love to have one of james earl jones' guns. IIRC he has owned most (if not all) of the Walther WA2000's ever imported at one point. Lots of rare old pistols too.
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That would be one of my exceptions as well.

One of the others, tangentially related, is I keep an eye out to see if any of the Sledge Hammer 629s show up.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

Now I'm wondering if I should flip the copy of Pistols of the Warlords I'm getting from the Kickstarter. Culture wars are there to be cashed in on.

The Kickstarter exclusive copy with misspellings is racist, pass it on.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I've been told he recently bought a beat MAS-36 with a super rare pre-production bolt, swapped it into one of his very nice MASes then reauctioned the resulting beat gun. Honestly that was just funny.

With the auctions he walks a very fine line. If he's buying stuff and reselling it just to do a review, enh okay I guess. People will overpay to have an Ian gun but that's nothing new. If he's misrepresenting the goods then hell naw. The line's very fine though.

It's also on the auction house to be honest on what they're selling. Sure, they're going to try to spruce things up and make the gun sound more attractive, but if the only "special" thing about the gun after the bolt was swapped is "briefly owned by Ian "Gun Jesus" McCollumn of ForgottenWeapons.com" then that's all they can mention.

Regardless, the guy is still a private citizen and a gun collector. If you don't like him or his practices, and you don't trust his honesty or expertise in his videos, don't bid on shit he advertises there. There are a lot of guns sold in those auctions that you'll never know about unless someone tells you or you go digging through their catalogue yourself.

ETA: let me also second (third? Fourth?) the RTI thing as being a lot scummier than that auction trick.

Well that's a double whammy at that point. You're paying for a WA2000 that was also owned by Darth Vader.

Not gonna lie, that would be pretty fucking sweet.

 

[likeacrackado]

Instead of Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever editions we'll get guntuber editions. Jesus Christ I want to die.

This is already a big thing. See the Century VSAKS "Thunder Ranch" edition or one of the "Sage Dynamics" branded ARs. Although both those guys are known for being instructors as much or more than guntubers. There's also the GarandThumb Rifle Dynamics AK and probably a bunch of other ones I haven't come across.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

Russell is probably going to bitch, but I do remember seeing that they're not selling out. To the point where more colors are considered a waste of investment.

The industry is in the typical post surge recession. Distributors are all over stocked with AR stuff, including ours.

Normally these surges last 4-6 months. This time it lasted 16 months. It’ll be a while for the market to correct.

Doing new colors is a big hassle validating the molding process, the material strength, the welding process, and the secondary ops in the CNC. I have to produce 2000 of any given color minimum for it to be worth it, and nothing is selling that well right now.

In 7 months we moved about 30,000 units of KP-15s. We shipped 1084 WWSD rifles in 2021 and about 400 civil defense rifles.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

In 7 months we moved about 30,000 units of KP-15s. We shipped 1084 WWSD rifles in 2021 and about 400 civil defense rifles.

Doing God's work, son.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Doing God's work, son.

If only there was ammo to get practice with these rifles.

I don't know if my local shops are just lazy, but they're still having trouble filling in orders. Anyone else still having issues with that?

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

If only there was ammo to get practice with these rifles.

I don't know if my local shops are just lazy, but they're still having trouble filling in orders. Anyone else still having issues with that?

Depends on the shop but yeah, general ammo shortages are still going on here.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

Ammo will take years to correct. The over all appetite for ammo increased with 8 million new gun owners and that many more guns in circulation.

I am told the raw materials are bought on the commodities markets years in advance and when they run out they’re out. Ammo manufacturing infrastructure is being expanded but the lines to make more faster take months to years to set up.

Also keep in mind Remington wasn’t producing ammo at all during this surge and they just started production again.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

I don't know if my local shops are just lazy, but they're still having trouble filling in orders. Anyone else still having issues with that?

Depends. I've been told local Wal-Marts have armfuls of 5.56 and 7.62, mom n' pop shops that are barren save for their 22-250s, 270 WSM, and 300 Remchesterby Magnums, but I've seen online shops are occasionally in stock.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Can't buy ammo to go shooting, computer parts are still through the roof... and I'm trying to cut down on the tequila. This is going to be one boring year, isn't it?

I think I'll just pick up woodcarving again.

 

[SinistralRifleman]

Doing God's work, son.

Thanks we had a solid team of people to make it happen from subcontractors and engineers and labor.

Without InRange promoting it there never would have been enough interest to justify all the expense to make this happen. Even with social unrest and the normal election cycle panic we wouldn’t have sold that many if InRange hadn’t made it interesting/acceptable to their audience. For all the hate Karl gets about his personal politics there’s two things he definitely isn’t: a communist; he likes profiting off his work just fine. He likes his business partners being successful as well. And secondly he’s definitely not anti-gun; he helped arm tens of thousands of more Americans.

Im glad things have slowed down. The stress of that extended period of insane business volume had a negative impact on my health and things are finally returning to normal. I would much rather have consistent predictable business volume than this roller coaster that seems to get more extreme every time. I’m dreading 2024 already though.