White Plains Gun Show Report

I woke up fairly early, at least for me, at 0615 today. I finally dragged my protesting arse and all of the grumpy rest of me out of bed at about 0640. I would have had a great night’s sleep if A. B. Normal  (more commonly called Abby), our Chihuahua puppy did not wake me at about 0430 to ply and then finally crawl under my blankets and go to sleep. Seems my wife had heard her whining and let her and her sister Chloe (Abby's sister) outside to do their thing. Amazing is how I see it that the wife and puppies going outside did not awaken me, I must have really been getting some quality snooze time for a change  - it figures though that something had to ruin it for me. Oh well, I got more sleep than usual anyway.

 

Once I was up, I hit the shower, got dressed and took off to meet up with my good friend Pete A.. He gave me a much needed cup of Java and we hit the road toward White Plains. I had been running about 10-15 minutes later than I had thought and we hit pretty bad traffic caused by cops stopped in the left lane on our side of the road checking out, not helping with, a bad accident on the other side of the road. That ate up another 15 minutes or so. We still made decent time to the Westchester County center in White Plains and surprisingly, even though a little after 0900 (the opening time for the gun show) I found a parking spot around the block on the street and saved a bit by not having to pay a parking lot fee. It seemed odd that there were an awful lot of spaces available on the street and stranger still that there were only about 10 people on line ahead of us to get inside. While on the line, Pete told me he had printed up some dollar off the admission price coupons but had forgotten them at home. Well, for a change, I remembered them and had one for each of us and several left over for others on the line and I passed them out to those behind us. The guy immediately behind me seemed astonished that someone would do that. Oh well...

 

I too was pretty much astonished, that is once we got inside, to see that there were only about 150 folks already inside the gun show. I had thought, for sure, that Pete was going to get to witness a feeding frenzy of gun and ammo purchases because of the Obama reelection. We stayed until about noon or maybe 1230 and the place had filled up by then by nowhere near to the usual crowd size, especially at a fall show just before hunting season! So, while he did see people buying things - it was not the buying down to the bare tables that I had expected (at least with regard to ammo).

 

While there, I got to see some things that made me salivate. A Remington 8, in very good to excellent condition in .30 Remington for $450. I did not have enough to buy it being I am in need of a new roof and all so I had to really take care on what I would spend. I know I could turn that around for some profit if I sold it but just could not lay out for it and the ammo I had gone there to buy. I am not going to write a lot about other guns that had me drooling like the two Ruger 10/22's converted to Thompson submachine gun clones, the Marlin 57M Levermatic, a few Stag Arms' AR15's and so on. There was a good selection of firearms to be had.

 

The selection of ammo was pretty fair too although not as good as for that which I had hoped. One guy had 5.56x45mm, 62 grain ammo for sale in full cases and  in 420 round ammo cans (this on stripper clips). He wanted more than I wanted to spend on a full case, asking for $385 plus tax. The same was true of the ammo cans holding 420 rounds each but it wound up being a price on which I would have to settle if I wanted any of it. Another guy had the very same ammo: Federal 5.56x45mm, 62 grain, green tip, penetrator rounds on his table and had about 10 to 15 of those ammo cans, each holding 420 rounds on stripper clips. He was asking what seemed like a very low ball price of $150 each or I should say had been asking. He had a second sign next to the one showing the price, that other sign said "All Sold". He told me he had sold it all to a dealer on Friday night when they set up the dealer tables. The he added, maybe I should have held some back for the customers. He did not even have the decency to pull it off the table but left it there attracting potential customer after potential customer. I don't know if he left it there because he was lazy or because he wanted to lure people to his table to maybe buy other ammo or he was just a peckerwood that did not mind teasing potential buyers. I wound up buying a can from the guy selling it for $180 per can. Shush, don't let Brendan know, I think I may give it to him for his birthday.

 

I also bought three boxes of Prvi Partisan 8mm Mauser, 194 grain, soft point ammo; two boxes of American Eagle .45 Auto, 230 grain, FMJ rounds; a box of Federal .45 Auto, 230 grain, hollow point ammo and a box of Fiocchi .32 Auto, FMJ cartridges. Other than ammunition, I picked up three packages of cotton swabs (6" long wood handles/sticks), and forgot two or three other things I had thought I would get when I saw them my first time around the show like some brass brushes, a bore light and whatever else it was I had thought of while at the show. Pete also picked up a couple or few small items. He grabbed the last PP/PPK book off of the stand. It was a book supposedly showing one how to maintain, field strip, detail strip and reassemble those pistols. His wife owns one in .380 and he got it for her. He also bought a couple or a few tape measures, funny thing to see at a gun show. I think they were a buck each, probably 12 or 15 footers. They had the King Koil logo on them, funny thing to see on a tape measure. Go figure. He admired several other things, especially some micro-knives at one display of all knives. They were truly small scale, maybe an inch and a half long and were scaled down versions of Bowie Knives with intricate scrimshaw on them picturing native Americans. If they had asked something I could have afforded I may have bought one of them but at $1,300.00 the pair - I just moved on after joking I would take them for $13 the pair. The older lady, behind the counter, had a good comeback for that: "Take them from someone else selling them for that price". The young lady with her just smiled.

 

All in all we had a great time, walking around, looking at guns, watching other folks, looking at knives, Pete looking at women (only kidding), shooting the bull and the like. I was pretty unhappy that our mutual friend Charlie K apparently was unable to make it this time around. I had been hoping he would be there so we could all go out to lunch together. As it turned out, Pete suggested that we wait until we get back to near his house for lunch and that we stop at the Resorts' Casino at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, NY. So that is what we did. We chowed down on a buffet lunch and I put a big dent in the huge platter of shrimp they had out along with some other good tasting things. Nothing fancy but the shrimp made it worthwhile. Pete did likewise as far as chowing down went. After that we walked around the casino and BS'd about this and that. I also gambled just a bit, about $25 worth plus the dollar I found on the floor of the casino. It is all slot or poker or roulette and similar machines in that casino, no table games. It was the first time I was there since it opened, maybe two years or so ago. Once out of there, I dropped Pete off at home and headed home myself.

 

All the best,

Glenn B