Gun Show Report

Last weekend was the inaugural weekend of the Big "D" Gun Show at the Mesquite Rodeo. This gun show is put on by the "The Original Fort Worth Gun Show" folks as an expansion to their current productions in Fort Worth.

By North Texas standards, this is a small gun show. The Mesquite Rodeo center is not a large venue and the show is limited to 400 tables. Since it is a smaller show, an since this was the first weekend this promoter held a show in this venue, I was surprised by the crowed it attracted.

I arrived at around 1030 on Saturday morning to find the parking lot filled and nearly as many cars parked in the field next to the parking lot. Its a good thing that gunnies drive trucks, the high ground clearance came in handy for many. The line to get into the show moved along at a quick clip and it did not take very long to have my Kimber checked (no loaded firearms allowed) and get into the hall.

Even though there was a nice crowd, the isles were wide enough to make getting around easy enough.

Now for prices at the show... I left my notes at work so I am posting from memory here, but there was one heck of a range on AR prices. There was a $700 difference in price between one vendor and another on the exact same Bushmaster. Needless to say the table with the reasonable prices had folks lined up to fill out paperwork and purchase guns, the other did not. Magazine prices were also all over the place. One table had heavily beat up "GI" mags for $30, most others were more reasonable. C Products magazines were anywhere from around $15 to $25 for mags with orange or green followers.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Cheaper Than Dirt had a table at this show. CTD was selling C Products and DSG Arms 30 round magazines for $15 out the door. None of the products sold by CTD were hyper-inflated, as a matter of fact it seems that a few of the prices were below catalog. That is why I go to gun shows, to find good deals on products I want. Needless to say I have a couple more magazines in my mag inventory.

Overall this was a good gun show. The small size made for a shorter visit, and the quality of vendors made for an interesting visit. The dealers with good stock and reasonable prices were making money, others were not.

A couple of vendors had the new Ruger Tacti-cool Ranch Rifle that was fairly interesting.

I walked out with some ammo and magazines that made the drive worth while. This was a good show and I will be sure to attend a few of the future events.