doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What is Bass Pro Shop thinking?

Guys...........just back from Vegas. I visited the Bass Pro there and was floored by the prices! I wanted to look at a certain gun, but nobody showed after ten minutes of looking. There inventory looked like it had been sitting for some time. Rust was starting to form. I really was stunned by there prices. I understand the gun show trade, where dealers ask high enough to wiggle. But this is stupid!

Some dealers treat their business like a license to steal. I guess the high traffic stores can afford to troll for suckers, and better yet when they don't land one on a specific lure they can ship it to another branch and run it up the flagpole there.

When I was travelling to Ohio semi-weekly, I did manage to get two fair deals. One from Cabela's in Dundee, and the other from Jaqua's.

In the Jaqua's case, they had an SKB 200E that was almost unused and fairly priced. I happened in the third day they owned it, and bought it. Silver finish, $800. They seemed happy, so was I. Following month they got another one in, slightly more used, but still a good gun. They priced it $500 higher than the one they just sold. Apparently, they considered the first on an education of sorts. They have one now with a blue finish, $1,500. Guess what... it's still an $800 gun.

Cabela's sold me a used but still very sound Superposed for $800. No corrosion, and only moderate stock finish wear. I'm betting that was the LAST B-25 ever sold by Cabela's for less than a grand. This was in 2005.

Sometimes you find a fair deal, other times you just shake your head. I do wonder where the inventory disappears to though... must be enough suckers to support prices at least 100% too high in many cases.

Why are ya'll picking on the big guys?

Go to Steve Barnett's website and you'll see guns there listed at 2 or 3 times (or more) their market value.

I have bought, traded and sold guns at the Mother of all Bass Pros in Springfield, Missouri. All my dealings were with the Fine Gun Room so I can't really comment on what goes on at the regular counter.

I never made the deal the first time I talked with them about a particular gun and I never paid close to the price marked on the gun. Several weeks usually passed before the deals were completed. Over the years I've probably bought or traded seven or eight guns from them and probably traded them five or six guns including a little double rifle I wish I'd kept......not that I didn't get what it was worth in the deal.

I've never regreted one of those transactions. Hey, I once bought a pretty nice Purdey at a pretty nice price from Johnnie's boys. I thought they were all fair. They took some time and discussion and getting to know (and maybe help educate a few) them and their guns. I also gained some knowledge from them. Some of the guns I would like to have bought I didn't because we could never agree on what the worth was.

If you are looking to swoop in on a fantastic deal, these places probably aren't for you. If you are easily offended by what is marked on the price tag.....probably not for you either. If you are willing to drop by frequently, stay a while and visit, get to know the people and gently work the deal, you can come out fine on some selected guns. You may even get a few unsolicited calls on some unbelievable deals.......like a neat, excellent condition leg-o mutton case for $20.......hey, stranger things have happened.

"If you are willing to drop by frequently, stay a while and visit, get to know the people and gently work the deal, you can come out fine on some selected guns."


What a pain in the arse. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to stop by frequently - some of us gotta work for a living and all.

The store is there to sell guns - not act as a visiting lounge. That's probably why all the other guys who have posted on this thread couldn't get the time of day out of the clerks - they were too busy chewing the fat.

What an efficient (and more profitable) operation it would be for all parties if they reasonably priced their guns to begin with. The only problem with that business model is it doesn't give the MBA's that run the stores anything to do with their degrees.

Not everything in life should be a 'deal' that has to be 'worked'. How does McDonald's survive - they don't force me to spend 30 minutes negotiating the price of a Big Mac.

Convenience, selection, volume, and low prices are what big stores have to offer.....they should keep that in mind.

I use to go the the Gander store in Geneva, Il. at least 2 times a week. I had a friend working there that knew guns well. He would call me when they got in a nice high grade shotgun and I would run over and see if I liked it. I got alot of guns from this store because of this person. I would work with them on the price and we agreed that a 35% mark-up is what they wanted and I agreed with it. I had bought a little over $ 40,000 in guns there and then they changed managers in the gun dept. The new guy was an idiot. He paid too much for some guns and too little for others. When my friend told him what he was doing, they fired my friend. Now the guns there are all lower grades or new guns. They have not had a gun in lately in an upper grade for some time. It is a shame because they were making alot of money when they had someone who kew something about the guns they had. I did get a real bargin when they had a flood sale there. They had guns from another store that got damaged by a storm and they brought all the guns to this store for a great flood sale. You could not believe the amount of people that showed up. When the doors opened, they ran to the gun tables. I can't run anywhere anymore so I just took my time. Most of the guns were sold in the first few hours. I went past the shotgun table to see what was left and there in the middle of a couple of boat oars was a superposed browning with 30" barrels in very nice but dirty condition. $ 400.00. I got it and went home and cleaned it up and it turned out to be very little used gun.
The other guns that I got were a vhe in nice orig. condition for $700. ( something was wrong with the gun when you open it, it made a strange noise, they said.) We call them ejectors.
The best deal I got was when I got a call from my friend who said they just bought a couple of browning shotguns and to come down and look at them. When I got there, he told me these guns where just bought from a customer who got them left to him by his father and he has no use for them. One was a Pigeon grade skeet made in 1956 in very nice condition with a full set of super tubes. The other was an unfired Pointer grade broadway trap gun, made in 1971. I got both of them for $ 6,400.00. I have been to alot of the other stores and yes, they do price their guns way high. All we can do is keep our eyes open for bargains and let the high price guns sit. Frank

Thanks. I'll take the good gun deals that you don't have time for. I may be wrong but I always thought that kind of give and take was an enjoyable part of our avocation.

Nope. I go to gun stores to buy guns. That's all. I go elsewhere for intercourse.

Well, so far, I've never had intercourse in a gun shop. I have had some guys try to screw me there though!

Just have to say that it shows how much they make in the rest of the store when they can afford to have a major department so badly mismanaged.

I buy a lot of guns from pawn shops who traditionally have very little invested in gun they take in pawn or buy. I buy other guns from Gunshops which tend to be almost all rifle or pistol oriented. They tend to under value doubles to the point that it makes me smile and open my wallet. Large gun shows have been kind to me and mostly from private sellers who are no getting hosed by dealers. Still have the Fox pair the dealer said was worth about 1/5-th of what they were worth. Make a profit man but do not try to screw everyone.


When I get to the big box stores I find that they are so badly run that they often have guns priced at multiples of the true value. Hard to dicker when a gun is priced three or four times the true value. It is worth a good laugh. Like the $4,700.00 Crescent 12 gauge I saw the had been engraved, restocked and refinished . The funny thing was the it had been engraved and the side plates had Purdery on them. Exact spelling. Figure it was a private joke of the fellow who had it refinished and engraved but it was being treated like a mid grade major name fine double.