Coming originally from the mainland I used to love going to the gun shows because I would see new products and get good or great deals on stuff I needed or wanted. Half of my clothes used to be purchased at the gun shows. The thing about the shows on the mainland is that there were a tremendous number of vendors. I remember the biggest show I ever went to was 4 buildings the size of the Blaisdale and larger. Plus there were vendors outside the buildings. The thing was there were numerous vendors selling ammo. So with the competition you would always find some good deals. There were so many dealers selling the same Glocks and Sigs, etc. that all you had to say was so and so down the aisle is selling the same gun for $50 less and they would drop their price. Also, you could always count on the prices at the entrance to the show to be much higher than the guy who has a table in the back of building 4. So it was my habit to shop the front and buy in the back.
Fast forward to the last few years since I moved from the Big Island. I have gone to every show since I moved here. And every show has been a disappointment on some level. But for me this show has been the best I have attended so far. The issue I see is that we have a unique situation here. Here, each dealer sort of has their own specialty. So there is not a lot of direct competition. For instance, YG came with guns at their usual higher prices and gave a small show discount. But you could get a better deal on the same thing at another dealer. There were a lot of people looking at their guns. But I saw no one picking them up and holding them. But on the other side of the isle they were selling out of ammo when I went by around noon. I found they had some ammo at good prices and some at regular prices. While some was discounted to a price that was still too high even for Hawaii. By mainland standards these prices are not that great but by Hawaii standards I found these prices to be good: CCI Blazer .22 (Not bulk packed) $18.96/500, Federal Champion .22 (Not bulk packed) $18.96/500, Federal Primers (All Sizes) $29.99/1000. They had 9mm PMC Brass for $11.99/50. Not a great price but they sold out of it around noon. I can't remember what they had the Federal XM193 selling for per box (20) but people were buying that up pretty fast as well. Also, I remember they had a box of bulk packed .45 (Federal I think) that people were buying up. I don't remember the prices but I remember they were nothing to jump up and down about. Yet people were almost in a buying frenzy. Looking around at the other dealers no one else had brought the amount and type of ammo that YG did. I saw some ammo sales going on at Security Products I think it was. But it was not the feeding frenzy that I saw at YG. Security Products brought more of a mixed bag of products and had some decent prices on things. But I didn't need much of what they were selling. Except I bought some plastic ammo boxes from them for $2.96/box. These were the MTM boxes with hinges. That is a good price for the box with hinges. So I bought a bunch. They were also selling targets and other things I didn't see at the other dealers. Again, they had mostly items I did not see any where else in the show. I believe that if someone like Security Products had brought the amount and type of ammo that YG did you would have seen better prices. It is almost as if the dealers know what the other dealers are going to bring so they don't bring the same thing in order to not step on the toes of the others. I am not saying that this is what is happening but it is rather odd that you don't see a lot of duplication (meaning competition) at the shows. WGS brought a bunch of oddball items. Ammo was old stock of odd calibers. He brought some reloading supplies but nothing I needed.
Overall I didn't see anything at a spectacular price, but as you can see I found some things at prices better than I could normally find them. When you combine this with the small and limited number of customers (Meaning limited dollars to spend) around the island there is not much reason to give great deals on things. So I think this is why we are not seeing spectacular prices and great deals happening at the shows. With that said, I saw more people at this show than at any of the shows I have been to previously. I also saw a few new vendors such as X-Ring and STA Tactical. I believe they are trying to fill a niche. Let's hope they stay with us because we are already seeing great prices from X-Ring on certain items and OGC is actively and aggressively vying for our dollars with bulk buys and daily specials. The more customers there are and the more dealers there are the better this makes things for us. Unfortunately, we are entering another period where we will see shortages and and higher prices due to the upcoming election.
The show was a bit of a disappointment to me because I was looking for some items that I don't believe are being sold on island. So I will have to special order them. But while looking I did find a guy who was selling a couple of Ruger MK1 .22 pistols. One was $300 and the other was $325. On the mainland these would have been sold in the first hour. He still had them before I left. If I didn't hate the way they disassemble I may have bought one of them.