Henry Rifle Forums

Just saw this one on Gunbroker. Nice stick of wood and a good price. http://www.gunbroker.com/item/632447019

That's a good price. I just paid $889 at Cabelas for one.

Pottsy wrote:That's a good price. I just paid $889 at Cabelas for one.

It's not a bad price depending on where you live. The seller of that gun ships by priority mail and claims to charge actual shipping cost so figure $20-$30 including insurance. Then you add in the FFL transfer fee from your local FFL. That can vary widely from as little as $10 to $75 or more. But you don't pay sales tax unless you happen to be in the same state as the seller. So all in that $825 rifle will cost somewhere between $855 and $930 (depending on shipping and FFL transfer fee). At $855 it a good deal. $34 less than you paid. But at $930 it's $41 more than you paid. I've bought several guns off Gunbroker. I got one (HRA 30-30 steel) that I pretty much just stole. I didn't need it or especially want it, but it had wood almost as good as your Long Ranger and it was over $100 less than anyone else on GB and almost $200 less than any LGS. I had the spare cash so I grabbed it...because of the price and the wood.

In my experience the real value in Gunbroker is to someone that doesn't have many nearby LGS. For that person you can look at pics of a LOT of the model of gun you want and get it for about the same or maybe as much as $40 or $50 less than a LGS but you don't have to drive all over the countryside to do it. Sometimes you can get a real bargain and save some pretty serious cash but that's mostly the exception rather than the rule.

The other advantage to GB is in finding a gun you really REALLY want but can't seem to find. For several years I had wanted a .357 Rossi 24" Brass receiver octagonal barrel model 92. Rossi wasn't making them any more and they were scarcer than hen's teeth. Only saw 2 on GB in 3 years. First one the bidding went WAAAAY beyond my ability to pay at the time. It sold for over $800 used. Second one I snagged for $550--$600 after shipping and FFL transfer fee. Did I overpay? YOU BET I DID! I paid used quite a bit more than the gun sold for new. But I REALLY WANTED ONE, I had the cash and I don't regret for even one second having paid what I did. It's one of the guns I own that I will never sell.

GB is a great resource. You can use it to get an idea of what the actual street price of a certain model is so you have an idea of what to offer to an LGS. You can use it to "virtually" look at the actual gun (be careful, many sellers of new guns use only "stock pictures" rather than pics of the specific gun they have) and some sellers don't have the actual gun in stock they just put up the pics and have their distributor drop-ship the gun. Like I said, the biggest advantage is to the guy that doesn't have a lot of LGS nearby and would have to burn a ton of gas driving around to look at guns or the guy that is looking for some specific gun that is hard to find.

At $889 I think you got a damned good deal. Especially because you got to choose the one with the nicest wood and as a result you really got a GREAT-Looking gun.

Thanks man. I didn't get to choose mine though! They didn't have a .308 in stock and the cabelas is an hour drive from my house so I just ordered it at the store and shipped it to the store. I guess I got lucky from people's responses to the photo of mine. I really liked it myself but didn't think it was anything special, I just liked the direction of the grain but figured they were all nice. I'm feeling better about it every day though ; )