by Mike Keleher
I don’t know about you, but my email in-box is flooded every day with advertising. It may have been years since I had an actual email from a human being.
About 90% of my email is from gun and gun part sellers and the rest is a sprinkling of ads for credit card, out of country male dysfunction medication (I don’t know what they know about me in Canada) and the occasional poorly worded missive from some Nigerian General/Prince/Lawyer proclaiming I am a wonderful person and just need to send in my banking information to share in some guilt free fortune. Still waiting to hear back on that one.
Black Friday has become the biggest gun and gun parts buying event of the year for me. Now to be quite honest, my normal guns and gear buying pattern continues unabated and occurs almost weekly (I spread it out during the month to prevent my wife from catching on..see how clever that is? Well she is starting to suspect me, the mailman and Brownells have something odd going on) , but for the past couple of years Black Friday is when I cash in on all the big internet sales. Free shipping no longer excites me-I need deep discounts on guns and gear too.
Most of the big firearms internet sellers have sales that make Amazon and Walmart post-Thanksgiving offerings look pale by comparison and they are a whole lot more exciting to me than standing in line somewhere hoping to buy discounted Christmas presents for anyone that is not me!
If you are not already subscribed to the following retailers take a peek at them when the big Friday hits. Most have 24-48 hour time limits on them and the good stuff goes fast. They might circle back on the unholy holiday “Digital Monday” but rarely are as low as those original deals.
I have gotten some emails this week previewing some of the Black Friday gear sales and I am guessing at some of the rest of it based upon the high volume of e-mail sales ads I have received for their Columbus Day Sales, National Cheese Week Sales, Halloween Sales, Druid Ritual Sales and Veteran’s Day Sales.
The biggest surprise sales are routinely posted by mrgunsngear.com on the actual Friday. That site is connected with Brownells.com and in the last couple of years they have had some huge discounts. That website also spots other companies having mega-sales. Be sure to check in at least once on 29 November.
ALG Defense is a small company that is spun off from Geisselle (I have heard the wife of the Geisselle owner runs ALG) and will offer deep discounts on their excellent AR triggers. I have purchased a lot of these on Black Fridays. Their Mil Spec replacement trigger is $39 and their very nice Advanced Combat Trigger (ACT) is currently on sale for $69 and in November they already have a 20% off sale on triggers.
Ammo Depot.com already has some bulk packed ammo on sale to include a wooden crate with ten boxes of Federal 9mm ammo for $115. They are also moving a lot of tracer ammo if that lights up your night. They will have bulk items for sale on the big day.
AR500 body armor is currently showing a 16% discount in November. Look for their cheapest armor and carrier package the rifle rated AR Freeman to maybe be on sale back down around $99. It is currently running about $120. Just my crystal ball guess here, but they had good discounts last year.
Brownells.com will probably have some large one day and two day sales on items like S+W Shield pistols in 9mm and .380, AR parts and optics. Look for them to toss in free shipping over $25 or $50 like previous years. Smith and Wesson is currently offering a $50 rebate on their M+P Shield pistols but you have to purchase by December 8th, 2019.
Classic Firearms.com sells a wide variety of semi-unusual foreign manufacturer firearms at value prices and are pushing a lot of on-line sales this year. After seeing Israeli Jerichos popping up in the last two weeks in their ads and today a Polish PM-63c RAK9x18 autopistol for $1299 I think the sky is the limit over there.
LAPG.com will offer sales on “tactical” clothing, flashlights, watches, sunglasses and some gun products. They have clearance sales all year long like that one neighbor that has a garage sale every weekend, but they do like to clean out the warehouse on Black Friday.
Optics Planet.com is the Amazon of gun gear and parts. They have big Black Friday offerings and watch for them to bundle better shipping or free shipping over their current free shipping on orders over $49. They have some cool gift buying guides grouped by price-less than $5, less than $10 etc up to $200. You can lose a lot of time sorting through all those bargains. They also have a gift giver’s guide that could be left innocently open on any convenient digital screen like Ralphie leaving that Red Ryder ad in his mother’s December edition of of Life magazine.
Palmetto State Armory.com (PSA) is well known for sales of bargain priced AR products to include combo packages of assembled uppers, lowers and unique stripped lowers. They had some wild prices last year and items sold quickly. You can buy assembled uppers and lowers in a wide variety of calibers and configurations and push the pins in on a new AR for very little money. PSA will also feature a lot of bargain priced optics from manufacturers like Vortex, Trijicon, Eotech and Sig Sauer. I have been seeing big sales on the Sig Sauer Romeo 5 Red Dot down around $100-$120 this month. Keep an eye on them to maybe go close to $100 on sales day. Earlier this year Vortex Strike Eagles were on sale briefly for $300 including an AR mount. They are currently being offered for $389 for the 1-6x model. Maybe they will it the $300 mark again.
PSA actually has daily sales and weekly recap sales. I get a lot of email from them, but I welcome them and make many schemes and plans to build more guns. I just saw today’s latest offering of a unique stripped AR lower-the “MAGA-15” which features the outline of a very familiar President etched on the lower for only $49. The Safe, Fire and Auto markings are replaced with “Fake News, Wrong and HUUUGE.” Those guys crack me up.
PSA is also currently offering huge deals on the S+W Shield’s in 9mm and .380 for $249 plus the S+W $50 rebate-again the rebate is over on December 8, 2019. The 9mm’s are the original version of the Shield pistols-before the 2.0 versions came out, but quite a bargain for sub-compact pistols.
PSA seems to have the world’s supply of stray 30 round PMAGs (2019 is a really a good time for Illinois readers to stock up on high capacity AR mags. Who knows what 2020 will bring.) 30 rounders are currently $12.99 each and will probably be bundled in six packs and some times offered along with Federal Ammunition in bargain sales.
Primary Arms.com has made their business with sales of their house branded optics at very reasonable prices. Their red dots are well known in three gun ranks along with their tactical scopes which offer a lot of good glass for the money. PA has branched out in the last year and are now offering a variety to name brand gun products at good prices for AR-15’s, AK-47’s and AR10/.308 rifles. For comparison, they are already offering the Sig Sauer Romeo 5 Red Dot for $119.
Sportsman’s Outdoor Superstore.com is moving a lot of rifles this month and I would look for additional deep discount sales on Black Friday. They are currently selling Savage bolt action Axis II and 110 Apex/Engage rifles at extremely good prices during hunting season with scopes already installed for as low as $314. On top of that, Savage is having a $75 rebate on their Axis and 110’s if you purchase by December 2nd. Don’t delay. How about a 6.5 Creedmore Savage Axis II with a 4×12 scope with heavy barrel currently on sale for $359 and $284 after rebate? Always include the rebate price in the retelling of such a purchase to show how fiscally responsible you are.
I am hoping my guns and gear ESP is working well and you can scoop some bargains on Black Friday instead of just lying around the house bloated and semi-comatose from too much turkey and tryptophan (I am projecting an awful lot here).
Your old Uncle Mike has to sign off now to go shake out the couch cushions to find some spare/ non-wife allocated funds for the big day.
My suggestion is for everyone to use the Black Friday sales to build a 5-10 program.
Spare rifle parts, magazines and ammo should be a priority. I would also include Long term Dehydrated foods and medical supplies.
I get a lot of those emails. You don’t want to miss those bargains when they’re offered.
But I want to mention this one email I received today was from Massad Ayoob on Guns from Backwoods Home magazine’s dot com site. He references an article at TTAG and a “John Boch, who wrote the article in this link, is a sharp guy and he’s absolutely on point.”
Check it out. http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/