Best Gun Shows

So as I set up my schedule for next year, I'm looking to you for advice. What are the best gun shows to set up at and why? I'm looking for feedback from both vendors and customers.

I haven't been to one in a while. I may go to the "big one" in Kenner this weekend. The pontchartrain center has a pretty good layout and ample parking.

The last 2 in Kenner were huge disapointments ! Very few vendors and extremely high prices. Not to mention $10 to walk in the door.

Wow. Thanks. I was thinking about going to find something for the lady.

X2 on what mike said.

Gonzales is no better. Deals are rare prices are high. The age of small retailer is dying (despite the gun surge) and that is a large part of gun shows. The only ones i can see surviving are people who do custom works or services.
Even with transfer fees the internet is king.

How about the Slidell or Lafayette shows?

Slidell is my favorite, have not done the Mandeville yet.

I haven't been to a lafayette show in a year or so because the prices were so outrageous on ammo and firearms. You may get lucky and find some nice used or private seller, but they are few and far between. Not worth the time unless you don't have much else to do and are close by. Everything there went to sh!t since the gun/ammo scare.

At least there's a decent number of vendors at the Gonzales show, even if the prices on guns are crap. They have a lot of the same thing everywhere though, always way too many cheap ARs and always a lot of glocks. There's always too many revolvers. There's always too many antiques and jewelery sellers and nobody is ever looking at those tables. There's always too many cheap shotguns that you can find anywhere including Wal-Mart. There's always a LOT of WW2 stuff. There's always a good bit of military surplus gear, which is one of the few things that's plentiful at the shows that's fun for me to look at. The rest of that stuff I lost interest in after seeing it for the thousandth time. They also have a lot of ammo, some of it is priced decently, some of it is priced absurdly, either way you'd have a lot of competition there if you sold ammo...I do like to shop there for ammo if I need it though, as the variety is amazing if I'm careful not to get ripped off on bad prices.

They used to have a lot of AKs but even those are rare enough that I only see about 8 in the whole show so there isn't a lot of variety considering how many different kinds of AKs there are in the world. There's hardly ever any high end ARs - the last show I went to had a guy selling high end titanium AR parts that I've never heard of, but that's the first in ages that I've seen anything high end as far as ARs go. There's never any high end shotguns like Benellis or anything, always cheap shotguns you can find for $250 anywhere at any time, and they're usually priced higher than that. There's never anything more unique like Sig rifles or anything. I saw one Tavor for about $2800 if that gives you an idea on their prices, and that was the only one at the show. I see a .50 cal Barrett once in a while, but unless you're a collector or needing to snipe elephants, I'm not sure why you'd want one(and if you do, BJ pawn in Baton Rouge had one the last time I was there a few months ago, and they probably still have it based on the price these things run for, and I trust them a hell of a lot more to sell me a good product than I do the vendors at the gun show).

Anyhow, hope that gives you an idea on what the Gonzales show is like, you could probably do well if you get into one of those markets that I mentioned nobody covers at it.

There was a few nit-pick deals at the last Gonzales show, but you really have to know what you are looking at. I'm a knife guy as much as a firearm guy and there were a lot of fakes as well as well used knives claiming to be in great condition. That was a big disappointment.

I did manage to find a Brand Spankin' New RTF2 Gen 3 Glock 22 for $400 and it wasn't blue label. I was looking for a G17, so I passed, but if anyone wanted a .40, that was the deal.

I and many others are skipping Kenner.

Gonzales is either really good or really bad, doesnt seem to be any bad in the last few years.

Slidell and Mandeville are worth going to.

Lafayette... Only worth it if I have other business there.
JMHO

Thanks Guys, certainly helps.

Quit gun shows years ago for many of the above-mentioned reasons. GunBroker, LGS's and here are my primary hunting grounds now.