Mag speculating

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Remember when the stewardess gives you the speech about when the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling you’re supposed to put yours on first and then assist small children and others? Why is that? The answer is simple: if you put your mask on first, then you’re in a position to help more people.

Same thing applies with this post. Before you go buying magazines to resell to the unprepared masses, make sure you have your own needs more than taken care of.

For those of you who may not remember the great Assault Weapons ban of ’94-’04, you were limited to 10 round magazines unless your magazine was made before 1994. As a result, much like the ’86 machine gun ban, the prices of those items went up, up, and up as time went on and their availability went down, down, down. $600 (in 1999 money), was not unheard of for a Betamag. Glock mags were in the $75-100 range, AR  mags could be around $30-40, and exotic stuff like Valmets, SIG, and HK were easily over a hundred bucks a mag. In short, it was like everyone was selling at Cheaper Than Dirt panic-prices.

Don’t believe me? Let me dial up the Wayback Machine and, lo:

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That’s $119.00, in 1999 money, for a Glock happystick. And $80 for just a ‘regular capacity’ G17 mag. You thought you were the luckiest man on the planet if you found one for fifty bucks!

Who made money? Guys who were sitting on a bunch of magazines. I remember being able to buy M1 carbine mags from J&G Sales for $0.86 each in 1990-1991. Four years later those were $20+ magazines. Colt manufactured 20-rd AR mags were about $4-5 in 1989. Wasn’t long before they were almost $50 ea.

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$45 for a Colt 20-rd mag. Even a Thermelt was going for twenty bucks.

.Is it going to happen again? I think so. Maybe not this election cycle, maybe not on a national level, but I do think it’s going to happen. I’d be thrilled to spend $100 for 30 G3 mags right now and sell them ‘afterwards’ for enough to pick myself up an ICOM-7200 or other expensive toy.

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Here’s perspective: CTD was selling these HK mags for $0.97 a few years ago. At these prices, my stash of mags goes from being worth $600 to $30,000.

What would I buy to take advantage of the panicked masses yearning to be armed? Well, the smart thing to do is appeal to the most common denominator. Yeah, the Valmet mag you pay $45 for today is going to be worth $100 but by the time you sell it you could have sold a hundred AR or Glock mags. ‘Boutique’ and ‘niche’ stuff like the exotics will sell, and it will sell at a great price, but it won’t sell nearly as often.

What the most common rifle in this country for guys like you and me? AK-pattern and AR-style rifles. Sure there are guys with FALs, AUGs, HK93s, and the like out there…and those mags are worth a lot and will be worth even more…but you’ll sell a lot more of the common stuff. AR and AK mags are where I’d put my money for rifle mags. Magpul Pmags and known-brand GI aluminum mags (Okay, CProducts, etc) would be my choice. While you might get a good deal on Lancers and other stuff, they’re small enough people won’t recognize them and no one wants to buy the ‘off brand’ if they don’t have to.

For pistol mags its Glock, XD, and M&P. Beretta mags might be a good choice but there will be a lot of military ones floating around. Again, stick with the OEM stuff if you can. (Although I’ll probably go with the Magpul Glock mags). The 9 and 40 mags will be the most common and those would be where I’d focus.

In .22 magazines all you need to know is that Ruger 10/22 mags will outsell every other .22 rifle magazine combined. I’ve posted about them before…get the Butler Creek mags (or even the Eagle mags) and buy as many as you can. You’ll never regret a drum full of those things.

Interestingly, while pump action shotguns usually (though not always) skate around ‘assault weapons’ bans, there may be some forward-thinking statists who will want to see your 870 limited to five rounds or some such. While I wouldn’t go very deep on them, a handful of factory extended mag tubes and springs might turn a tidy profit later.

Of course, if a future ban doesn’t occur (and I wouuld be thrilled to be proven wrong) you still wind up with a nice amount of mags to last you the rest of your life…and you’ve traded opportunity cost against inflation in terms of what you might have to pay for the mags in the future. Win – win. But, as I said, you really want to make sure you have your own needs taken care of before you start ‘speculating’ in magazine futures.

Interestingly, as I was typing this up, this little jewel from MGE Wholesale landed in my mailbox:

MPMAG546-BLK(5)Go figure.

24 thoughts on “Mag speculating”

    • Silvers historical high was approx 3.5x what it is now. Glock magazine historical high was about 8x. You figure it out.

  2. Full disclosure: I buy magazines for firearms I neither own nor desire to acquire (today), although I *might*, just *might* want to buy them in the future, and wouldn’t it bee nice to already have the proprietary mags for those guns…

    I’d be wary of *investing* in magazines on the off-chance that Diane Feinstein’s fascist ghost will be stupid enough to write future gun control legislation with any kind of sunset clause or provision for owning magazines “made before this date”.

    Silver, will always hold value. Ammunition magazines might be pure contraband.

    • I agree with you. The next time the government outlaws standard capacity magazines, they will have learned from past mistakes. They will outlaw all standard capacity magazines for non-LEO or military. They’ll mandate that production for the civilian market stop immediately, and come up with some future date (probably based on some “normal life-cycle of a magazine” BS) after which time all civilians must have destroyed or converted their magazines to lower capacity.

      They will do this exactly to counteract people who thought they were clever by hoarding dozens and dozens of magazines for future sale. Those magazines will become worth even less than new factory magazines, because they will be unlawful to possess unless converted down in capacity.

      This is what I view to be the most likely scenario. That’s why I’m buying enough magazines for myself, but my investment dollars will go into silver.

  3. A great reminder that puts ’90’s prices in perspective. I had forgotten all about that. Thanks.

  4. Commander, so I take it by the posted Magpul Glock mag picture you posted that you are willing to serve as a wholesale dealer for those who follow your site? I’ve bought 6 of these Magpul made Glock magazines and they so far have worked flawlessly. Just like every other piece of Magpul kit I own BTW…great company that ‘gets it’ IMO.

    • No more than me posting pictures of $80 Glock mags means Im willing to sell them for $80. I posted the picture to reinforce my point, which was that $10 magazines can be worth 8x that in a very short span. Once in a rare while if i come across a good deal on something, I’ll do a ‘group buy’ but they tend to be a lot of work and I don’t relish doing them. It shouldnt be too hard to find an FFL or dealer who will order those mags up for you.

  5. Commander, are you going to serve as a wholesale dealer to your friends on this website? 9.99$ Glock mags is a fantastic deal. I have 6 of those g17 mags that I’ve been using for a few months in a g19. Couldn’t be happier with them so far, except that I got them for 17$ ea. So far they have functioned 100% reliably, just like every other piece of Magpul gear I own BTW. Great company that ‘gets it’ IMO.

      • I meant from a speculative point of view. Is a dollar amount invested in magazines, better than that same amount dropped on a AR or two. Thanks

  7. Silver has value mainly as perceived “money”A magazine is a tool of actual utility. In a very soft collapse, silver might be worth more than a mag. In a survival situation, silver becomes mertely a play-pretty that no sensible person can afford. Outlawed magazines probably would have even higher value than legal ones, although selling them would require care.

    • Silver has over 40,000 commercial,industrial and medical uses from the exotic to everyday. Magazines have one use and are specific to the weapon. I did stock up on sticks for my Thompson(it will outlast my life )

  8. Not too long ago i was selling those .99 g3 alloy mags for $8.50. Half dozen of then covered the other 50 i still have. Same with ak mags. And .22 ammo. Buy low sell high!

    • Is i true that he said it? I guess.
      Or did you mean is it true the BX-25 are better?
      I’ve virtually no experience with the BX-25, but I’ve got going on 20 years of experience with the BC mags. I’ve no doubt the Ruger mags are great, but are they great enough to make the price difference worth it? I’ve no idea. But the BC mags are already pretty darn good, so Im not sure what the Ruger mags could do to be that much better.

        • A double feed, as I understand the term, isnt a function of the magazine as much as it is a function of an extraction/ejection problem. That is to say, a round does not extract from the chamber and the bolt slides another round off the magazine to wind up nosing up against the round in the chamber. The magazine has nothing to do with that.

          It’s possible to have problems with the ‘Hot Lip’ plastic-lipped version as the plastic eventually starts to fray at the feed lips but in my experience that took over ten years of shooting. With the Steel Lip mags it isn;t an issue.

          You know, for ten bucks I’d go grab a BC mag and beat the snot out of it and see what happens. *My* experience has been quite good and I trust the mags well enough that they are virtually the only mags I have for my 10/22’s except for the Ruger OEM mags that came with the gun.

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