Tag Archives: bargains

Vulture

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Im not a bad person, but I am a bit of a pragmatist. And it occurs to me that if the Kung Flu takes hold here, and the infirm/elderly/medically compromised are the most likely to die from it……

<deep breath>

….there may be a buying opportunity coming up for real estate and vehicles.

Think about…the 82 year old guy down the street who has the little oxygen tank he carries in a backpack….he catches it, winds up in the hospital, and…adios. And now his estate needs to be settled and that property needs to be sold, or that newer pickup he only drove to the VFW and to CostCo….

Now, I’m not wishing for someone to die. I’m just saying that if it does turn out to be Capt. Tripps, there might be some opportunities to upgrade. Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m the one who shuffles off to Sto’Vo’Kor and someone else winds up the beneficiary of my gear and supplies. :::shrug::: hey, ya gotta die of something.

Sidenote: apparently in the Middle Ages, the Black Death wiped out such a huge part of the European population that land ownership and the subsequent economics were fundamentally changed in ways that lasted for hundreds of years.

Maximum Mini Mags

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As I noted a few posts back, it looks like TAPCO is heading for the ‘no longer a going concern’ category of gun-related businesses. While I wont miss the SKS stocks and other crap, I will miss the Mini-14 mags. So….

Ordered these off GunBroker. Came out to $10@ which was reasonable. And, once I had received a tracking number indicating my order had shipped, I shared the auction link with you guys in case anyone wanted to grab some while they could. Well, apparently a bunch of you must have because when I go to check those same auctions the prices are up 20%. FYI, $12 is actually pretty close to what dealer cost was so theyre still a reasonable alternative to the $28 Ruger mags.

Ordered 25 because I only have the two Mini-14’s and they aren’t part of my plans.

I have another ten mags sitting around as ‘ready’ mags in case, thorugh some fluke, I wind up actually having to run the zombie apocalypse with the Mini-14, but the rest of these are Deep Sleepers.

Cheap eats and stored food

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As somewhat regular readers know, one of my culinary staples around here is ‘the meat tray‘. Succinctly, the local Albertsons takes four meat products that are either slow movers or closing in on their ‘must use by’ dates and bundles ’em up in a tray and sells it for $20. It’s almost always a 3# tube of ground beef, some cut of chicken, sausage of some kind, and some pork. One tray, and a modest amount of cooking talent, can cover a weeks’ worth of dining.

Also, I patrol the meat aisle once (or twice) a day looking for stuff marked down 50% that can go in my freezer. Yesterday was a case of the stars lining up just so:

Meat Tray at 50% off. No matter how you cut it, ten bucks for a meat tray is a good deal. So, time to cook. Needed some canned tomatoes so I trotted to the basement and pulled these off the shelf:Canned tomatoes that have been sitting in the classic ‘cool, dry place’ since 2015. Two years past the ‘best buy’ date. Status? Just fine. Tomato products, because of their acidity, are notorious for having can failure in medium- to long-term storage. This also happens with any other food product with high acidity…pineapple, for example. (By the way, to my way of thinking, five-to-ten years is pretty much where I catalog things as ‘medium-term storage’. More than ten is what I consider long-term storage.) So, as a precaution, I check the cans for any bulging or that sort of thing and give the contents a careful eyeing. But…thats a good practice for any canned food.

This is what that whole store-what-you-eat-and-eat-what-you-store thing looks like.

It’s the beginning of the year so this is probably a good time for me to go inventory the stored food and replace whats been consumed over the year. Just refilled one of the rice buckets the other day, so i need to pick up at least anouther couple 25# bags of rice. The deep freeze, especially, got a workout this previous year and I need to top it off. Too bad those 50% deals on the meat trays are so scarce.

 

 

Gaming the system, or how I got a new Ruger PC Carbine for $369

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There’s nothing wrong with card counting, per se…. after all, what you do in the privacy of your own skull is strictly your business. But, if the casino catches on that you’re counting cards and getting a bit of an advantage they will ban you from the casino (assuming they first don’t take you in the back room for a little ‘talk’.) I think Cabela’s is about two steps away from posting my face on a sign at the register saying “Do not admit”. Why? Well…here’s the story…

The local Cabela’s had a deal where they would price match any store within 100 miles that a) had a physical presence (“Brick-n-mortar”) and b) had the item in stock. A reasonable policy, I think. And then it changed. Now they will price match any place that meets the criteria but they removed the proximity qualifier. This means if a legitimate gun shop in Arkansas has the price cheaper, they’ll match it. And that’s when my brain went into ”game the system’ mode. (I swear, my Indian name should be “Dances With Weasels”.)

Cabela’s had a Ruger PC9 carbine for $549. My dealer cost is about $430. This outfit had it for $408.99. So, I print out their advertisement off their website, print a picture from Google Street View of their physical store, and trot down to Cabela’s. Turns out, Cabela’s still had their 10% off deal going on with the gift cards. So, I bought a $410 gift card for…$369. ($410 x .9 = $369) Headed to the gun counter, had some back-n-forth with the manager (Who grumbled that he would be selling the gun at $10 below his cost..I didn’t bother to tell him that with the gift card it was actually around $40 below his cost.) And I walked out the door with my shiny new Ruger carbine at $60 below my dealer price and didn’t have to pay $30 to ship it.

You gotta remember: pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. So, I only plan on abusing this sort of policy fairly infrequently (like when theres a 10% sale on gift cards). Because even though technically it is company policy to price match in the way that they are doing it, and therefore I should be able to do it as much as I want, it would be a bad idea to piss off the people there too much.

As an aside, the history of me wanting a takedown centerfire carbine goes back quite a ways. I wanted something that could fit in a ‘three-day pack’. The AR was out because with a 16″ barrel you still had about 8″ of receiver on the end making it way too long for the bag. Choices, at the time, were pretty limited and thats one of the reasons I got the Uzi. (Note this was before the ‘arm brace’ craze.) However, this Ruger will probably replace the Uzi in that regard since it will share mags with my Glocks. Thus, a tidy  little bag sitting in a corner will fit my needs with a little carbine and pistol that share ammo and mags, allowing me to streamline logistics considerably. I am pleased. Only took about ten years.

Closeout Blackhawk pouches

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ETA: Well nuts….looks like they won’t deal with anyone without a resale certificate or FFL. My suggestion is to trot down to your local gun shop and see if, in exchange for turning them onto this deal, they’ll let you piggyback on their order.

Someone asked if I’d be doing some sorta group buy on this…nope. Too much work, not enough profit. But if you look hard enough I’m sure you can find someone to order for you.

One of my vendors is having a sale on some closeout Blackhawk gear. You know…Blackhawk…the guys that brought you such classics as the Derpa Serpa holster.

Since the pouches are non-FFL items, and on a closeout which means they probablt are happy to unload them as fast as they can, perhaps you can order without an FFL.

I ordered the M4 pouches, upright GP pouch, medical pouch, Nalgene bottle pouch, and utility pouch in…uhm…’quantity’.

It’s not just for breakfast anymore

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I was going to say that deep down, I’m really just a big kid. But, if you knew me, you’d say that its really not that deep down since my immaturity and ‘boyish charm’ are quite readily apparent on the surface. I mention this because when I saw that breakfast cereal was on sale, I went deep. What breakfast cereal, you may ask? Why none other than the palate-shredding extruded waist-expander that is….Cap’n Crunch (Although to be fair, I knew him when he was Lieutenant Crunch back in Basrah).

I love a bargain, and I love food. Mix the two together and you get a happy Zero. So, when they had cereal marked down to $0.99/box I figured “Ok, lets get our crunch on.”

Normally $103, paid $27, saved…a bunch.

I actually don’t usually eat this as breakfast cereal. Neither, I suspect, does anyone else. Its more of a eat-it-out-of-the-box-while-playing-on-the-computer thing. But, no matter how you do it, I  apparently have at least a years worth of the stuff on hand. And, yes, it’ll keep for a year.

In case anyone is curious, what is my favorite breakfast cereal to actually eat as breakfast cereal? Surprisingly, on of the most boring things you can imagine – plain Kellog’s Corn Flakes. (But it’s best not to delve too deeply into the rather…NSFW?….origin of corn flakes.)

So, there’s a couple of cases of kid’s cereal sitting on the shelves in the basement. I suspect they’ll last until about this time next year. Unfortunately, milk does not. And, yes, I’ve tried the shelf-stable milk and it just doesn’t taste very good to me. So..if I want to actually eat breakfast cereal qua breakfast cereal, I’m gonna have to run to the store once in a while for a half gallon of moo juice.

But..hey..bargain!

Estate sale

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Minding my own business…not hurting anyone…just trying to go about my life without interference and pain. And I get a text message:

“Estate sale near your place with lots of gun stuff…” and an address.

Okay, maybe it’s worth checking out. Hop on my bike and ride over.

So here’s how you know the decedent was a serious gun guy.. he had cleared out his dining room, shored up the floor, and parked a four foot bed lathe and a milling machine in there and made it his machine shop. I got there in time to see a guy buy it for a ridiculously low amount of money and then come back with a flatbed and a forklift.

Indeed there was a  lot of reloading stuff…Berger bullets, Lapua brass, etc, etc. Heck there was freaking quiver of Dewey cleaning rods. I started chatting with the gal selling it all. Her dad passed away in February. Turns out, it was someone I knew. I hadnt seen him in about a year and his diabetes finally got the better of him, but not before cruelly making him a semi-blind, fuzzy-headed, nursing home candidate.

Since it was someone I knew, I had a good idea of what would and would not be there. Lotsa 6.5 stuff, plenty of .223, and lots of expensive reloading gear. The kids were up from Florida and wanted to get everything sold and outta there. Pretty much the perfect storm of motivation to allow one to make some…somewhat profitable…deals. So..yeah..I bought it all. Some of it I’m keeping, like the Lapua brass and a fw of the micrometer dies, the rest Im going to try and flip for quick cash.

And I gotta buy some beer for the guy who turned me onto the deal.

And I was trying so hard to not spend money this week. Mmmph.

Achievement unlocked: Bargain AR

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Last week I made the mistake of stopping in a gun store and found a complete PSA AR-15 lower, w/ Magpul furniture for $65. Well, shoot….wouldn’t you have snagged it too? There was some confusion on the paperwork and I complained a bit and they knocked $5 off the price. So, complete Magpul’s PSA lower for $60.

Then today, PSA sends me an email about this. A complete upper, with bolt carrier group and charging handle, for $199 delivered. Ok, that’s not gonna be easy to beat. Order up.

Final total? A brand new, ‘economy’ tier AR15 for $260.

What a… (wait for it)….bARgain.

:::drops the mic:::