Final mag purchases of 2020

Unless something insanely discounted happens, I am done with buying magazines. (Although I am done buying them, there’s still some in the pipeline that aren’t here yet. Most notably a buncha Magpul AR-10 mags.)

Under a Biden $200-tax-stamp-on-magazines program, you’re looking at $40,000 worth of tax stamp. I mean…you know…if a person actually registered them.

To sleep, perchance to profit

So although I have what actually could be construed as ‘enough’ magazines for my forseeable use, I want to be in a position to take advantage of any future ban by having extras for sale/trade*. Problem is, I’m not the only one with that idea. As a result, when my primary vendor gets stuff in stock, it moves fast. And then, I discovered something……..

It appears that, on weekdays, my vendor updates their website at several points throughout the day. As those updates hit the website, people pounce and inventory drops to zero in minutes. But…not at 3:30am. It appears that they do inventory updates in the wee hours of the morning. As a result, I’ve taken to sleeping with my phone laying on the bed next to me, with the browser opened to the product page I want, and I wake up a couple times in the middle of the night, refresh the page, and…surprise….the items I want are in stock. And then I scoop it all up for little ol’ me. What is it I’m looking for? Well, I’ve covered myself with about 500 Glock Pmags but I want more AR Pmags and AR10 Pmags.

Drawback is that I’m not exactly getting a solid nights worth of sleep, but on the bright side I’m getting a monstrous stockpile of magazines.

*= “But..but..what if they make the magazines illegal or regulated? Then you won’t be able to sell them?” Of course I’ll be able to sell them, I just won’t be able to sell them legally.

In for a penny, in for a kidney

Remember I said “I have a ‘favorites’ list at one of my vendors websites. Its a list of things I want to buy when they eventually become ‘in stock’. I check that list several times a day. As of late, I have noticed that around 2-3am they are adding stock to their online inventory and it sells out almost instantly. But…sometimes I sneak one past the goalie and get lucky.“?

So…this happened:

:::sigh::: I don’t know whats worse…my trying to time the market, or my trying to time the magazine market. (Although to be fair…I did really, really well in the market this year.)

Two hundred more for the Deep Sleep. No, I will not sell you any, don’t ask. Normally I’d say go hit your local FFL and have them contact RSR and order them but I’m fairly confident these will sell out in the next 24 hours.

Edited to add:

Did I just spend a buttload of money that I didn’t need to spend? My neighbor thinks so. We were talking and I mentioned that I foresaw a magazine ban on the horizon. My neighbor, a learned man and retired military officer (though a Biden supporting Democrat) said that a magazine ban had been ruled unconstitutional. He was, of course, referring to the Ninth Circus Circuits decision earlier this year that struck down Californias magazine ban as unconstitutional. (And, yes, who would have seen that coming from the Ninth?) So, as I understand it, states within that Ninth district should be free from any onerous magazine capacity ban (on a state level. Federal level is a different story. Federal law usually supersedes state law. We kinda had a war about that). But on a federal level it is still an undecided thing. Same for states outside the Ninth. Is California going to appeal it to the Supreme Court? If they do, I hope that the legacy Trump has created there would smack any ban down without even blinking. I suspect California knows that and might not be willing to push the issue further, but rather bide(n) their time for a leftist court-stacking as opposed to risking creating a nationwide precedent that they really don’t want. In short, they might be content to live with a ‘maybe’ instead of pushing the issue and getting a ‘no’.

So, back to the question at hand… should I be spending money on magazines like this when there might be enough legal juice out there to preclude another magazine ban? I really don’t know. Historically, .gov does what it wants and when it gets smacked down on constitutionality it takes some time. California’s mag ban, for example, has been around for decades and only now is it finally getting threatened. Additionally, there are probably several ‘loopholes’ that .gov (state or federal) could exploit to give a de facto ban. Registration of magazines with high registration fees, expensive enhanced background checks….basically a tedious and discouraging NFA-style process that doesn’t strictly limit your ability to own a magazine…it just makes you wanna throw up your hands and say ‘screw this’.

Note that we’re just talking about magazine bans in this case. The other elephant in the room, “assault weapons”, are a different story. My neighbor says that he does foresee that one coming. I agree with him on that one. But the magazine thing….hmmm… I hope it winds up going to the Supremes and gets decided in my favor but until it does I have to operate on the assumption that a magazine ban could stand. So….I wish I didnt have to spend this money on magazines, but I’m not sorry I did.

Just In Time II

I have a ‘favorites’ list at one of my vendors websites. Its a list of things I want to buy when they eventually become ‘in stock’. I check that list several times a day. As of late, I have noticed that around 2-3am they are adding stock to their online inventory and it sells out almost instantly. But…sometimes I sneak one past the goalie and get lucky. Case in point:

When the inventory said they had a bunch of the Magpul Glock 27-rd 9mm mags on hand I didn’t even think about it – send ’em all. I’ve now got a big ammo can of these sitting in the Deep Sleep. And I have enough left over for my own personal needs, and a bunch to sell to hapless panic buyers that will, ideally, pay for the whole shebang.

Just In Time

These arrived today:

Thats a lot of 9mm Glock happysticks

Fifty of them will go into the Deep Sleep, a few will get stuffed in the bag with my PC Charger, a few will get cycled into the Bag O’ Tricks, and the rest will be sold at sphincter-numbing prices to panic-driven people who really should have seen the handwriting on the wall a long time ago and need to be reminded that there are consequences to waiting until the last minute.

Savage Mk II extended mags

Couple weeks ago I mentioned that there was a company making extended mags for the Savage Mk II series of bolt action rifles. Since I have one of these rifles tricked out for quietly introducing varmints into the afterlife, I decided to get a couple to try out. They arrived the other day and I finally got a chance to take them to the range.

Worked fine. They have a ‘parkerized’-type porous finish that, according to the manufacturer, needs to have its pores filled with brass from the .22 cartridges. Simply load the mag and then press the round at the top of the mag down a bit and let it come back up. Repeat this a few times and the stack of cartridges will rub some brass into the pores of the magazine. I did as described and…no problems.

Construction appears very good and I see no reason to think the mags won’t last as long as an OEM mag. However, as much as I really like my Savage, the logistics-minded part of me says I should probably get the Ruger version so I can use my hundreds of 10/22 mags.

But..I like my little Savage, its quite accurate, and I rather like it’s sharp looks with that forest camo Boyds laminate stock.

By the by, I’ve run all sortsa silencer-recommended ammo through this thing and the best ammo I’ve found so far are the Remington Subsonic HP. Yes, even over the Eley.

Anyway, if youve got aone of the Savages, and youre looking for something more than the 5- and 10-rounders, it looks like these are the way to go.

Mag(a)

So these arrived today:

Ruger Mini-14 factory 20-rd mags…marked ‘BLEMISH’. I think that means it was for the Blem military.

Price? $19.99 ea for a Ruger steel factory mag. w00t.

Big thanks to the person who emailed me and told me about this deal.
I know, I know…why didn’t I pass this on to you guys? Easy…about a half hour after I ordered…OOS. (Out of stock). Right place, right time.

(I swear, every single time I play with Mini-14 folder or the mags I wind up whistling the A-team them. Every. Single. Time. And I’m not even aware Im doing it! Curse you, Cannell!)