Everyone is.

Be there in an hour..  I guess nobody else is going today..

Someone else was there yesterday but hasn't posted up.  Think the BFL was on a taco.

I went last minute on Saturday. The old lady at the NRA booth got mad when she asked if I were a member and I told her I used to be but with the way they handled the bumpstock fiasco I won't be ever again.

She's a nice old lady, but they made her job a lot harder.

I was polite, but she was rolling her eyes so hard I thought she'd fall out of her chair.

Lol. I bit my tongue..

29-30 December

Fort Worth (Premier)

Meeting for lunch Saturday Noon at King Tut on Magnolia, just east of 8th Avenue about 2 miles east of Montgomery St.  Authentic Arabic food by an Egyptian chef.  Drinks afterwards at Ye Olde Bull & Bush on Montgomery.

Happy anniversary to us!  Saturday will be this thread's 1 year anniversary.

These constant updates have been filling my weekends.  
Thanks for keeping it going.

Thanks man.  Say hello sometime.

5-6 January

Dallas Market Hall - I will be giving a presentation there on the AR-15 Thursday evening, 3 January.

I'll be there, looking forward to it...set up in same row, but opposite side, and up closer to front door and Dave Jackson...

Always a fun and good show for me!

Maple & Motor for lunch Saturday?

This will be my first gun show in almost two years now

With a little luck i will sell a couple and buy a couple Market Hall has always been my favorite show.

Just be aware the Trump slump has hit this show the hardest.

I tried to the day you were carrying your ten foot club.  
Every time I found you, you were talking to someone else.  
In passing I suggested you get a safety flag for the top of your monstrosity and you gave me the look.

As to not continue to interrupt further, I kept walking.

Lol!  That was you?  It's only 67" - I really need a 31" bbl for it so it would be as long as my stepdaughter is tall.  

Sounds good.  Noon.

@Motown_Steve

Maybe.

I want ant to go shooting.

So get up early, go shooting, & meet us @ Maple & Motor for lunch.  You need a girlfriend to look after your puppy.

what is Maple & Motor ?

https://www.mapleandmotor.com/

4810 Maple Ave.  Dallas, TX 75220
214-522-4400

I think I'm gonna go to Cabelas and the antique store on Denton hwy today.

Made it.

I've got a table...

Couldn't make it today, but might be able to tomorrow.  How's the show looking?

I couldn't make M&M which is a shame as they are fantastic.

But I am even more saddened by the crumbling facade that is the Market Hall show.

Having grown up in Dallas I have attended this show since I was a kid back in the 70's, to see what it has become is just sad.

Going forward I think I will stick with the Big Town and the Ft. Worth shows.

Good to see you again.

Sota billet lowers for $60.  HiPoint 9x19mm carbines $250.  Free parking.  Larger than Lewisville, not what it used to be.  Several ARFCOMers there.  98kGuy has a table.  Got a buffer spring for $3 from the AR parts guy.

Yeah, good seeing you again, also met NAES who is from Rochester NY, so it was great talking with him.

Faded Sun stopped by so I could buy a Polish 85mm training HE round (thanks, man, its awesome!)

The door was shit, and more vendors calling it quits, really sad, since when I moved here 4 years ago, it WAS a 1200 table show, and was packed Saturday...still, I do it more to shoot the shit with the guys, meet people, and find goodies while trying to fund said goodies...

I was able to get a 1944 dated soft shell P-38 holster, and a the proper mag for my "0" Series Spreewerk P-36, a military marked holster for my 1942 Walther PP, the 85mm round from Faded Sun, and some other small stuff...

Selling, meh, slowest Saturday I have ever had at a DACA show...I need to try to get a table at Big Town and get more selling going on...

Yeah, the Market Hall show is just a shell of what it used to be, no doubt. But as backbencher said, it's still larger than Lewisville and if you're a collector, better than any of the others. Being dissapointed and skipping future shows isn't the way to boost attendance. Good to see @backbencher and @henryknoxfinebooks.

Donning firesuit... From my perspective, this is all completely predictable. We spent 8 years of the FBHO administration stocking up, and many began much earlier than that. We can now buy online, have it shipped to a local FFL and barely have to get off of the couch. When local dealers go tits up because all they do is the occasional transfer, who will do the transfers? I want to buy a supressor but am afraid the dealer won't be in business 6 or 8 months from now. I'm not defending overpriced dealers nor saying they don't share some of the blame. They're absolutely part of the problem, but if we don't support local, and the dealers don't pull their head out, we all lose. In some respects, we're our own worst enemy.

Meh, I've said it before, and I'll say it again...talking with some of the old time club members the DACA show really started as club members setting up and trading/dealing with each other...once it becomes a big commercial show, you get big commercial vendors.

And the reality is, it is tough or people who sell stuff you can buy on the internet and be really competitive...the big dealers have 6, 10, 14 tables...at $70 a table, 10 tables cost the dealer $700. If he is not close enough to drive home, then he has at least two nights of hotel, and of course food, and gas....so add all that in, and you have to make some money too, doesn't leave much for margins....

And honestly, if you are a guy who is looking for nothing except what can be bought online, most likely you will be disappointed, and then hop online and screed about how shitty the show was with a bunch of gouging asshole dealers.

The awesomeness of shows, at least for me, is finding stuff you CANNOT just find anywhere online...sure, again, a lot depends on what you are looking for, and sure, you don't always find awesome bargains...but you certainly can...

The last show I scored a "0" series Spreewerk P-38....these P-38's were assembled during the last two months of the war, never military accepted, simply marked with a "U", and meant to equip the Volksturm. They are fairly rare, and typically sell for $1800 to $2500....got mine for $800, no brainer.

Its also a great place to actually see and hold the stuff you may go back and order online.

Of course over-saturation is an issue too...hell, you can go to a gunshow just about every weekend in the greater DFW area if you wanted to, so it dilutes it somewhat.

I also think DACA does a piss poor job advertising, and getting the word out. The DACA show probably is the best Milsurp/Militaria show in DFW....the mesquite shows, Allen, the smaller ones tend to have very little milsurp/militaria stuff...Fort Worth shows have some, but not as much as DACA....I have passed on that they should advertise DACA as a Gun/Knife/Militaria show. since most guys into the militaria/milsurp stuff probably just think another typical DFW show with almost no milsurp...Not to mention, they really don't do any advertising, or at least not much...if people don't know there is a show, they aren't showing up.

IMHO the great thing about the DACA show is it really does have something for everyone, collectible militaria stuff, modern big dealer large volume new stuff, guys with all sorts of accessories and goodies, and of course beef jerky and junk jewelry...

Shows are what you make of them, if you go in with a bad attitude, its going to be shitty. go in with a good attitude of seeing stuff you likely won't see just anywhere, and have fun, its a great show....where else can you see a 100% correct, with numbered box, and all accessories Party Official issue PPK for $26,000? (Priced about 2x too high, but still it is what it is, which is very rare)?

Yeah, door was shit, people weren't buying, still had a great time, and paid for my table in March....

Agree with your points about over saturation and militaria. A couple of the smaller shows really are a waste of effort, but because they once feed the shortage, just seem to sleepwalk on .....  For me, the appeal is I don't know what I'm going to find until I get there. If I was looking for a SIG P938 or 1000 rounds of 5.56, the only real appeal of the gun show is I walk out the door with my stuff. If you veer into the collectable area, shows are where you go.

Agree, 100%....

Was nice to meet 98KGuy. It’s always fun to reminisce on the misery of NY.  For the record, I vote red, so chill out TX.

I always have a good time at gun shows, even if I don’t buy anything. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon for the price of a movie.  It helps that I don’t know anyone down here too so there is that.

I walked in with two pistols and left with cash, so it was a good show for me.

As a consumer, I am absolutely delighted there is a show in an hour's driving distance every weekend.

I go shows with backbencher as often as I can. For one thing, he knows everything about every gun you'll find and for another, walking around and looking at guns is always fun. But, I must admit the shows are less than they used to be.

When I first came here in 2005, the Big Town Show was the first show I went to. It was an amazing thing to me. Back in Michigan, the shows were at the Gibraltar Trade Center and they were relegated to about 1/3rd of the main floor of the Market Hall show. When I walked into that hot, stifling atmosphere at Big Town for the first time it was amazing to me. You had real deal cowboys selling old ass guns and you had modern gun guys...all under one roof.

But the Market Hall show that year was truly, truly amazing. I went in the morning and the line to get in was out to that brick out building leading to the parking lot. There were old timers walking the line and buying guns from people before they even got a ticket to go inside. I met Nationwide face to face for the first time there, as well as karma, TXLewis, MC48 (don't even remember if that is his right username) and hrt4me. When I got inside it was like I went to gun heaven. Rows upon rows of tables, all laden with guns, ammo and accessories of every kind and thousands of people walking around with guns to sell cheap. At that time, it was the second biggest show to the Oklahoma show, and it was truly the firearms enthusiast's event of the year. Today, it is a shell of what it once was.

But, I must admit, I do enjoy the Fort Worth show at the Will Rogers Center immensely. I never walk out richer or equally as rich as when I walked in. I also enjoy the people watching. There is always a crowd at the Fort Worth show that makes the price of admission just as entertaining as looking over the guns.

Incidentally, I heard the advertisement for the Dallas Safari Club show coming from the 17th-20th. That is something to see. We need to have a good turnout for that show. I went with backbencher last year and we spent five hours going through the gun part and I did a 20 minute power walk through the rest. If you haven't been,then you MUST go. It is amazing in every sense of the word. I held a $250,000 shotgun in my hands. An English guy was impressed by how amazed I was with their guns that he insisted I feel it. He said 'if we only let people who could afford these guns touch them they would stay in the case all weekend.'

So is the DACA show worth going to today or was it a run of the mill show?  As usual, I would be looking for milsurp at decent prices.

I'm not sure what decent prices on milsurps are anymore.  Plenty of them there, but I'm not really looking for em @ the moment.

In terms of size, I'd rank the main D/FW shows as following:

Premier Will Rogers FW
Lone Star Will Rogers FW
Premier Big Town Mesquite
DACA Market Hall Dallas
Premier/TSRA Rodeo Mesquite
Premier Allen (Might actually be bigger than Mesquite Rodeo, haven't been in a long time)
Premier Lewisville

Just got back. Damn, that was disappointing.

@98KGuy @naes " It’s always fun to reminisce on the misery of NY."

I moved from Buffalo to Houston in 1980 and couldn't agree more.  

If you go to a DACA Market Hall show today remembering it in their heyday, you will be disappointed.  If you go b/c it's a larger show than Mesquite Rodeo or Lewisville, you'll be happy.

You got out before things got really bad.
Cuomo even said we weren’t welcome in his state.

I wish you could have seen the shows at the Convention Center downtown in the mid-'80s. Depending on what else was going on at the Center you would have a TV Evangelist in the big hall, a guitar show in the small room and a gun/military show in the bottom hall. Tanks, half-tracks, jeeps, and more reenactors than you could count. Gun wise it was as large or larger than Market Hall. It was owned by the city of Dallas so they didn't sell ammo but at one time would sell you a beer. A "progressive" mayor and the political climate killed the show in the '90's.
A side note, I did see David Koresh and the Mag Bag there several times.

Randy Weaver turned up at a D/FW gun show once.  I don't remember which one.  Richardson had decent small gunshows in the late 80’s.

Amen.

Weaver was at Market Hall. Richardson was usually pretty good for such a small show. A few dedicated letter writers and a group of loud protesters threatened to sue the city if they didn't stop having gun shows in city-owned buildings. Richardson said no more. They did the same to Plano with the same results.

12-13 January

Groesbeck
Lewisville (small Premier)
Waxahachie (Premier)

Unfortunately I can't join y'all.  If someone wants to meet up for lunch, post up & I'll put it here in the OP.  Last Lewisville show Motown_Steve & I hit Hard 8, pretty good BBQ.

Is Lewisville larger than the Waxahachie show?

@Backbencher

Lewisville is a small show.  Some of the regular D/FW vendors, but it's not a large space.  I don't think I've ever been to the Waxahachie gun show, so I can't compare the two, but Lewisville is one of the smallest shows I've been to.