I know I could play around with auction sites myself, but there's a bunch of reasons I don't want to, and that also would limit me to just auctions, and not the thousands of used guns potentially available at gun stores as well (assuming someone has figured out a way tap the inventory of those stores).

I'm thinking of something along the lines of a dealer that would accept an "order" along with a max price and an expiration date. The dealer would charge you 20% on whatever he purchased the gun for, which would cover shipping and any FFL transfers.

Does this exist or am I living in fantasy land?

Gunbroker has a search feature on which you can search for "used" guns only. It's way down at the botton left, under "Specialty Searches". I can't say about the rest of your criteria.

That still means I have to BS around with the site, the FFL transfer and a bunch of unknowns (I'm a gun user, not a broker).

I'm thinking of something much more turnkey, although Gunbroker *could* be the solution if they had a reasonable "wanted" system that dealers could then use to match what they had in stock to what people were looking for.

Well, if I understand you correctly, I'm gathering you would want something like the junk yards use?? A radio where they call around looking for parts??(in this case guns). I could see that would be a viable marketing strategy, but I DO think that it could become more expensive. It's too bad that we can't buy/sell guns through the board. I understand the reasoning, though. Ideally, if every pawn shop & gun sales place were on some auction site, it would save a LOT of driving around. One cost factor could become significant, that is, the FFL transfer fee. Some charge as little as $5.50 and others as much as $50 that I've seen via the auction sites. Most are around the $20 range.

Right, but I'd include not only used gun dealers but the auctions sites as well. Basically you tell them what you want and your maximum value and they find it and collect a finder's fee on top of that.

FFL transfer shouldn't be too bad. I could have it done at Burnsville Pistol for $15, anything more than $25 is a joke, IMHO.

Glocktalk.com has a firearms listings area. You could post a "WTB" (want to buy). Since it's a forum, of course the listing drops and you have to bump it to the top every other day.

I know "Storm Rifle" has pretty nice listing boards. Again, you could say "WTB" to request a purchase of something, and state a price inside your listing (sellers on that site are required to state a price in their subject line).

Of course, there's no dealer to charge you 20% or anything, the site is completely free (awww, boo-hoo ), and you still have to wait for someone to find you. But it is a place to let your request try to garner attention while you look for a better alternative for purchase.

The board search function there works extremely well, so your listing stands a good chance of being discovered. I don't know how many visitors that site draws, but...

Oh, I just thought to look on Gunbroker. There is a forum/want ads button, then there is a forum just for WTB's.

I don't know if the gunbroker want ads allows FTF (face to face) requests, but glocktalk does.

Hmm, maybe I need to dig in deeper.

I also guess it's one of those things that if it were economically advantageous for people to offer such a service, it'd have been done by now...