My thoughts are along these lines:

Approach FFL. (Can be a gun store, or a guy at home who has his license and can order from manufacturer.)

Say, "I've got 12/24/30/40 guys interested in a bulk order of pistols."

"We'd like to order them from S&W/TAURUS/SA/SIG/KIMBER/BERETTA/ETC through you('re business) and pay transfer fees as the only wholesale markup. Having been brought all the buyers, you make an easy $500-$800 bucks or so in one go around (assuming around $20 transfer fees), and we all get our guns. Everyone wins. You perhaps also gain a new customer or two along with the money."

Everyone scheduled for the Group Buy first passes a NICS check/carry or purchase permit through said FFL on their own before guns are even ordered. This could be done at everyone's convenience, by a certain deadline date.

Guns ordered and shipped. Group notified.

Pickup date scheduled (10:00am), along with photo (10:30am), range trip (10:30am-2:00pm), and firing range BBQ (Noon).

How's that?

Would funds have to be held in trust beforehand, or could they be exchanged individually on pickup/range day for the guns? Perhaps a non-refundable deposit beforehand?

I like your thinking! The Easy money and possible residual sales is a GREAT idea. Might I suggest Jerry at the Carry Depot? Sure, we might have to make a field trip to pick up the guns but he has a range on site and he's a Great guy to deal with. I'd suggest Roger and Co. at BPR but don't know if they do special order guns or just transfers.

Can I suggest the idea of a S&W 340PD as THE gun of choice?

a couple questions:
1) CAN the dealer legally do the 4473 upon ordering the gun?
What if something changes between order and transfer?
What if once the guns come in one or more persons cannot clear the 4473?

2) Personally, I'd assume cash up front so would want someone everyone trusts.

3) can a kitchen table gun dealer get a good price from the Manufacturer on a gun or is volume the king?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions.

Though I'm looking for a new autoloader; revolvers don't grab me quite as much.

...That said, could we all place different orders and still get a deal like that? Perhaps "selling" a large number of pistols for transfer fee value above wholesale wouldn't even affect how many different guns they had to order.

I suddenly find myself opining on subjects I know little to nothing about.

I'd just like to get in on a group gun buy!

I think this will probably work easier if we settle on a brand and talk the manufacturer/wholesaler into a group discount, even if the individual guns differ. I doubt we'll get 20 people to agree on a make and model.


a) Not sure.
b & c) Assuming the gun was paid in advance, it would probably have to be resold without ever leaving the FFLs possession.


Depending on the FFL, the money might have to go to the manufacturer/wholesaler in advance. Regardless, everybody in on the buy should pay in advance so we don't take a chance on burning the FFL. We should keep him willing to do this in the future,



It's probably going to be an issue of the coordinator, or someone else, convincing the manufacturer/wholesaler to give us a break.

I might know a wholesaler and an FFL willing to help us out. I'll find out, if necessary.

Given that, say, discountgundealer.com will sell pretty much anything new for $25 over his wholesale, there's a real hard floor to how good a group buy on guns can be. Now, if I saw $25 on the street, I'd stop and pick it up, sure, but if I was, say, looking for another SP101, I'd probably just wait and find another good one, used, and save a lot more than that $25.

The question is: What is his wholesale and how does his wholesale + $25 compare to a larger volume dealer's lowest sales price?

I dunno for sure, but guns are fairly famous for being a very low markup. (Obsnark: I guess that's better than "oh, they're much lower -- look at how much Bill's has to add on." It's not fair, of course, because a big bricks-and-mortar store has lots of fixed costs that have to be paid for in some way by the customers.)

My best deals on the purchase of firearms come from when I do my stocking dealer programs in the early part of the year. Most manufacturers offer stocking dealer programs that can be taken advantage of only once per year. Generally speaking, the discount is roughly 5-10% below distributor pricing. There is usually a limit to the number of guns, say 15 from Glock, and sometimes the models are limited. Outside of the Stocking Dealer Program, it would be difficult to work with a manufacture direct as many times their minimum order could be $30k-$40k and the pricing I would expect very close to the stocking dealer program.

As far as I know, It would be very improper (read illegal) for me to utilize the NICS system to pre-qualify someone. I could check with ATF to confirm.

Also, as a Minnesota FFL, I would have to charge 6.5% sales tax. Shipping costs could be negotiated to point of probably being free with a distributor/manufacturer.

Again, most of my stocking dealer negotiations are done Jan-March around the time of the SHOT show. Everyone would have to be on-board by then to get the best prices.

Let me know what the interest is. As already suggested, I think it would be unlikely that all members would want to buy from the same manufacturer. Regardless of the forum group buy program, I will probably be offering forum members special buys as I renew each Stocking Dealer program early in 2008.

Jerry,

Thanks for the insight.

My preference would be 1911 of some sort.

While I agree that getting 20 people, or even 10, to agree on a single model, it might be feasible to get them to agree on a single manufacturer. That way it's still a single order being placed and still have the potential of a volume discount. i don't know if that would work however, seeing as i don't know the mechanics/policies of this type of sale.