I was just getting into guns at the time, but I don’t remember ARs being a big thing until the AWB ended (I remember having a countdown timer on my computer at college for the “sunset”). Prior to the end of the ban, I had a Bushmaster ban model that got a lot of looks because very few had an AR at the time (his recollection of gun store commando knowledge about ARs is spot-on). I remember paying about $40 for 20 round Okay mags and even more for 30 rounders. Glocks were definitely big and you paid big $$$ for preban mags (remember the FML drop free vs. non drop-free price gap?). 1911s weren’t really a thing, except for a few old-timers who had Colts and the “fancy-pants” that owned a Kimber and scoffed at the general crappiness of anything else, especially “combat Tupperware”. Import-banned guns were going for crazy money during the AWB.
My first non-hunting rifle was a Min-14 Ranch. If it wasn’t a Mini-14, it’d be a pretty neat little rifle. Groups at 75 looked like buckshot at 25, but damn it’s a handy thing.
I had a crappy PWA HBAR in 1990. It DEFINITELY gotta a lotta looks at the range & gunshops - of western NC!!! Ye olde ‘thutty-thutty’ was still de rigueur in those parts - might STILL be. I know when it started doubling, and I took it into a different (closer) shop than where I bought it (had a bent firing pin), the shop owners about swallowed their teeth when I walked in with it! “What’er yew gonna do with THAT?! Launch a frontal assault?!”
My experience was that only the people with more money to spend wanted AR’s. Everybody else wanted AK’s, SKS’s, or any other surplus rifle or pistol. Lots and lots of SKS’s and Makarovs were floating around before Y2K.
I had some of each, and a couple of AR’s, but AR’s were the exception, at least around here.
Then after 9/11, it seems like people gradually went all-AR-all-the-time. I think this was due to the fact that AK’s were becoming more expensive and the 922(r) compliant ones often had issues. Arsenal’s pricing was just nuts. More than a few times I heard the lament, “For the price of that AK you might as well buy an AR.” Once the AR industry just exploded, all the 1990’s faves began to fade. It seems like now in gun shops and gun shows you see ten AR’s for every Kalashnikov, and it used to be the other way around. There’s one small shop around here that maybe has an equal inventory of both, but he’s the exception.
Y2K was the first time I decided I should probably have more then a flashlight and a few cans of soup around and such, and started to look into basic bug in survival prep. While it was a big nadda, I was happy I had what I did, and remained woke to the idea having what’s needed for the unknown, a good idea with no downsides.
Man…the bug out bag. If you didn’t have one, you weren’t gonna live. I remember the couple years I spent maintaining and tweaking my BoB. Then one day it occurred to me, where the F was I going to go on a single tank of gas that was more dependable than my home?
That day my “bug out bag” became my “emergency response bag” and contained the things I’d need if I had to go rescue a family member or something like that. Only used it a few times, once to pick up my wife from work when the “Justice for Trayvon” crowd was threatening to shut down streets and things like that and when we evaced from Irma.
I was way to young to be into guns during Y2K, but I do remember a couple things-
The talking heads were of course completely sure that they weren’t sure the world was going to end… as usual…
Seriously, everyone was like “OMG WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE…Maybe…right? Yeah.” :laugh:
I also remember how woefully under-prepared we were if anything had happened… parents bought a few extra cans of beans and corn and put them in a box in the closet… I was like holy shit, I hate canned corn, I REALLY hope the world doesn’t end because I don’t want to eat that! :laugh:
And yet, also in the back of my brain it sort of sunk in that, if anything happened, that was ALL we had…and in the sort of young-teen logic of then, I remember comparing what was in that box to what we ate in a normal meal and realizing that it sure wouldn’t last long…
My dad had an old .410 pump shotgun, but he never fired it but once to test it years before,since you know…guns are bad, and we didn’t “do” guns at our house… :rolleyes: And we had like 3/4 box of birdshot. I remember wondering if it still worked at all, in case we needed it to hunt for food once we ran out…
And thus began my distrust of all things relating to the news and adults in general… :laugh:
Good times…
If I was me but in 1999 knowing what I know now…I’d just have some kinda M4 or CAR15 and a Glock 34 IIRC they were out by 98 and just get mags and not chase some of those dragons.
Damn, those were the days, what memories.
I had an XM177 clone in the late 80s, and somewhere in the early 90s went AK, with an SKS backup. Then, in the mid 90s went FAL. 1911 all the time. I was building FALs for all my buddies. 7.62 @ $100 a case, and good surplus, yup, those were the days. Had stuff stocked up, just saved big time for awhile after on the grocery bill, lol.
Don’t have any FALs anymore, still have a 1911, but not the one I had back then. Did M1A for awhile, went back to the AR platform. Back where I began, full circle.
Maybe i’ll put together another XM177, I do sometimes miss it’s simplicity.
I was a broke ass E-7 raising a kid by myself when I asked my Brother in Law what was up with this.
My Brother in Law looked like he walked off of a construction site, but he worked for Apple writing code at the time, he said “We dunno, but we’re working on it 24-7.”.
That was a reality check for sure.
I think I owned two Garands, a Ruger Security Six and a Remington pump 12 gauge. I might have had two thousand rounds of 7.62 for the Garands (yes I had some extensive work done on them.) Maybe 500 rds of .357 and a couple hundred 12 gauge rounds at the time.
I had about three days of food preps and was very reliant on the power staying on. I immediately began working on that.
You know technology being what it is, we were damned lucky.
Still have the Camp 9, but rarely shoot it. Always wanted the Camp 45 to go with my 1911, but it went out of production and prices got stupid before I got around to looking for one. I suppose that I’d have looked harder if I hadn’t bought the Tommy-gun.
Did the .45 version take 1911 mags? I seem to recall that, which is the only reason I never tried to pick up a used one. 8 rounds or a 10 round dangler.
I had an Imbel on a STG kit about 10 years ago because FALs were cool. I don’t regret selling it. Mags were cheap, but I didn’t get what all of the fuss was about.
I remember the first AR I bought after the ban was a Rock River “Operator”. Options were limited at the time and Colts were crazy-money. I want to say the RRA was around $1000 and there were a bunch of options that are standard now.
I remember getting my very 1st unemployment check ever in my life after working from 15 to 28 without stopping as I burned out…
Then saw the Mel video …and I used that to get my Stg58…
Boomstick was my benelli.
Funemployment was only 3 months as I got into subbing before rejoining the army.
I never really thought of it this way but I was kind of a “Mr. Fabrique Nationale” back in 99. The main battery consisted of my preban FAL and ever trusty BHP, both parkerized. Ironic being I was recently poking fun at one of the locals about his matching FDE FN hardware.
My never to be finished AR project, basically an upper with a colt 14.5 M4 barrel w/perm’d phantom FH and knights 300m buis, would soon be sold to buy a really sweet arsenal fresh 1903A3. I cant remember where my 1911 project was at that point. It turned out awesome. Unfortunately everyone can shoot that gun except me. I sold it to a friend. I should have thrown it into the sea. At least that way I may not have to constantly see it still running like a rosewood stocked Rolex.
AR parts didnt grow on trees… at all. I was stationed at ft Bragg and there was a pretty vibrant shooting community, featuring alot of now famous faces, and even with all the shooting activity to be found parts were very slim pickings. I would have jumped on DPMS bubble packaged parts or Olympic Arms lowers because that was about all there was when there was anything to be had, and you at least knew where they came from. I can’t remember the prices. The gunshows had lots of vendors selling mystery parts. I had an argument with one vendor at an NC gunshow about his shit parts(the fresh light gray parked BCG was oddly crunchy and full of fine blasting media). Im still not sure where all those crap parts come from and I still see that dealer to this very day at various gunshows up here in PA
They were only dreary days in retrospect though when considering the plethora of parts and aftermarket today. On the other hand 9mm was $4.50-$5/box and 200rd 7.62 Nato battle packs almost literally rained from the heavens. Loads of other surplus ammo now much of which is now virtually exctinct. I especially miss the cheap, quality surplus .303 british. The Talon brand of reboxed surplus USGI 30-06 was another one I went through a bunch of.
The shops and shows were flooded with egyptian maadis and romanian thumbhole stocked 5.45 aks. Only recently did I come across a crusty maadi on a table, but Ive frequently wondered where the hell they all went too. Im not an ak guy, I never had one but Id like to own one some day if I can ever make sense of whats good and bad in AK land.
I woke up one Saturday morning to get ready for a gun show. On TV some channel was playing the music video for “Come Out and Play” by the Offspring. Remember that song with the “middle-eastern” sounding riff?
While I had that riff repeating in my head I wandered around that gun show and saw maybe the only thumbhole-stocked Maadi I ever encountered. I thought the song and the rifle formed a sort of “kismet” and I bought the rifle. Piece of crap laminated thumbhole stock literally broke just from handling before I ever fired it. I think it was the poorest laminating job I’d ever seen and the stock was probably cracked from the factory. Come to think of it, I put an ATI fiberforce stock on it and never even put one round through it before trading it off for something else.
Weeks later I saw a Romanian thumbhole stocked AK. Nice laminated furniture, but the rest of it looked like it had been folded and assembled in someone’s garage and I didn’t buy it. Should have named it the “sharp edge carbine” with all the unfinished protrusions on it. I assume it was AK reliable but what a piece of junk to look at.
At the time I badly wanted one of the romanian 5.45 guns, they did have pretty attractive blonde laminated furniture but IIRC 5.45 was kinda tough to find at the time, limited to little 20rd red white and blue folded and stapled boxes. I dont remember seeing 5.45 readily available till the folding stock tantals came around in the later 2000s. Of course by the time I worked myself back up to being interested in a 5.45 ak, the ammo had now vanished or priced beyond reason. Perhaps another day.
I bought my thumbhole MAK-90 at the Metrolina Fairgrounds show (Charlotte) the first weekend of '94. Bought an American wood kit and an Arsenal 36 hundred round drum ($39!) at the same show. Got that Sarah Brady butthole stock off as fast as I could when I got home!
I think I gave between $219 - $249 for the MAK, NiB. KLIN - TON I’s ban came a week later, I think, and they went up to $349 - $399 OVERNIGHT. And more, since.
Cool thing about the butthole stock - with all that cosmoline, it burned with a beautiful, pale green flame in the fireplace.
:laugh: