How can you spot the good ones? And by good ones, I mean vintage stuff, tools, militaria, etc. I saw recently that a collector in Ohio has a huge collection of WWII militaria and stated that estate sales are where he found the majority of his biggest finds. I'd pull a Rockford in the middle of the road if I knew that stuff was around but normally shrug it off when I see a hand-drawn sign on posterboard since I just reason it's probably used baby clothes and worn out tupperware.

Anybody have an experience with these?

If you don't look you'll never find it.

Check out auctionzip.com. Most of the good sales are advertised with listings of sale contents.

If it is advertised well enough for you to spot it, so have dozens of other people.   The good stuff will likely be gone many hours before the doors ever open.

Getting first shot at an arfcom type estate sale is about like sighting a unicorn.  I think it may only exists in the legends of the internets, gunshows, and in the minds of the great story tellers.  

Have fun on the search.  Good luck, and maybe you'll find that unicorn someday.

Oh yeah.... I found canned unicorn meat at a sale one time.  

and you can get your own!

Go to www.estatesales.net and subscribe to their email. You get links with pics, so you "usually" know if it's worth going to.  You can also get on the district lists of companies so that you get "insider" emails.

My stepdad always seems to get lucky at those. Hasn't been in a few years that I know of, but the last one I know of him going to one he scored some .50 cal ammo cans for $.5-1/per and got about 25. Believe he got a few old shotguns and a bolt action rifle for next to nothing. One if the shotguns was a 24"-26" barrel bolt action 12g "goose gun" of some kind. It's a really interesting firearm I fondled it when I stopped by the day he got it. He also has several really old singer sewing machines and stuff of the sort that's worth a good but more than he paid.

Otherwise I'm clueless, the few I went to had junk. Good luck. I'll ask my stepdad if he has some sort of inside advice, but I doubt it's more than luck.

More often than not, the firearm and accessory "purge" happens more often after the death of the collector in the family.  I have seen this happen twice, but the wife in each case didn't have an estate sale.  In one case, she called her widows good friend to come and analyze his collection and help her sell it all.   He took his large collection and put it on gun broker and brought 5-10 guns at a time to gun shows to sell at tables.  All in all there was at least 60 firearms and hundreds of knives that were collectable.   All of the guns were high dollar.

In another case, the woman took his massive gun collection and fire-saled it to a guy she knew that knew about guns.   She just "wanted them out of the house" and parted with them for penny's on the dollar.   When I saw the collection in person, I nearly cried.   There were over 100 guns, each pristine, and all very desirable.   I saw some 80s vintage Colt revolvers, H&K MK23, high end 1911s, etc.   That guy took what he wanted from the collection and sold the rest for 20% off their current value and made out like a bandit.  

So the end result is you may find some guns at estate sales, but they will either be picked through already, or priced top dollar if they are valuable.   I haven't seen any estate sales that have any modern black rifles at them.

I have my grandfathers old Marlin Goose gun. Pretty cool old guns with a heck of a long barrel. They aren't worth much, but a cool find.