Standard capacity used Glock mags, $50-80 depending on model.
New prices at the time were ~$16.

AK and AR mags were actually one of the more reasonable cost mags during the ban.

AR mags could be found (RETAIL) for $5 all day at surplus stores.

AK mags, the old Warsaw Pact nations were busy cleaning out their WWIII supplies.

When i got my g21 in 97 from a local gun store in charleston, sc i paid $25 per mag.

During the 94-04 AWB, when it came to AK or any other import hi-cap mag, it was left up to the exporter to "certify" they were made pre 1994. If people think all those Bulgarian Circle ((10)) waffle AK mags were made before 1994, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them.

NIW USGI mags went for 30 plus shipping or 3/100 shipped all day long in the late 90's

I remember buying West German Sig P226 15-round zipper back mags for $75 each and feeling like I was stealing them from the poor sucker

I don't remember new mags being that high, but I do remember selling used USGI (in excellent condition) for $18-20 each.  At the time, I could buy them for $10 each, and they were one of the first gun related items I ever sold online.

DPMS Black Teflons niw were $40, and refurbished Beta-C drums from Reuben were $421 shipped. Both preban. Still got all of them.

pistol mags is what sucked big time during the ban, that is why I found it odd during the recent panics is that there was more focus on rifle mags...   It seems Texas and Arizona had higher prices than many listed here, although $30 for USGI AR15 mags in nice condition was about right.

AK mags were cheap because anything mfg before 1994 could still be imported which meant there were about a gazillion AK mags that could be imported.

Beretta 92s was the most popular high capacity nine before the ban due to the military acceptance and all the hollywood movies featuring the gun.  So mags weren't too bad, you could find crates of USGI mags for less than $25.

10/22s were the weirdest, the prices were super high.  Ramline 50s were marked around $140.  I had a decent number of ramline 30s and butler creek 30/25 round mags that worked pretty well.  Even the Ramline 50s worked decently, although when they restarted production after the ban they did not work at all.  Anyway I had some new in wrap 50s and wanted to get rid for any half decent price, I asked numerous tables that had them listed skyhigh and nobody would even give me an offer because I quote, nobody buys them.  So much for efficient markets.

^^^ THIS!

AK mags were reasonably cheap during the ban--$10 for used Combloc mags was pretty much standard around here.

Pistol mags were ridiculous.  I remember reading Shotgun News, looking for used 16-round CZ-75 mags for under $80 and having no luck.

Oddly, the worst deal were the horrible "JamLine" 10/22 mags which could fetch $100!  Unusable garbage but people were paying it.

Like a lot of guys, I'm stockpiling everything I can while the getting is good...no telling what the future could bring.

I've left several jam line 10/22 mags at various ranges over the years.

One needs only look at what Cheaper than Dirt Charged with Sandy hook. People paid those bad prices because they remember how bad it was as prices kept climbing as the years went on and no traction was made on getting struck down despite voting out the democrats. That  Clinton ban pretty much sealed the Dems election fate. AR Mags would jump quickly but since everyone has plenty they would be hard sell for awhile but as time went on splurges of surplus availability would hit local markets as people died and/or had medical bills come up. Pawn Shops even loaned and bought & sold magazines. That's how bad prices were.

AK-Variants mainly  x39mm  went from $3-5 to $15 and people had tons of them . The good drums with the tension level went up and never came back down fully. The wind ups did .  All the novelty magazines which don't really work of course shot up to absurd prices and since so few had the 75 stick and 100 rd stick banana curved back to the barrel .

ARs  Had a lot of surplus and the Black Follower was the High Standard and the 20 and 30 jumped from bulk $2-5 up to $10 then $30 The drums like the snail shot up C-mag which had already a very high resale value due to only a few leaking to civilians  at $ 300-ish before the ban to over $600 if you could find one. Many priced the items to let the world know they owned one and draw them to their table. They weren't priced to actually sell.

Ruger had you already screwed with Mini 14 which escaped the ban because of a Fudd extra defense dice roll, but Bill Ruger didn't like civilians  prices basically doubled & tripled the already highly absurd. Ruger 10/22 was hit hard there was tons of attempts at larger capacity magazines and polymers mags and plastics just weren't the quality we have today. Still the 10/22 owners had it bad and you paid high dollar for basically crap because it could hold more rounds,being to continuously  firing in row didn't effect price much.

SKS the fixed 20 rd (with the star on it, that worked like crap) and the 30 round mags jumped up in price which was around half of what the $65-75 guns were going for.

Pistol mags went about about 300-400% of their price from $15-20. Newer releases closer to 1994 were of course Higher the Glock 21 in 45 had an extra $20 in price on top of the inflated

H&K will they hate you and the ban just let them add "..and mean it too" to their pricing. G-3/hk 91 cetme mags avoided the H&K tax

CETME  B&C   models went from about $6-8 to up around 30-60 although you could use the G-3 mags which were $1-2 for aluminum $2-4 for steel which jumped to $50+

Uzi shot up from $5-8 to $80-100 of course this varied by type and round count.

Sten, grease gun ect followed the uzi just a little less.

The smaller company  would cost way more a mac 10-11-12 went up from some where north of $125 for a magazine that the feed ramps wore down on and people would try to sell you used worn out ones all the time.

Several companies basically folded, that why you keep seeing AP-9 a tec-9 clone receivers pop up in bulk  because the company went under and there are all these lowers with no uppers and history of them cracking with usage.


You would expect to pay $3-5+ bucks per round capacity over the 10 line.


I have some  metal "50" rounders promag" glock mags that sucked so bad i can't unload them on anyone without feeling guilty. Paid somewhere in $50-75 range for them a piece. There was lot of underhanded dealings ""capitalizing"" on the market and inexperienced gun owners who were screwed by their birth date.

It was sad time to come of age right when Bush and Clinton  (at least he was smart enough do by EO for sunset )nailed us.   Rifles I had been dreaming about for years and saving for jumped several hundred dollars back when minimum wage was $3.35 . That US-12 I drooled and dreamed will never be mine, especially with what I  though was the most amazing drum. 20 round shotgun was the future at hand. Went up in price quickly

C-Mag Drums jump by $300 I would expect that  again  and more since the more expensive higher capacity items have fewer compared to the everyone today now has tub full of gen 2 P-mags. Every priority newer pistol, pdw, carbine,rifle would  jump up about 10 fold. There won't be the leaks like there was back in the Clinton ban, technology tracking is too advances and gun shows tables cost too much for a group of friends and the limits on people per.... Add in surveillance and people who think they can be anonymous online..... Things don't ""fall off trucks"" as easily nowadays .... RFID chips and the everyone is net nanny about anyone daring to do something they won't. Multiplied by the things we got away with all are now felony acts of terrorism.

Back in the first 1994 AWB
It would cost you more to buy a mag than the ammo to run through it 10-20 times. Today ammo costs more than the common mags. The one upside during the ban, ammo was cheaper especially compared to magazines. So people would shoot entire cases with friends and multiple calibers. You spent a lot of time reloading due to owning few mags but shooting verses that extra magazine which held 15 shots to 30 depending. You asked if you could use the loaded magazine and not the ammo.   I often wonder if these side of the road target practice areas will have future archeologists try to figure out what battle and war went down in the area. Especially when they are guessing with a hundred or more years for antiquity.

Glock(like many magazine fed pistols) prices actual fluctuated highly based on the number of and size of magazines they came with. Common was to buy a used glock and case with the place for the second magazine and then have to pay even more despite they already bleed you still for the gun and first mag. ...Many people/stores pulled the "comes with 2 mags " from the factory option and pulled one out to sell at the inflated value.  

It was dark times, people preyed on unknowing and new gun people worse than they do today. You had no way to check what prices were, around your state without calling or going to gun shows , or computer BBS which costs to join and that was on top of phone bills(often long distance).  Your local gun stores set what you expected to be the norm and prices varied greatly across the state, never mind the country. Have a military base near you , there were Ar-15/M-16 mags readily available and a little cheaper than more remote areas.

This was before a real internet (online ordering?   ) email lists (yahoo group) and Usenet were  established and then AOL brought the uneducated masses on discussion boards Thanks aol...& webtv.... for that      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September     Since you were too young to remember it. Every September the Freshman class at every university would get their first access to Usenet/Newsgroup and they had to be taught and every year for a month or so.  If you wanted images, videos, etc. you had the alt.binaries section There was a world of material that the Pirate Bay couldn't compete with. I guess you could relate to when gaming consoles had the ability to go online to websites and participate for more than gaming.

Seriously, modems were high speed at 28.8 kbits...  Just see "Weird Al" Yankovic - "It's All About The Pentiums"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos for what passed as high speed and diss on the older gear. You have more ram today  then we  did in our  hard drives storage capacity.  A gigabyte  of hard drive would cost you more than case of ammo or 2 pistol standard capacity magazines misclassified as high capacity under the AWB stupidity.

The sad irony of it all? The police departments were the larger sources of new(used but included NOS) magazines flowing in & on to the streets. The very same people who stood up and said we needed these laws.... every city, county, state, federal  agencies .  So as you know the law  enforcement of it was more political gain than real crime effort.

Police Dept. traded/sold off their department mags for more value than their original cost, and the bonus value  often switched pistols, the 40 and 10 being two choices(iirc) if it wasn't those they would get the new 9 or 45 model.  They could trade Pistols and mags bought in 1993 for a Higher number of pistols , magazines, accessories than they had and have budget left over to buy more gear.   Generous offers  by every gun dealer courting them to upgrade and get free newer  generations mags and even pistols  for  low to no cost/free and would  even  pay them for the old ones to dispose of.  Those preban magazines made great profits over the cost and tax write off of selling guns for less to the police.... Which all those police departments jumped at that gun money and flooded those  ""High"" (standard) capacity mags   back to the streets. Some may have done to help the people others just saw the way to get new gear without the usual bean counters issues.

The mags were available but if you were turning or not yet 18/21 you were screwed and of course being young, you hadn't had developed relations ships with gun sellers . So you got screwed badly for prices. Plus these young kids need to learn their hard knocks... The magazines were in the country and even though they weren't moving they still held prices high because gun users were broken spirited , beaten down  after two presidential (both parties did it to us) blows to gun owners, no one really expected the executive order to be allowed to expire until the very end and NRA was fuddtastic to us. Under the bus AR & AK and several other gun owners and their firearms went.  

Three guesses what they did with those evidence crime gun and mags. Even the worst gun destroyers sold the mags behind closed doors.  Basically the the money to be made had magazines flooding back on to the streets just at insane prices. That is before you run it through the inflation calculator.  

From the picture above a G-17mag(often used in the G-19 even back then) at $80 in 1995 equals $129.02 in 2017.  the G18/aka 33 round stick mag was $119 in 1995 which equals $191.92 in today's world.  Now after buying your basic load out of pistol w/ mag, 2 spares and 2 range mags, you can see where the hoarders have a very real sense of value. What we paid to go out reasonably protected during the ban buys a case of the same size magazines today. those were the advertised deals and didn't equal the extra gouging LGS and Gun Show dealers did.  Anything less was bought out early and resold because 5 bucks was lot more back then. I would expect that inflation figure to jump to the next price point. $129 would become $149.99,  $191 would likely be about  $225.  The only perk is 3-d printing means we could have a slow counter trickle that would be outside the commercial channels but that rules out use of indoor ranges and public because there is always someone ready to report and demanding to see your tax papers.

For truly what is was like, in all its glory and ugliness,   May I suggest  an usenet interface at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.guns I can't link to the time period of the Clinton assault ban(stupid scripting return results) but you can read daily, weekly and month long threads about prices, workaround loopholes and every other insane thing we had to do during the laws of scary plastic and metal that didn't really  alter the weapons ability.  Costs on  what was the latest greatest must have items that are now over on the retro boards.  Just use the search tools and set the dates for posts  back to after September 1994 and to a period no later then  about 10 years.
Plus you'll see the same arguments about what is the best round for hunting_____.   See also the internet way back machine aka https://web.archive.org/web/*/ar15.com

Rejoice, you no longer have buy overpriced crap to be legal. People actually bought stamped magazine floor plates so they could use magazines in their firearms because of fear of three letter agencies. There was some aggressive enforcement that help foster the ill will people feel towards them.

To see how the Bush's and Clinton's  Crap came to pass,  learn the lessons of the past from https://gunsmagazine.com/classic-guns-magazine-editions/  .
They are up to the summer of 1967 for issues. Read the Washington Column where they interview and ask congress critters to explain their view of gun rights.  You know about the gun control act of 1968 being a major removal of rights is coming, so watch it unfold & learn from it. In that lesson and hindsight you will see how we are still losing ground by a thousand cuts. Some bigger than others.  Does Sullivan's law ring a bell to you,?  Maybe not, but you'll read about in the back issues as the worst plague to hit the country for gun owners in NY.  Ironically some of today's gun owners are brainwashed and the plans to indoctrinate them worked , they would agree that such restrictions are logical and needed.

In 1968, How many $2.00 silencers were thrown away instead of paying $200.00 to register them? Expect crap like that instead of stamped paper work,  serial numbers will have to be engraved. Make no doubt California is showing the Anti's are learning and adjusting. Notice the even if you register the gun, it has to leave the state on your death.  



The Obama Scare panic gave you taste of what it was like. While it is supply and demand, people will let the magazines decay & breakdown instead of selling them for less than the current market.  If you remember it just wasn't mags but for a while lower parts kits were hard to fine and so were BCG for the ar-15. So with a ban already on imports and better screening at our ports, it is harder and harder for items to soften such bans and the  fallout blows to the wallet. Where you may save up to get a great optic think about doing that per magazine and the prices are so high you can't even get multiplies to take the sting out of shipping and handling When people can't get one item they stock up in other areas. As you saw with various ar parts shortages and run on the cheaper milsurp. Which cheap ARs, should hopefully cause the rest to drop.Just up like a rocket down like a feather or prices.

That was what is was like. The cost was more than money, it was anger, it was frustration and was burden beyond any reason and being villainized for just wanting to spend time enjoying a great hobby. The cost was hirer than just the dollar amount and the extra hours of labor it took to produce that money after taxes. Accidentally loosing and/or leaving a mag
behind was bad it would be gone and you were out lots of cash if not the time to find your model. Compare to today where a mag will be left alone or turned in.

The Clinton ban drove high capacity magazine prices through the roof.  Many people did not know it but the ban didn't apply to magazine parts. You could still buy all the parts and assemble high cap magazines yourself. That was illegal to do but many who felt that their rights were being violated did so.

The prices were everywhere. So bad a local store owner kept his stash locked and only he had the key, even employees didn't have that key. I remember the gun shows, always saw some guy who looked like he was in the Navy and most likely was assigned to Dam Neck --get it with a bag full of 226 mags making bank.

This is my high cap story.

About mid 1992

Local store had a widget light mount, used in the case for $10, was in there a few months and I decided I would get it, cash was tight but I had a buttload, I mean an ass ton of Colt 20 round mags. They were going for 10-12, depending, so asked the owner if he would trade, one mag for the mount. He gives me a thumbs up and I said cool, then he proceeds to motion up, I asked what do you mean, he says 3 mags. Of course I say, no way because he doesn't have any mags, mount has sat for months and he would make the same money either way and quicker. SO, no trade, crime bill passes and the mag prices soar and I see this golden glow emit from the storage closet. Every time I go in, he's asking if I have mags, nope as I watch the pot simmer and rise. As the critical mass reaches boiling point, I make my move and trade 12 mags for a then popular Bushmaster dissipater(650), nib. After it's in my hands, I reminded him of the $10 trade about 2 years prior-like the big poker game, shoulder shrug and you got me look.

Anyhow- stack'em deep, and have a good memory!

used ar15 mags were $40, Glock mags $80. New preban Colt A2 6601's close to $2000 and all I wanted was the lower. Added a flattop upper later. You youngsters don't know how good you have it now. Whats sad is, AR's are so fucking cheap now and I don't need any more.

I sold a bunch of Glock 21 mags for $125 each. Sold SIG 226 mags for $75-85 each.
Didn't sell rifle mags. They weren't going for as much unless you had something really obscure.

Glock and SIG mags made you money.

anybody got a line on pre ban usgi mags at a good price?  looking for some!  pm if you have any ideas referrals or are moving some yourself

other PITA I forgot to mention, you had to protect your mags because they were non replaceable...

so imagine storing all your mags in the safe or splitting them up in different locations so you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

After reading this, I need to buy some more Glock mags.

How would any "Anti" ever even know you had 100 magazines per gun?

There's a little perspective you need to throw into the mix.

From 1994 to 2000 you pretty much had 3 choices:

1. USGI contract (usually surplus)
2. Aftermarket - Ramline etc.
3. Plastic- literally, orlite and thermold.

Everybody agreed that the aftermarket offerings were unreliable shit. Most hated orlites, and after some back-and-forth, it was generally agreed that US-made thermolds were Ok, and the Canadians were iffy.

So, more or less USGI contract as the ONLY option. Then there were some 8 to 13 manufacturers of US G.I. mags indicating that not all brands were equal. Center, adventure line, colt, okay, cooper, sanchez, labelle, etc. The research in the early 2000's suggested that Cooper was shit, Sanchez was iffy, and Labelle was the best next to Colts (which demanded an additional premium).

Let's say 2000 to 2003, I could find well-used US G.I. 30s in the $15 range, but asking prices could be as much as double. Thermolds were $15-20 and Orlites 12-$15. Colts were $30+

I still have an use ammo cans worth of them, including a 50 Cal box filled with 1971 adventure line 20 rd magazines that were likely issued in Vietnam.

Para mags were $100+ (the company was very hot in the mid-90s to early 00s before they turned out pure crap). This was because the company had only been in business a few years, as opposed to Glock Browning, etc which had more popularity and supply. If you bought a para, it came with a coupon to purchase a new-in-wrapper pre-94 for $$ probably 90 bucks or so.

I worked an "amazing" deal out with the seller for 10-12 chromed 15 rounders for $75 a pop and was damned thankful for that at the time. By the time I got back to traditional 1911s $30 Wilson combats were like peanuts.

Even before the ban good working high cap mags for the Mini were expensive... remember Bill Ruger championed for the 10 round limit...

AR mags $30

M14 mags $50 and there were a lot of fakes, even the g.I. packaging was faked.

Correction, Bill Ruger was for a 20 round limit, but then got screwed over by the Dems who went for the 10rd limit.  Supposedly, the Dems offered the NRA a 20rd limit if they agreed to go along with the bill.

If the Dems had just gone for a 20rd limit, it would most likely been renewed in 2004.  If they had not included the silly cosmetic features as part of an assault weapons ban, it would have been renewed for sure.   What really pissed off most people was buying their Glock 17, getting 10 round magazines and then looking one display case over at their gun shop and seeing 17rd preban mags listed for $120.

The deal offered to the NRA was drop opposition to the AWB and exchange the AR-15 would be removed from the ban list and the magazine limit would be 20 rounds. Obviously the NRA didn’t agree and we got stuck with the AWB. I’m not suggesting they should have, but living through the entire AWB as a gun nut a 20 round limit would have saved me a lot of money on pistol magazines. Even so, the NRA made the right call. None of us ever expected it to actually sunset in 2004. I bought my first gun in early 1992, so I didn’t have much chance to enjoy the pre-AWB days.

I remember handgun magazines ranging from about $30-$125 depending on availability. I also remember a lot of terrible quality aftermarket magazines like USA Mags that didn’t work at all and still sold by the truckload to new gun buyers wanting magazines with higher capacity than the factory 10 rounders and not wanting to pay $100 for an extra 5-7 rounds.

I bought two 16 round magazines for a newly purchased Walther P99 in about 2000. They were factory magazines, no AWB markings, and about $100 each. Looking back I am sure they were less than legal imports from after the ban passed but at the time I believed the story that they were early magazines for the P99 prototype imported before September 1994.

I remember SIG 229 and Glock magazines being on the higher end of the price spectrum. Beretta 92 mags were pretty cheap thanks to the M9. SIG 226 and S&W 5900 series mags were somewhere in the middle. AR magazines never seemed to get above $30 each for new GI, but there was nothing like the magazine choice we have today.

All in all it was a dark time.

The "holy grail" AR15 magazines were the Bushmaster Gray/DPMS Black Teflon coated magazines I bought them for $10.  Then I found this site late 90's and learned what I had (Troy's AR15 Magazine list) by then the mags were $25 a pop.  Towards the ban end they were selling here for up to $50 a pop.

2 months after Sandy Hook I guy I know sold 10 Pmags for $700.00 to a guy that just had to have them .

It was a nightmare. I was doing gun shows with a buddy then and magazine and 'pre-ban' gun prices were obscene. Do not let it happen to you - buy cheap and stack deep. Do not wait for the shit to happen, buy now.

Used G23 mag hi-cap bought off EBay for $85/delivered.

USGI M-14 mags were going for $45-$55 each.

Glock mags at $50-$75 each depending on which gun...

There were a lot of well used "Pre-Ban dated" AR mags floating around, but if you wanted new in the Wrapper Colt then you were looking at $45-$50

Glad those days are over and gone!

@Landric

Not doubting you, but I would like to read up on this story for myself.

Have a source?

I  bought my USP in 96 or 97.

I had ONE 15 rd mag.

It was 125.00.

I still have it. Gun now uses a jet funnel.

94-98 wasnt too bad.

99 was FUCKING INSANE.

closing months of 99 had the Ca Assault Weapon ban going into effect and 30+ dollar Labelle Teflon mags were the norm.

Crap regular anodized GI mags were 24+ dollars.   Preban P14 mags for ParaOrd 1911s were 100 bucks or more.

I got into ARs in 98 and prices were not great but doable on mags.   But the last two months of 99 were insane.

Shitty parts rifles with "preban" lowers and shitty ASA parts were 1500 plus bucks.   Authentic nonscrewed with Colts were 2500+.

I haven’t searched for a link, but this happened in 1994 when the internet wasn’t much of a thing. Rec.guns was about it for online gun discussions. I think I read about it in one or more of the gun magazines of the time but I do remember that specifically being the “deal” the NRA turned down.

I bought all pre-ban Glock mags.  U notch.  And fully metal lined with the caliber stamp in the middle of the blank space.  I paid $50 to 80 each for used ones.  Like new, but still the were not new.  I still have a few.  Guess what?  They are going for $50 to 80 right now in MA.  I think MA is the last state where the pre and post ban nonsense still makes a difference.

Or they were actually made after '94 and they tried to pass them off as "pre-ban".