What the fuck!!!  A few years ago M16s were selling for 5-6,000.  Now there up to $16,000!!!!!  What the hell happened!!!???

Shrike.

Supply/Demand.

Hahaha  shrike happens

Demand went up by about 300% in a few years?

Most M-16's I see for sale go for about $20,000 or higher. Of course, most of those come with attached M203's or are the rare Bradley port-firing variant or even the LMG variant.

Quoted: Quoted: Shrike. Add that pesky "Supply and Demand" factor in there, prices are bound to go up. Edit:  SemperParatusEmt beat me to it.

Precisely. The vapor-ware Shrike opened the potential market to a whole new realm of full-auto owners. The prospect of a full-auto belt-fed bullet hose is indeed enticing. Further, to my knowledge, there are no new pre-86 transferable rifles being produced. Unlike the ubiquitous '69 RS/SS Camaro, which at any one time there are more examples for sale than were ever produced, the tightly-regulated full-auto market has a very limited supple and an ever-increasing demand.

Quoted: Demand went up by about 300% in a few years?

Fixed supply.  The registry is closed; no new ones.

Baby boomers are retiring and spending their retirement money wisely.  What other use asset could go up in value that much?   I'd rather have the M16 than some stock on paper.

What's happening is a dwindling fixed supply.

Many people buy machineguns and keep them for life. If the supply of M-16s for sale is at 100, and 50 people buy one, there are likely to be, at the most, 75 M-16s that can be bought for any price. The other 25 are staying off the market until the owner dies. The 25 that were bought may be for sale, but not below what the current owner paid for them. This allows the distributers to raise prices, secure in the knowledge that if you want an M-16, you'll pay what they want.

Coupled with the Shrike, the M-4 craze, and the fact that a $5-6,000 machine gun is cheap, the demand for M-16s went up, and the supply went down. Since machineguns are popular, dealers can count on the fact that as long as they stay competitive, they can charge whatever they want and someone will pay it. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some level of coordination, bringing up prices while staying competitive.

Quoted: Demand went up by about 300% in a few years?

Yep, and you can mostly thank the internet.


ETA;  You think 16K is stiff? Check this out!!