This might become a regular topic like "Tales of the FFL."

While most of you guys are pretty savy there are a lot of uninformed gun buyers out there who regularly get taken advantage of in all kinds of ways.

I posted the sales tax scam earlier:

No... We Will NOT Charge You Sales Tax...

This is a scam where a dealer charges you sales tax when he was not lawfully able to do so and simply adds it to his profit margin.

I have resisted posting the various scams I've seen over the years lest I teach them to unscrupulous dealers.  But it seems rather obvious that they are already well acquainted with most of them and the only people who aren't aware of them are potential customers of those dealers.

Now there are a LOT of honest gun dealers on the various auction sites and EE marketplaces on net forums. The problem is if Honest Guy A is selling Gun X for $700 and Unknown Dealer B is selling the same Gun X for $600 a LOT of people will buy from Unknown Dealer B even though they really like Honest Guy A. At the end of the day money talks and most gun buyers aren't independently wealthy. And there is nothing wrong with that. The problem that occurs is when Gun X sold by Unknown Dealer B is NOT the same Gun X that is being sold by Honest Guy A.

And that is one of the most COMMON scams on the firearm industry today. The shell game.

There are a few variations of this one.

The first example is just blatant lies and deception. The most outlandish one I can recall was when S.O.G. sold "Imported" FMP G3 semi auto rifles a couple years ago. These were IMPORTED from Portugal and built on HK machinery at FMP and were only about $400. That is a SCREAMING DEAL considering a pre 89 FMP G3 semi costs about as much as a factory HK91.

The suggestion was that these were just like the Romanian SAR AK type rifles that were being imported at the time and were reconfigured from a thumbhole sporter configuration to a pistol grip configuration by use of enough US parts to be 922r compliant. The problem was that it was a lie.

These were nothing more than part guns built in the US using crap grade HK/FMP parts and enough crap grade CAI US parts to be compliant on a FMP receiver. Only the receiver and the US parts were NEW. This was nothing more than another shit grade parts kit gun from CAI only they wasted a FMP receiver instead of using a CAI receiver.

A lot of people were amazed at how shitty the guns were coming from the Portugal HK contract factory.

Another example of this is people selling "Interport G3" rifles that are nothing more than SW3s from Special Weapons. Special Weapons used FMP receivers which were brought in by Interport and built them into rifles. Interport NEVER made any G3 rifles, they were only the importers of the receiver. But we all know how well a Special Weapons SW3 sells on the internet. BUT if you have an Interport G3 rifle for sale that might interest someone. It should also be noted that SEVERAL people built G3s on Interport (FMP) receivers. My smith produced about a dozen of them in 2002. And like any "part kit" gun the quality of the rifle will depend upon the grade of the parts used and the talent of the smith doing the build. As a result all Interport (FMP) G3s are NOT equal.

The other variation of this theme is the NON Factory Factory gun. Again this involves guns that can easily be built from parts or part kits.

Most people know that DSA offers a "part kit" Austrian FAL that is a great deal. But not every Austrian FAL on a DSA receiver is a DSA gun. And it's hard to spot if your not careful. Anyone who buys a DSA receiver gets a DSA warranty. And if you buy a shit grade G1 kit from CAI and built it that DSA receiver and then you give it a decent finish and put it in the same $5.00 hard case DSA ships their rifles in it will be very hard for your average shooter to tell them apart.

Obviously the real difference between the two is huge. In the first place the condition of the G1 parts kit used by DSA in their builds in night and day compared to the condition of most G1 kits out there, especially those from CAI, FAC, etc. And while FALs are not a difficult build CAI can still manage to fuck them up and the reliability of a build from DSA and one from CAI are truly mid boggling, it is hard to believe they are in essence the same gun. Obviously if another smith does the build it will probably be much better than a CAI build but it still won't be the same thing as a Stg58 from DSA.

But that won't stop anyone from passing it off as a DSA factory gun.

Even more insidious is when people "rebuild" a factory gun. Now at first there doesn't appear to be a lot of room to make money on this one as it requires buying a factory gun to begin with. But just like stolen cars the profits are in the parts not in the whole.

And the AR-15 market is NOTORIOUS for this kinda thing. Get yourself a FACTORY Colt, Armalite or Bushmaster rifle. Then strip its internals and replace them with cheaper parts from DPMS, Spirit Arms, etc. and then sell that "factory rifle" for about $10 below the dealer price. Then sell that FACTORY Colt bolt for $175 and all the other genuine Colt parts for full ticket price.

Can you tell if the bolt in your Colt rifle is genuine Colt? A LOT of people can't. Are you sure your gunshow special Rock River Arms rifle isn't loaded with DPMS parts? A lot of people aren't sure.

And what if you do discover your "factory rifle" isn't quite factory? So you call them up and say "Hey What the hell?!?" 9 out of 10 times they will say the parts are all mil spec so it doesn't matter they are exactly the same. But that isn't quite true either.

I have personally warned about a dozen members of this forum of this particular scam (especially common with "factory" RRA rifles), when someone else was selling the SAME RIFLE I offered them only for about $50 cheaper, and each one of them discovered that in fact the rifles being sold had "some parts" that were NOT RRA. At least the people selling them were honest enough to admit it when asked, most could lie and get away with it.

Rule of thumb...if YOU can build it THEY can fake it.

I've even seen the occasional FACTORY pre 89 import HK rifle loaded down with Special Weapons / Top Notch parts and furniture. You can rest assured those "factory" HK parts and internals brought an additional premium to the seller when sold later.

tagged.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Man if you keep this up how am I going to make a living as a FFL...

First the sales tax now this...
LOL

uniformed?  or uninformed?  Probably the same thing, but still...

taggeth

Quoted: uniformed?  or uninformed?  Probably the same thing, but still...

Which reminds me...those aren't REAL BDU's they are selling.

Thanks for the heads-up!

HH

Damn.  Thieves and Liars teh suck.

I figured you were going to gurantee that the AK47 you were selling would shoot 1moa at 500yds

Kabump.

Even though a lot of this is obvious, it's great that you're taking a stand and telling it like it is. I had a transaction where the rifle was advertised as a factory RRA, I walked out on it when it was clear it was a build. The guy was willing to knock quite a lot off, but how can I trust him at that point?

Quoted: Even though a lot of this is obvious, it's great that you're taking a stand and telling it like it is. I had a transaction where the rifle was advertised as a factory RRA, I walked out on it when it was clear it was a build. The guy was willing to knock quite a lot off, but how can I trust him at that point?

Sadly this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to shit people pull.

A little research can save you a ton of cash and headaches.
This thread tagged for research purposes.