I've never met a gun show that I didn't like. Every gun show that I've been to there is something that I can't live without. Naturally, some are better than others. Here's the way they work. A promoter sets up the event. He'll charge something like $5 for everyone to get in. Then he'll charge the exhibitors so much for a table. The exhibitor may rent a couple of tables or the bigger exhibitors may rent four to eight tables, according to how many items they have.

I don't want to be Negative Nancy, but there will be a certain number of vendors that hit all of the shows and their items will be overpriced. Then there are some that know what things are worth so they're not really a good deal.

I was reminded of the validity of the above paragraph today. I was in a foreign state today and had a free day. So, when I hit the gun show in Redfield, South Dakota. It wasn't really that good of a gun show. It had a lot of the same old tired vendors. Most of the items were overpriced.

But even so, there were a few vendors with some old guns that are cool to look at. One old guy had a couple of cool old Winchester pump .22's. I forget the model. I always wanted one of them. When I was a kid Oscar Cole always cut our hay. During quail season he'd come quail hunt on our farm. He'd let me carry his old Winchester pump .22. I probably wasn't hardly 8-9 years old.

It was a cool .22. You could hold the trigger and pump it as fast as you could. You could shoot it faster than a semi auto. One time we were walking one of our creeks quail hunting and came upon a huge great horned owl. I don't know if someone had snuck in on our place and shot it or what but it had a broken wing and he was on the ground hopping around. That was a big kill for a kid!

In a neighboring town I could find 8-10 of them in the pawn shops but of course didn't have enough money to buy one. Gee, my first job was at a filling station. I worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days per week; and only made $.60 per hour. That was only $39.60 per week, working 66 hours. Did they not have minimum wage laws back then?

So now that I have a real job and could probably afford one, the Ruger 10/22 is the new king of the .22 world so I guess I'll never get a Winchester pump. I say all of this to point out that you'll see some old guns that are cool. I'm not a gun collector so I don't buy old guns just to collect. If I buy a gun, I use it. But still, it is fun to look at old guns at the gun shows.

AMMO

Sometimes you can find some good deals on ammo at gun shows. Granted the last couple of years not so much but used to you could always find a few boxes of something that you couldn't live without. Today I found a couple of boxes of .410 shells.

But one word of caution. Don't ever buy reloads. One time I bought a box of reloads at a gun show in Nampa. The bozo had put in way to much powder. When I shot them the firing pin had protruded out of the back of the bolt. I visited my gunsmith Jim Combe and showed him my bolt. He shook his head and said something to the effect of well, God was obviously watching over you that day, that could have blown back through your head. Don't buy reloads. So, I'm passing along to you the same advice.

OPTICS

I'm not sure why, but optics never sell well at gun shows. Maybe everyone is scared to shell out big bucks for a scope that they're afraid may be dysfunctional. And I can understand that thought pattern.

USED GUNS

Is it smart to buy a used gun or are you just buying someone else's problem? I don't know how to advise you on this one. I'm not really a big-time gun trader. I think about it before I buy a gun and then I use it until I wear it out. But now and then you want to upgrade and sell a functional gun. So do what you think is best.

But don't despair, there are plenty of new guns at gun shows. I saw two good deals on pistols today. I'm not up on all of the gun laws but at the gun show that I was at today in South Dakota they told me that if you're an out of stater then you can't buy a pistol, only a long gun.

So as a summary on buying guns, I'd advise that you're buying guns to save your life or to hunt with so why not buy a new one and pay a few ore dollars so you're not sorely disappointed unless you're buying it from a friend?

So, the next time you see an advertisement that there's a gun show coming up, plan on attending it. I'm betting that you'll find at least one or two items that you can't live without.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@ aol.com.