Machine Guns & Belt Buckles

Hunter is joined by Patrick Combs and Scott Fones and they discuss their recent collection buys and working out on the road. They have been purchasing everything from firearms, to ammo, to machine guns, and even knives and belt buckles lately. They discuss the services they provide on these collection buys and also some interesting encounters and stories.

Narrator (00:02):
Hunting, fishing, and all things outdoors. It's not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle. Welcome to the Greentop Outdoors podcast with your host, Hunter Brooks.

Hunter Brooks (00:13):
Welcome to another episode of the Greentop Outdoors podcast. Uh, today, this Friday before Memorial Day, we're recording this one. Uh, I have Patrick Combs and Scott Fones with me today, and we're gonna talk about, uh, how busy you guys have been. Right?

Patrick (00:28):
Extremely busy.

Hunter Brooks (00:29):
How you guys doing?

Scott (00:30):
Doing great this morning

Patrick (00:31):
So far. Yeah. But the day's still young. That's

Hunter Brooks (00:33):
Right.

Patrick (00:33):
It's always time for it to go extremely south.

Hunter Brooks (00:35):
That's it. Can go south really quick.

Patrick (00:36):
<laugh>.

Hunter Brooks (00:38):
So you guys, lately I haven't seen a lot of you guys because you've been busy buying gun collections, uh, almost every day of the week for like the past month. It's just y'all have been rolling. It's that spring cleaning time, right? Oh, yeah.

Patrick (00:51):
Um, right through people moving, whatever, you know, going to a lot of older people go into like, downsizing, like, uh, assisted living

Scott (01:01):
Yeah. People sending out their collections. Yeah. Um, people that have lost, lost, uh, loved ones, um, that are selling their homes and they have a lot of stuff they've accumulated over the years that they, that they're getting rid

Patrick (01:13):
Of. And with, uh, the tough, you know, economic times and the prices, there's, you have everything going skyrocketing and, you know, food and gas, a lot of people just need money.

Hunter Brooks (01:22):
Yeah. And, and you know, you get, you get phone calls, emails from people all the time,

Patrick (01:28):
Every day,

Hunter Brooks (01:28):
Uh, every day that, uh, through either word of mouth or advertising, whatever, that they find out that we buy collections. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And in these collections, we'll talk about what's in these collections too, but it's not just firearms.

Patrick (01:41):
Oh, no, no,

Hunter Brooks (01:41):
No. I mean, you just never know. I mean, and that's the good thing about what we do as well. We're, we're not really afraid to buy anything other than, I mean, we can buy more than just firearms. We buy ammo. We'll buy, uh, like you were just talking about Scott Knives, because some people, people obtain,

Scott (01:57):
Come into some large, uh, knife collections lately. Um, reloading equipment,

Patrick (02:02):
Uh, belt buckles. Ah,

Scott (02:04):
Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (02:04):
Belt, belt buckles, belt buckle

Patrick (02:06):
Collects. We bought hundred something belt buckles. That was an experience, but they

Hunter Brooks (02:08):
Were gun, they were like Smith and Wesson car. They're all

Patrick (02:10):
Gun related. They're all gun related.

Scott (02:12):
Anything firearm related. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, we'll usually, uh, we'll, we'll take, we'll take a chance on and, um, usually somebody will buy it. Uh, yeah. There's always somebody that comes in the store that, uh, is interested in it. Sure.

Hunter Brooks (02:26):
The best part of what y'all do though, is you go to the customer that they don't have to come to you, they don't have to come here, you go to them, um, you go to Right. Directly to their house. Correct. And you take a blank check with, you

Patrick (02:42):
Take a lot of blank checks,

Hunter Brooks (02:43):
Take a lot of blank checks with you. Right. You're ready to buy on the spot. And

Patrick (02:47):
We can print a receipt. We can itemize everything, you know, far, we don't get into itemizing necessarily the stuff we itemize all the guns with serial numbers, make models, calibers. Yeah. Everything. So, I mean, they're totally covered legally, you know, we are a licensed dealer. Yep. Um,

Hunter Brooks (03:03):
And you'll pack it up, load it up, haul it

Patrick (03:07):
Away, unfortunately. Yeah. That's the, that's

Scott (03:09):
The

Patrick (03:09):
Hard part's. Crushing my back. I'm getting old, but Yes, yes.

Scott (03:12):
Upstairs and basements. Uh, oh my God. When you start getting into heavy ammo and stuff, uh,

Patrick (03:16):
And lead inks,

Scott (03:18):
Lead s that's a story.

Patrick (03:19):
Yes. We bought, uh, how many, how many, how many thousands of pounds of lead ing gets we buy are the guy's garage.

Scott (03:26):
Wow. It was like a half a pallet.

Hunter Brooks (03:29):
That's a lot. I mean, a ton. It took a while to go through that.

Scott (03:32):
Yes.

Hunter Brooks (03:33):
We may even still that. I think we still

Scott (03:34):
Have a little bit left. Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (03:37):
Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. You, you just never realize what people accumulate over the years mm-hmm. <affirmative> until you go to their house. And some of some family members are the same way. Like, uh, you know, someone passes away and they knew their, maybe they knew their father liked firearms mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they didn't know that they really, really like firearms. That mean they uncover

Patrick (03:57):
Or it could have been their brother. And they Right. And they go in and after about five trips back and forth to this house, you know, when the sisters are cleaning it out and this, this gentleman had false bottoms and bookshelves with guns. He had, he had 20 something rifles in the sofa underneath. Yeah. Underneath the sofa cushions.

Scott (04:17):
Underneath the sofa cushions.

Patrick (04:18):
I mean, this, this gentleman, you just never know, this gentleman had guns stashed everywhere, like in fake books. And his sister had no clue. No. Nobody in the family had any idea. And we ended up buying, what was it, probably

Scott (04:31):
Close to 300.

Patrick (04:32):
Oh yeah. Close to 300 guns out of this house in every nook and cranny.

Scott (04:36):
And after the family started finding the, the guns in the f in the furniture, they had gotten rid of furniture Oh yeah. Prior to that. Oh, wow. And, and they don't know,

Hunter Brooks (04:45):
They dunno if there was any guns in,

Scott (04:46):
They don't know if there were guns in the furniture that they got rid of. I wonder

Hunter Brooks (04:49):
If people even know that they're in there.

Scott (04:51):
Yep. They have no idea.

Patrick (04:52):
Somebody went to Goodwill and hit a gold mine <laugh>.

Scott (04:55):
Just never know. Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (04:57):
Wow. Alright. So, so that, that's the good thing about, about going there is, is the services you provide, not only just giving you the values of the guns or, and the items, uh, and, and you can even go as far as calling it, you know, junk. I mean, a lot of people call it junk

Patrick (05:13):
Man's trash, another man's treasure. That's what I'm saying. Goes, do

Hunter Brooks (05:16):
Y'all, do y'all buy junk? I mean, and, and, and it's not, it's not exactly what we would call junk because, you know, we all, anybody who accumulates guns, bys, things like that, you're gonna start to accumulate stuff to go with that. Right. And I mean, it's anywhere from reloading equipment, like you said, to knives, to belt buckles, to, to

Scott (05:32):
Holsters, to holsters,

Hunter Brooks (05:33):
To magazines.

Patrick (05:35):
We, we, we buy, uh, military helmets from

Hunter Brooks (05:37):
Yeah. Military surplus

Patrick (05:38):
Every age you could ever think of swords, bayonets,

Hunter Brooks (05:42):
Bulletproof vests.

Patrick (05:43):
Oh yeah. Body armor.

Hunter Brooks (05:44):
Body

Scott (05:44):
Armor, body armor,

Patrick (05:46):
Handcuffs, <laugh>. Yeah.

Scott (05:48):
You just, you run across all kinds of different kinds of military surplus items. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Hunter Brooks (05:52):
And, and in the case of a death of a family, family member, there's a lot of family members. They, they're tasked with dealing with the estate and it

Patrick (06:02):
Almost becomes a burden for

Hunter Brooks (06:03):
It. And it becomes a burden's, it almost like's a

Patrick (06:04):
Huge burden.

Hunter Brooks (06:05):
It's, it's overwhelming. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because they don't know what to do with it. Uh, when, when you guys kind of step in after they talk to you for a few minutes, they're kind of like, who, this ain't gonna be you.

Scott (06:14):
You see the relief on their face a lot of times when we, when we, when we get there and, and we go through the process and, and then when we leave you, you see, you see that they're relieved and, and it's taken a lot of burden off of it. Oh yeah.

Hunter Brooks (06:27):
I mean, well, some, some people have actually offered to pay you to take the stuff away and that Correct.

Patrick (06:31):
Heck yeah. Heck yeah. And you're like, no, no, no, no. We'll pay you. They like, gimme you do it for free. I'm like, oh, hell yeah. That's part of the

Hunter Brooks (06:36):
Deal, right? <laugh>. Right.

Scott (06:38):
And, and we're, and going back into the travel part, we, we go anywhere, usually anywhere that we can travel within a day. Yeah. Right. I mean, we, we've gone into the edge of Maryland or into North Carolina, North Carolina, but as long as we can get there in the day and get back to the store by the time it closes, you know, to secure the guns.

Patrick (06:58):
In fact, probably the, one of the best stories I have going to like North Carolina, well actually there's two of 'em. One of 'em I went to and I met a guy from South Carolina, he met me at the McDonald's in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And I bought like 27 rifles off of them in the parking lot at McDonald's <laugh> on the side at 95. And nobody looked at us <laugh>. I mean, I couldn't believe it. Just

Hunter Brooks (07:18):
A normal day in Fayetteville. Right? Oh

Patrick (07:20):
Yeah. Yeah. And then Scott, remember we went to that house in North Carolina where the guy was on that show, uh, preppers, the, the, uh, the prepper house. Yeah. And he had like about 8 billion rolls of toilet paper and all that other stuff. And, uh, he was bragging about he was on tv like season one or Preppers, <laugh>. This guy, this guy was prepared for the apocalypse <laugh>. Oh yeah. And so he invited us down and sold us a few, but I think he mainly just wanted to show off all of his crap,

Scott (07:46):
All this stuff that he accumulated <laugh>

Patrick (07:48):
He was bragging about. Did

Hunter Brooks (07:49):
He have like an underground bunk or anything

Patrick (07:51):
That you Nah, it was like a garage thing, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean it was like a

Hunter Brooks (07:55):
Pole barn type thing that just, just floated, or

Patrick (07:58):
No, it was actually next to his office. I'm pretty sure it was. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a separate building. But, um, he, he was very proud, extremely proud of it. He

Scott (08:06):
Didn't wanna sell us any of his toilet paper or, or his water. No.

Patrick (08:09):
Uhuh

Hunter Brooks (08:09):
Hmm. But

Patrick (08:11):
Interesting humongous cans of bushes, baked beans, <laugh>, <laugh>.

Hunter Brooks (08:17):
So, uh, lately though, uh, we were just talking about it earlier, uh, machine guns. Oh,

Patrick (08:24):
That's been,

Hunter Brooks (08:24):
That's been hot for the last few months. We've just hit some collections that happen to have multiple machine guns, which are, some people don't even realize that,

Patrick (08:33):
That that we sell 'em,

Hunter Brooks (08:34):
That they, we sell 'em, that we buy 'em. Right. And some people, when they inherit them don't even realize what they are.

Patrick (08:41):
Correct. Mm-hmm.

Hunter Brooks (08:42):
<affirmative> and the paperwork involved in these,

Patrick (08:44):
The paperwork is quite lengthy. So, um, with machine guns, like we would go out to somebody's house and if they have machine guns, we'll look at 'em, whatever, do a research, make 'em an offer. And if they accept, you know, we can't pay them on the spot on machine guns because the, basically we don't pay them until the paperwork goes through,

Hunter Brooks (09:01):
Until the government approves it. It's

Scott (09:03):
Usually two or three to transfer two or three uh, trips out. Right. In that process. Yeah. Uh, to get that, that transaction completed.

Patrick (09:10):
Right. And we, we take a gunsmith out there with us to function, check the guns to make sure that all they're all there all the parts. Cuz you know, I just can't go up behind somebody's house and start ripping off rounds doing M 16 usually. Which usually

Hunter Brooks (09:20):
Sometimes

Patrick (09:20):
Yeah. I have Yeah. <laugh> when they live out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, we do. Yeah. It

Hunter Brooks (09:24):
Is fun. And that's, that's one of the perks of the job too. Get to sometimes you get to trout, some machine guns. Yeah.

Patrick (09:30):
Probably not in short pump though.

Scott (09:31):
And the thing with the machine guns is, you know, there are fewer and fewer of them every day. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, they, they stop, uh, making 'em for civilians in 1986. Um, you know, with theft and fires, the supply is getting smaller and smaller. Sure. So, you know, it's a, it's an investment for people. Um, and the prices are steadi going up. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean we've, it

Patrick (09:55):
Just skyrocketing,

Scott (09:56):
You know, all of us here in this room, um, have been here, you know, 20 years or more. Um, and just the increase in prices that we've seen since we've been here mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it, it's just, it's going to the moon and, um, it's a big investment for folks. And that's why when we do get them, um,

Hunter Brooks (10:15):
Doesn't take long to sell 'em,

Scott (10:16):
They don't, doesn't take long to sell. We don't, they never hit the floor. Uh, we can usually make a few calls and let people know we have 'em and they're usually gone within a week. Alright. So

Hunter Brooks (10:25):
We've, so perfect example. We've obtained, what, like seven last couple weeks. Correct. Four of those are already sold. Right?

Patrick (10:31):
Right. They just, I mean, basically you make a few phone calls to known collectors and known collectors hang out with other known collectors. Right. And so they know who the word gets around very fast and they just, they'll go, I'll take it. Yeah. I mean you can just send 'em a picture of 'em and saw 'em your cell phone. Look, I'll take it. They don't even hesitate because they don't even, because they know if you hesitate you, you're not gonna get it because somebody else is gonna come in there and just snap it right up. Cuz they says, you know, Scott said they're not making 'em anymore. They can't.

Hunter Brooks (10:59):
Well, like last year we had what we had a, you know, we had a Col M 16, we had uh, we had a Springfield M one M 14

Patrick (11:06):
And we had a Bushmaster

Hunter Brooks (11:07):
Bushmaster.

Patrick (11:08):
We have uh, we had a Springfield, what'd they call that thing? The, uh, the model 48. The, uh, f a l gun with his, with the Israeli lower mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the Bipod. And we had, we had, uh, a Mac 10, A Mac 11,

Hunter Brooks (11:21):
We

Scott (11:22):
Had a couple hks.

Hunter Brooks (11:23):
That's

Patrick (11:23):
Right, that's right. We did forgot

Scott (11:25):
Hks. And those, those bring uh, top dollar premium money there.

Patrick (11:30):
We had

Hunter Brooks (11:30):
Recently

Patrick (11:31):
We had s STG 44.

Hunter Brooks (11:32):
Yeah, that's right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the, honestly the Ruger many 14 that was recent fed

Patrick (11:37):
A couple

Hunter Brooks (11:38):
Of those. That was factory, all factory done.

Patrick (11:40):
The AC 5 56. Yeah. Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (11:42):
That, that

Scott (11:43):
Was awesome. That's the crazy thing was the lightning link, the

Patrick (11:45):
<laugh>, uh, the piece of the beer can looking thing, piece of metal. It looks like you can make it off a beer can. Yeah. And that thing,

Hunter Brooks (11:51):
And that's worth what, a few thousand dollars, right? It was like

Patrick (11:53):
12,000. Yeah. It's like

Scott (11:54):
$12,000 and it's just a

Hunter Brooks (11:55):
Piece of metal.

Patrick (11:55):
You could make it with a set of 10 snips and a Miller Light can, and it's like, I mean, there's nothing to it, but

Scott (11:59):
It's nothing to it at all.

Patrick (12:00):
<laugh>. But this one was serial numbered and they only did a, you know, a very few amount of them back in the day before they outlawed 'em. And um,

Scott (12:08):
But you drop it into

Patrick (12:09):
An older colt or

Scott (12:10):
An older Colt

Patrick (12:11):
Or Bushmaster

Scott (12:12):
And it turns it into a full auto, you know, M 16 and

Hunter Brooks (12:16):
That and then that piece is what's registered with the guy. Correct.

Patrick (12:18):
Correct. Right. It has the serial numbers, you know. Right. The tax stamp. Yeah. Oh nine

Scott (12:22):
Yards. That's what takes a thousand dollars ar and turns it into a machine.

Hunter Brooks (12:26):
15. Yeah. My $15,000. Yeah.

Patrick (12:29):
I mean, cuz essentially if to buy like a full auto Colt M 16 these days you're talking 30,000

Scott (12:34):
Up 30. Yeah. $30,000

Patrick (12:35):
And up. They're crazy expensive.

Hunter Brooks (12:38):
Yep. So, so other than machine guns, like, uh, the, the the knife world, I mean, I guess some people that are in the gun world, they're also in the knife world. But then, and again, some people, they're in the gun world, they have no idea about what the whole knife world entails.

Patrick (12:55):
Talk about knife world. What is that? The, the, the gentleman who passed away and we ended up buying all the knives from his daughter. How many was it? How many knives was it? 3000? It was, uh, we hadn't met our expo last year. We were selling them.

Hunter Brooks (13:09):
There was,

Scott (13:09):
Yeah. We, uh, we bought 3000 from her and I, I believe, uh, Barry had bought several thousand before that. When,

Patrick (13:18):
From, from, from him before he passed

Scott (13:20):
Away. Yeah. When the gentleman was still alive. Yeah.

Patrick (13:21):
So this, this guy had like 5,000 knives. Right. And pretty much all of 'em were still in boxes. He had folder

Hunter Brooks (13:29):
Six players and it wasn't just cheap knives. I mean, there was a lot of those, but it had a lot of case knives. And it was, uh, yeah, he had

Scott (13:34):
A variety. He

Hunter Brooks (13:35):
Had K bars, uh, all kinds of good stuff. Yeah. He

Scott (13:37):
Had a variety. He

Patrick (13:38):
Had. Right. I mean he had, of course he had some junk mate in Pakistan, but other than that, I mean, yeah. His guy had a little bit of everything and

Scott (13:44):
Just, and depends on the person. I don't know what they collected. Um, we've, we've picked up a couple really higher end, uh, knife collections in the past 12 to 18 months. Yeah.

Patrick (13:56):
Like Randall's,

Scott (13:57):
Randall's, um, we've picked up some, uh, pumas pumas some case knives,

Hunter Brooks (14:02):
Saw some. No, I didn't see any Chris Reeves or anything, but like there was some, was there some

Patrick (14:06):
Christopher Reeves? He's Superman,

Hunter Brooks (14:07):
Wasn't he? He was. Yeah, he was anything. He was, he was

Patrick (14:09):
He Well he was a knife builder. <laugh>. I did not know that.

Scott (14:13):
Uh, there's some smaller custom knife makers that we've got a few of, I think there's uh, some cats. Uh,

Hunter Brooks (14:19):
Cats. Yeah.

Scott (14:20):
And

Hunter Brooks (14:21):
Pumas are real nice though. A lot. You know, maybe

Scott (14:23):
Ag Russell,

Hunter Brooks (14:25):
Was there any dozers?

Scott (14:26):
Uh, there's some dozers. Dozers, yeah. Maybe a couple,

Hunter Brooks (14:29):
Maybe

Scott (14:29):
A couple dozer proto, uh, prototype early dozers. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> before they started making them in, uh, China or Taiwan. Yeah. Um, and we just set up a couple of nice display cabinets in our knife counter area, uh, that we're gonna start featuring some of some of these vintage more collectible knives.

Hunter Brooks (14:49):
It's a good mix in there too.

Scott (14:50):
So, um, you know, stop by the store and, and look to check those out.

Hunter Brooks (14:55):
Almost need to come in weekly because you keep feeding more and more in there. Yeah.

Scott (14:58):
It's, it's not a lot. It's, they're not huge display cabinets. Um, so as those things sell, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll be refilling it with others mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but we, we have a fair amount of puma knives, older German vintage Puma knives, uh, that will be, that will be coming out. Um, so, uh, look out for those.

Patrick (15:17):
And people don't realize, you know, we said, Scott said we, we bring 'em out on a daily basis. We have an offsite warehouse. We've gotten to be so big that is full of the stuff that we buy on these collections and we have 'em on just pallets and pallets and pallets and stuff because we're buying it faster than we can actually sort through it.

Hunter Brooks (15:35):
That's right.

Patrick (15:36):
I mean, and so we had to get extra space and

Hunter Brooks (15:39):
I mean, when you guys, when you guys catch a day when you're not buying a collection or going out and looking at one, you gotta run over there and you guys start sorting

Patrick (15:45):
It and start digging through it and seeing what the heck did we just get? Yeah. Because a lot of times, we'll, we'll, we'll we'll buy boxes. Like, we'll, we'll buy a garage, we'll tell the people, you know, we'll give you X, y, Z for the whole garage. They're like, that's fine. And we just start pulling boxes out. We don't even look in the boxes until we get back. And so with that being said, sometimes we come across like personal objects that the family would probably want back. Sure. And uh, we actually call 'em up and we give everything back. We found money before jewelry. We, we send it all back. And with anything personal like that, no. Well, we're strictly there for the, the

Hunter Brooks (16:15):
Stuff. Yeah. You're trying. Yeah. You gotta be fair, right? Oh

Patrick (16:20):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right. I mean, you come across, you know, granddad's gold watch or something, you know, I mean, you'd be a loser just to keep it, you guys mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you have to give it back.

Hunter Brooks (16:28):
And it's, lately you're seeing, you still see good, like, uh, you got, you got somebody that you've been going back and forth to who keeps continuing to call because you, they don't know how much they have or they know that.

Patrick (16:43):
Oh, Mona Gantt man. Oh yeah.

Scott (16:46):
If, if you've been in the store, you've seen our monagan that keep trickling in.

Patrick (16:49):
Like for like the last year we've had hundreds and hundreds of Mona Gantt rifles. Yes. And pretty much 99% of 'em came from one fella. Super cool dude. Um,

Scott (16:58):
But he calls and he, you know, he, in fact

Patrick (17:00):
He sent me a text yesterday, wanna know if I, I was free, uh, this coming up week. And I said, no, no, I'll be on vacation. But he, um,

Scott (17:08):
Yeah, he's usually at 20 to 30 at a time. Right.

Patrick (17:10):
He, he's never shown us the whole entire stash when we show up, he'll have 20 or 30 sitting out. And I asked him one day, I said, why in the heck do you have so many of these rifles? And as he said, well, it's like collecting pennies. He says, you gotta buy a whole lot of pennies to find a good one. And so he would just buy entire lots of mo McGant rifles back in the day when, when they were cheap, you know, you could buy 'em for under a hundred bucks. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he would buy lots of 'em just to get the ones that he really wanted. And he just started digging through 'em. And now he's at the point now, you know, the rifles are bringing pretty decent money for what they are now. Yeah. So he's letting 'em go and he's making a fortune. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Hunter Brooks (17:47):
It was, he made a,

Patrick (17:48):
It was a great investment. Very

Hunter Brooks (17:49):
Good investment a long time ago. Yes. Yes. Now he's cashing it in. Yep. Yep. Um, going back to machine guns because they're being class three NFA items. We also buy silencers too. Now obviously there's not a whole lot you can give on silencers, but

Patrick (18:03):
Right. I mean, but yes, we do. In fact, uh, we picked up a couple yesterday.

Hunter Brooks (18:08):
Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Nice.

Patrick (18:09):
And they sold it already, by the way, <laugh>. Oh,

Hunter Brooks (18:11):
There you

Patrick (18:11):
Go. See they're not Brazil. The

Hunter Brooks (18:12):
Problem, problem with that is, is there's a tax stamp involved in the silencer. There's one that's associated with it by the owner. When they sell it to, even when they sell it to a dealer,

Patrick (18:24):
The dealer

Hunter Brooks (18:25):
Dealer has to pay a tax stamp for

Patrick (18:27):
That. That's $200. That's

Hunter Brooks (18:28):
Why that's not very desirable, but Right. People still, at times they're, they, they don't want 'em because it's been inherited. And we will, we will do it. It's just, we're not gonna,

Patrick (18:38):
You're not gonna get paid all. You're not gonna

Hunter Brooks (18:39):
Get, you're not gonna make any money on the silences. Yeah.

Scott (18:42):
In case in point, you take a, a rem fire su 22 suppressor, that's $350 brand retail, brand new, and I'm buying it from you and I've gotta pay a $200 tax stamp to put it in green tops name,

Hunter Brooks (18:58):
Which will, will then turn around and sell it,

Scott (19:00):
Then turn around and sell it. Yeah. For me to make any profit at all when a person can buy a brand new one for three 50. Yeah. And they've gotta buy a $200 tax stamp Sure. To register it. There's just, there's not a lot of, you know, it sounds

Patrick (19:14):
Like, sounds like, it sounds like that the government's winning on this end, they are $200 coming and going. Right.

Hunter Brooks (19:18):
Well, but that's

Patrick (19:19):
For another day before,

Hunter Brooks (19:20):
Before we even talk. That's another podcast

Scott (19:21):
That

Hunter Brooks (19:22):
Wes even talk money on that. I mean, we will always encourage the family that has inherited it to maybe try and keep that, you know, just so Oh yeah. Or, or find a family member that wants it.

Scott (19:34):
Especially if it's in a trust.

Hunter Brooks (19:35):
If it's in a trust or something like that. Right. And we would encourage them to keep it because, you know, it's taking a loss like that. It's, it's no fun. Right. But you, nine times outta 10, they called us to, to buy everything. So that's, that's what's, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna buy anything. Right. I

Patrick (19:49):
Mean, just cuz you don't want it, you can't just throw it in a pond or something. I mean Right. There's, there's a paperwork trail. So, but

Hunter Brooks (19:54):
There's a myth, there's the myth out there that some people think that once you buy a silencer or suppressor, it's, it's, it's just yours and yours only. But no, that's, that's not true. You can still, you can still sell them, but you have to, there's a legal process in doing that. Correct. And part of that is

Patrick (20:08):
The government wants to know where it's at. The

Hunter Brooks (20:09):
Government wants to know where it's at. You have to go through the whole process. And again, even as a dealer, when we've submit paperwork to get, to gain ownership of the NFA item, we still have to wait almost as long as uh, an individual doest.

Patrick (20:22):
Correct.

Hunter Brooks (20:23):
Correct. Um, so yeah. Uh, I just wanted to touch on the, on the, the NFA stuff one more time. Um, what else? Man? Um, ammo. Ammo. Oh

Patrick (20:32):
My gosh. Tons of ammo. That has gotten to be really, really big business from the last say what? Since 2020.

Scott (20:38):
Yeah. I mean people love our pre-owned ammo. Right. Uh, I mean we buy it

Patrick (20:43):
No surpluses and

Hunter Brooks (20:43):
We buy

Scott (20:44):
It usually when we go to buy, you know, the gun collections people like, do you buy ammo too? And they're usually surprised when we say we do. Um,

Patrick (20:52):
As long as it's not reloads.

Scott (20:53):
Yeah. We don't, we don't do reloads. Um, and definitely factory ammo, uh, we buy it. Um, if it's in good shape, we price it to move, we put it out here and it's usually gone within 24 to 48 hours. Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (21:09):
Cuz it's much, much cheaper than,

Scott (21:11):
Uh, the Yeah. And everybody knows how ammo prices have skyrocketed in the, in the past two or three years. Yep. Um,

Patrick (21:17):
And some of the calibers that we get are just hard to get calibers these days.

Scott (21:20):
Yeah. And you run across a lot of, um, you know, hard to get calibers, a lot of the military surplus stuff that you can't find anymore. Yeah. You're

Hunter Brooks (21:28):
Your mouse or ammo? Uh, 65 ammo. 7 62 by 39. Um, a a lot of that stuff.

Scott (21:34):
Yeah. I mean I had a guy called, uh, last week who had um, seven crates, which was uh, 14, uh, ammo, cans of uh, grand 30 odd six on M blocks

Patrick (21:47):
Lake City. That's good

Scott (21:48):
Stuff. Lake City. Nice.

Patrick (21:49):
Uh, it smelled terrible though. It smelled,

Scott (21:51):
It smelled hard. A little musty. We're burning candles in the office right now cause it smells like, uh, the

Patrick (21:56):
Stench,

Scott (21:56):
Stench, mildew, uh, yeah. But, uh,

Patrick (21:58):
Grandma's underwear, you don't

Scott (21:59):
Run across 14 cans of uh, 384 rounds of, uh, 30 alt six on M blocks very often. No Uhuh. So I got a little bit of that left out on the floor if anybody needs any. Um,

Hunter Brooks (22:10):
So yeah, that, that looked good.

Patrick (22:12):
So, um, I think that was 1960s vintage too, I believe. Yeah.

Scott (22:15):
It was, um, sixties, fifties and sixties. Yeah. But, um, yeah, we've run across some good stuff and uh, people love our, uh, used ammo bins. That stuff, uh, flies outta here, uh, pretty quick. Um, but we do, uh, we do buy used, used pre-owned ammo. Um, so if you have any, give us a call, drop us an email, we'll get back with you.

Hunter Brooks (22:41):
Yeah. Cuz uh, that's another one of those items where I guess you just never know how much somebody has, you know. Oh,

Patrick (22:49):
Oh. So what some people term is a lot might be something that fills up a couple shoe boxes and some people go, I got some ammo. And you show up and it fills up a box truck and they're like, I mean we've had to, I've had to call the store back and Well, yeah. And Hunter, you've had to come out with like a second vehicle to meet us. Sure, yeah. Right. Because the ammo wouldn't fit in an, in a, in a like a F-150 long bed. It wouldn't even go. So you had to bring like a box truck

Scott (23:11):
Or the headlights are,

Patrick (23:12):
The headlights are pointed at the sky when you're going down the road. Right. <laugh>,

Scott (23:16):
I mean we have a one o'clock appointment this afternoon and the guy's like, yeah, I've got a lot of ammo. And I'm like, well what's define a lot? It's a lot. You know, can you gimme just a little bit more information of what a lot is? And he's like, well I've got a couple um, uh, like computer box, uh, computer box is full. And I was like, okay, well I just was trying to get a better idea. I said, cuz a lot for us is like a pallet mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And you know, you just never know

Patrick (23:43):
And people can't count. Well I say right now. So

Hunter Brooks (23:46):
Even their gun collections. Right.

Patrick (23:47):
That's exactly. And we always joke about it. And so we'll be talking in the morning, we'll look at our book and like, all right, we're going to Scott's house today. He says he is got 30 guns, which that means he usually either has 10 or he has a hundred <laugh>. People can, people cannot count <laugh>. And you show up and it's like, sometimes you're just overwhelmed at other times you're like, I'd drove this far for this. You know what I mean? So, I mean,

Hunter Brooks (24:06):
We

Scott (24:06):
Usually bet on the ride up there, how close we are to the number that we're going to look at. Yeah.

Patrick (24:11):
And we're actually shocked when the people actually have exactly what they told us. Cuz that almost never happens. Yeah.

Scott (24:17):
Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (24:18):
Hmm. So, and, and how, how are most people getting in touch with you when it comes to, when it comes time where they want to for you to come out?

Patrick (24:27):
A lot of people here on the radio is what they've been telling me. Okay. They said they on the

Hunter Brooks (24:31):
Radio calling, calling the store and talking to you.

Patrick (24:33):
Yes. Yeah. They said they, they called the store and say, I heard your commercial. And they put 'em in touch with either Scott or myself. And uh, the vast majority of the people, especially the older individuals, have heard about it on the radio. Yeah.

Hunter Brooks (24:46):
Okay. Yeah.

Scott (24:47):
And, and some, some folks will drop in the store and the clerks will give them our name or number at the counter mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Um, and the guys at the counter have our cards, uh, and our information so they can get it from those folks out there.

Hunter Brooks (25:02):
Yeah. And the, the whole, the whole experience generally is a very positive experience for that, for everybody involved because it's, it's the fact that you're coming to them. Uh, you can be as secretive as you want to about this. Cuz some people this, they're,

Patrick (25:19):
They're, they don't want their neighbors. They

Hunter Brooks (25:20):
Maybe don't want their name or they don't want, they don't want a truck in their driveway that says Greentop on

Patrick (25:25):
It. Nah. We don't bring any trucks that their name.

Hunter Brooks (25:27):
That's, you know, and, and, and that's, that's fine. You know, but, but the experience itself is, uh, I would say it's a, it's very relaxing. Hey,

Scott (25:35):
And this, and this is typical, this is a no pressure thing. I mean, we don't charge anything to come out. Right. Uh, we will go through our, your firearms. We'll give you a, a detailed list like Patrick talked about, make, model and serial number with what we're offering you. We'll print it out, you can look at it, you can take your time. Let us know later. Uh, there's no pressure to sell.

Patrick (26:00):
You can tell me to get the hell off your property. Right. You

Hunter Brooks (26:02):
Can tell us. You can tell us it's, it's happened before. Yeah.

Scott (26:05):
You know, you can sell, you can sell one, you can sell all, you know, there's no, it's a no pressure deal. Yeah.

Patrick (26:10):
There's no risk involved whatsoever. Yeah,

Scott (26:12):
Yeah. There's no risk to you. You, you don't have to sell us anything. Um, we don't charge you anything. So I mean it's, it's a win for, for the customer. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Hunter Brooks (26:22):
It's no reason. I mean it's, there's no reason why you shouldn't at least consider it cuz even you've even gone to some houses that people are thinking about downsizing their collection. Correct. I mean, people that we've known for 20, 30 years.

Scott (26:34):
Go ahead. The customers we've waited on.

Hunter Brooks (26:36):
Right. Who just said, you know, um, in our career here, you know, they say they've got like 50 guns, which means they got 80. Right. And <laugh>. Right. And, and they've decided they want to downsize. So they, they, they give you access to come in to their home and then they start pulling this gun out, this gun out, this gun out. Just saying, well what do you gimme for that next thing? You know, they got a list of 10, maybe 20 guns and, and may maybe they get rid of something. Maybe they don't, maybe they think about it. But either way it's a, it is ultimately, it's a, it's always a good experience. Yeah. And for everybody.

Patrick (27:06):
And you know, we're people type people. I mean, I love talking with folks and I love meeting people. So when I go to somebody's house, I'm laid back. You know, you know, it is just fun. I, I I I like to see how people live and I've ju you know, I've, I've learned a long time ago, you can't judge somebody by looking at where they live. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I can tell you right now, you know, some of the best stuff we've ever gotten we're in areas you're thinking there's no way these people can afford anything. That's not true. They just chose to invest their money into guns. Not necessarily fancy houses or fancy cars, but their gun collections are phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's places we've been where the houses are like, oh my God, this person's gotta have tons of money and it might be a bunch of good stuff. And you go in there, it's a bunch of crap. Yeah. I mean it's just, I mean, you never know. We

Scott (27:55):
Pulled $70,000 worth of guns out of a single wide trailer.

Patrick (27:59):
That's where I got, I got ticks

Scott (28:01):
Where there was, where there was a farm animal living in the trailer. It was a goat with a gentleman. <laugh>.

Patrick (28:05):
Yes, that's true story. True story. Went back twice and my

Scott (28:08):
Man was living,

Patrick (28:09):
We got ticks both

Scott (28:10):
Times. Didn't even have a bed to live on.

Hunter Brooks (28:12):
70,000.

Scott (28:14):
We wrote him a check for $70,000. He

Patrick (28:16):
Had some nice nice stuff just shoved in the closet. I think I

Hunter Brooks (28:18):
Remember some of that

Patrick (28:19):
Stuff. Yeah. Cuz we got tick. I keep saying, cause this is just, I got ticks. You have to hear this. We went in the house and we left with ticks. And so then the next time we went back we stopped in the driveway and sprayed ourself down with deet, which deet I think is illegal and probably California cuz this, it's really good stuff. And we went in there and we got more guns, we left and we still had ticks. And so I don't know how the guy live like that, but that

Hunter Brooks (28:42):
Just, that

Scott (28:42):
Just just tells you that that's where he wanted to invest his money and that's what

Patrick (28:47):
He, he had, he had really good taste in guns.

Scott (28:50):
Yeah. I mean it's what he chose to spend his money on. Hmm.

Patrick (28:54):
He liked, he liked goats and he liked guns.

Hunter Brooks (28:57):
Hey man,

Patrick (28:57):
Guns and goats.

Hunter Brooks (28:58):
Can't blame 'em, man. I mean I'm, I'm, I'm a gun guy. I'm not, I'm really a goat guy.

Patrick (29:02):
No, I'm not a goat guy either.

Hunter Brooks (29:03):
<laugh>. Interesting. Well, so I know you guys got, uh, an appointment this afternoon. I know you probably got stuff lined up next week, but, um, yeah, you got a lot of cool stuff that we're, we're putting out right now. Um, and got a

Scott (29:17):
Couple machine guns

Hunter Brooks (29:17):
Left and we do still have a couple machine guns left. Couple. Yeah, they're gonna, yeah, they'll go fast. So give give Patrick and Scott a call if you're interested in seeing what, what we got in the machine guns. Um, but if people want to reach out and get to you, Patrick, what's your extension? They call the

Patrick (29:33):
Phone. You can call the store. My extension is 189.

Hunter Brooks (29:35):
189 your extension. That'll, that'll take you directly to his phone to leave a voicemail or catch or, or catch. Well my

Patrick (29:41):
Email is Patrick, [email protected].

Hunter Brooks (29:46):
There you go. My extension's 133. Yep. Scott, you're 133. 189. 133. All right. Well guys, thanks for being here today. No,

Patrick (29:54):
It's fun. Love it. Love talking about

Hunter Brooks (29:56):
It. Yeah, man. Um, you guys keep, uh, keep doing what you're doing

Patrick (30:00):
And I'll invest in some more kids.

Hunter Brooks (30:01):
We're out on the road a lot, but if you're by the store, uh, feel free to ask for us if we're here, we'll be glad to come out and talk to you. Yeah. And that like, he, like, you know, if, if you'd rather bring your stuff to the store, I mean, you guys can come out and, and, and Sure. And handle the and, and,

Patrick (30:12):
And stuff here at the store as well. And if we're not here, there's always a manager on duty here. Yeah. Who, who can assist you. But if you like to see one of us, you can always set an appointment and we'll make sure that we're in the building when you, when, when you can come.

Hunter Brooks (30:23):
And as far as going out, we try to, we don't usually try to go out for less than eight or 10 quantity. Yeah. As far as guns go. As far as guns go. Yeah. Um, typically if it's less than eight or 10, we, we usually try to set that up for an appointment in the store. Unless there's extenuating circumstances. Yeah. I Or if it's really close to the store.

Patrick (30:41):
Yeah, exactly. I think guns are just crazy expensive. We'll go, we'll go a long ways for one gun. Yeah. If it's very nice.

Hunter Brooks (30:46):
Absolutely. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So. All right, well thanks for being here guys. Enjoy your, uh, weekend and, uh, we'll get together again soon. See what else? Uh, see how this summer's going. All

Patrick (30:56):
Right. Sounds

Hunter Brooks (30:56):
Great. Thanks

Narrator (30:57):
Guys. Thanks for listening to the Greentop Outdoors Podcast, hunting, fishing, and all things outdoors. It's not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle like, and subscribe to the Greentop Outdoors Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And learn more about greentop at greentophuntfish.com.