No, I’m not some grey/black market arms dealer as the title and featured image might imply. But I do enjoy selling guns…um replica guns. When you invest in a hobby like Airsoft for as long as I have (~8 years), you circulate through a lot of different gear and replicas. For the past 3 years, I have been buying into some of the more top-tier equipment. I’ve gone through pretty much every tier of replica and gear on the market currently, which is kind of necessary to appreciate the true quality of craftsmanship in some items.
Instead of condor gear, I might use Eagle Industries, London Bridge Trading, or Blue Force gear now. These brands are commonly referred to as ‘real steel’ gear manufacturers in the Airsoft community, and a lot of the products they make are extremely desirable because of their quality. These items are used by our military to put bad guys in the ground, so their equipment has to be dependable. With most quality things, there’s a big secondary market for this gear and I have developed the ability to jump on great deals and turn them for a profit or find some nice things to keep for myself. Most of this ‘real steel’ stuff isn’t necessary for airsoft, but it is extremely nice to have and use.
I do buy, sell, and trade some gear for airsoft, but I mostly deal with the replica guns. I could not tell you how many guns I’ve been through throughout the years. Either my tastes change, I find a boneyard gun and fix it to turn a profit, or cut a deal. This is actually fun to me most of the time, and I didn’t even realize how valuable it was when I first started. Selling airsoft equipment taught me the value of certain items and how to haggle for the right price, how to make and close deals, and how to determine which items are necessary and which were not.
I find pretty much anything that revolves around the markets inside the shooting/military/airsoft communities to be really enjoyable. Maybe its just my affinity for weapons talking but I feel like it would be ideal if I could make a full-time living from something like this along with owning and managing my own airsoft field. Whenever I do anything surrounding these fields it really doesn’t feel like work, and that’s how I want my job to feel.
Disclaimer: I have never been in the military, I just know a little bit about the secondary market for a lot of the gear that is used in it.