Armslist [Review] & Avoiding Scams

Safe? Effective? Worth it? Armslist is one of the most controversial websites out there. In an age of de-platforming, I’m honestly surprised they are still around. I’ve been using for close to 8 years now to buy, sell, and trade guns. My experience has gotten me some good deals, and I want to share how I have successfully used the system for almost a decade. I’ve gotten great deals here, and due to my cautious nature, I’ve never been ripped off. My best deal involved trading a Ruger Ranch rifle and a WASR 10 for a SIG 556R, one of my all time favorite rifles. Armslist has been good to me. Ever since Facebook has banned the private sales of guns, ammo, and accessories. Armslist has been the place to buy and sell used firearms.

What is It?

As we’ve established, it is a place you can buy and sell guns. Armslist is Craigslist with firearms, and tactical gear, and ammo. The idea is simple; all you have to do is post what you want to sell, or browse the listings what others are selling. You don’t even have to create an account. Although it is easier to create an account if you need to manage multiple postings, FFLs can create premium accounts and post multiple guns. Private Parties and dealers can be quickly sorted, and you browse by city or state. It’s straightforward to use and to create listings. It’s all done over email, and you can upload a photo of your gun with ease. It’s pretty simple and Armslist can be as successful as you need it to be. Armslist is a fickle beast though. It’s a very, uhm, exciting service and you get great opportunities to meet some very odd and unusual people. If you want your time and your listing to be worth it, we can show you the best way to save money and time over Armslist.

Also, guns are high-value items, and like any high-value item there is a risk with a face to face sale, so we are also going to go over how to use the service safely as well.

How to Use It Safely and Successfully

The key to being victorious over Armslist is putting the work into your post and pictures. You need to detail what exactly your gun is. Listing “.357 Magnum for sale”, with that exact description, is garbage. All we know is its a .357 Magnum. You need to answer a few questions, like:

• Who Made It?
• What Model Is It?
• What is the Approximate Round Count?
• Does it come with anything? (Box, magazines, any extras.)

Past that you need to take a good picture with good lighting. The better the picture, the more looks you’ll get. A good outdoors photo with morning or evening light will be perfect. You don’t have to get artistic with it. You need a solid photograph of the gun from the outside that is a complete overview of the weapon. You also need to list any of the defects the weapon may have.

If the wood grips are chipped, you should list that. If you meet someone and all of a sudden they start seeing defects in the gun you have wasted their time and your time. Be honest and upfront about what you are selling. Speaking of selling if you want the gun to sell you need to be realistic about the price. Weapons don’t lose much value unless they are beaten to a pulp. However, it’s good to research what your gun is selling for on the used market. Also, even if you’ve never fired a round, the gun is not new, and you won’t have much luck selling it for the price you purchased it for. Be realistic about your price and what you can trade the gun for.

The Ugly Underbelly

I went with a hardcore and hyperbolic headline to grab your eyes! However, if you want to stay safe on Armslist, you need to make sure you at least acknowledge there is some risk. The risk results from the fact that guns, in general, are expensive items. Stealing a gun also typically will mean the use of serious force by the thief. If you want to steal a gun, you’ll probably bring a gun to do so. It’s best to avoid this whole sticky situation. Since private sales over Armslist are done in a face to face manner nearly 99% of the time its best to plan to meet in a safe place. The parking lot of that closed K-Mart isn’t the best place to sell or buy a gun.

Pick a very public place where plenty of people are around. I also tend to meet during the day. Some Police Departments have even set up small parking lots for face to face sales of all kinds. These are under surveillance and near a police department most of the time and are great places to make a sale or trade. Also, if you have their email copy and paste it into the search bar for Google, this can give you a picture and idea of who they are, as well as a real name. You can Google that name and see what comes up. Maybe that’s paranoid, but I like to have my backside covered.

Avoiding Scams

Another big problem with Armslist is scammers. Armslist does try very hard to prevent these scammers and does an excellent job of policing them, but they strike now and then. The two scams I know of are pretty similar.

The “Fake Listing” Scam

The simplest of scams. They put a phony listing up, you reply, and they offer to ship it to your FFL. You see they are out of town with their sick Mom and they need the money so they’ll send it for you for free.

Just send them a check, or better yet Paypal (Friends and Family of course) and bam it’ll come your way. Guess what? The gun never comes, and you are out whatever money you sent. One way to spot a fake is a deal that is too good to be true. The price is way too reasonable. Second, a generic listing with information that looks like it copy-pasted from Wikipedia or a generic listing. If you suspect a scam run the photos through Google image search and see where it ends up.

The “Little Bit Extra” Scam

The next scam is a little trickier. The buyer is interested in your gun they contact you. Again they are from out of town, and they are willing to buy the gun from you and pay for shipping. They also have their FFL and send you a copy. You run through the ATF FFL database and bam, it is a real FFL. First, they send you a check. A cashiers check of course with extra to cover shipping. You ship the gun, and you cash the check. The check is a little more than it all costs, and the seller asks you to refund the extra money. You do because you are a good person, often through PayPal or more popularly lately, Zelle. Then the check bounces and you are out the money you sent, and a gun. The gun was never the goal, that little extra cash was. It’s likely overseas and gone forever. The best way to avoid this is to refuse to ship in the first place, or contact the actual FFL ower and let him know people are trying to scam him or her.

Using the Service Legally

Like anything to do with guns if you want to use the service legally, you need to observe your state laws. State laws vary greatly when it comes to guns, and you need to know your state’s laws before using Armslist. Here are a few examples of Laws You Need to Observe:

• Does your State have Universal Background checks?
• Is there state laws regarding the age of the purchaser?
• Are you buying a product that’s illegal in your state? (Such as, a New Production High Cap Magazine in States with restrictions.)

Additionally, there are plenty of federal laws that are easy to violate, and a few of them seem to keep popping up in my experience with Armslist. For example: NFA weapons have to be sold through the NFA process, and this includes SBRs, Machine guns, Suppressors, and SBS guns. I’ve seen a scary amount of ARs with pistol uppers and rifle stocks that are not registered. The seller often doesn’t know that they are breaking the law. So avoid NFA weapons where the seller apparently doesn’t understand the NFA. Also with the bump stock ban in effect, it might be good to avoid those for now. The same goes with people wanting you to ship their gun on the low through the mail.

Ammo is another issue, you can’t use USPS and must use a different carrier such as UPS or FedEx. Handguns must be shipped to an FFL in the state that the purchaser resides so keep that in mind.

My Personal Rules for Armslist

I have a few of my own rules that are entirely optional to follow with Armslist. These are rules many will disagree with, but I’ve never been scammed and have been quite successful at Armslist.

1. Never give out my phone number. Made this mistake once and when we couldn’t come to an agreement, the buyer would not stop texting and calling me.
2. I never Ship. It’s too much of a hassle, and the risk is too high.
3. Always cash, I never accept a check.
4. We meet where I want to, during the day or early evening only.
5. I ignore criminally low ballers.
6. I ignore anyone asking me to violate the law.
7. Always clearly establish the price of the item, so the buyer knows how much I am accepting/or willing to give. I want people to understand precisely what the deal is prior to a meeting.
8. If I meet with a buyer/seller and they attempt to undercut the agreement I walk.
9. I never waste time trying to argue with someone who over evaluates their item. It’s not worth your time folks.
10. Always ask for an ID to make sure they are a resident of my state and the proper age to purchase a firearm.

The Four Types of Folks On Armslist

So now that we’ve talked legality, how to avoid scams and my rules for using Armslist I want to talk about a few of the folks you’ll find on Armslist. I’d say 95% of Armslist buyers and sellers are great people, but that extra 5% is made up of my favorite stereotypes of the gun community. If you’ve used Armslist a lot, you’ll recognize a few of these and if you haven’t you can at least be prepared to encounter them.

The Bubba

The Bubba is the guy who takes a cool classic firearm like a Lee Enfield, a Mosin Nagant or even a Springfield 1903 and then “upgrades” it. These Bubbas often tack on useless parts that the gun isn’t designed for.

They drop these guns into new stocks, add scopes and scope mounts in bizarre ways, tack on pistol grips, or worse yet they turn them to bullpups. They take pieces of history and turn them into amalgamations of the greatest level of horror. The problem is Bubba often thinks his upgraded Garbage Rod is worth as much as a high-end Remington 700 Tactical or a Ruger Precision rifle. Bubba will list his rifle for an extreme price, and that’s fine. The problem is when he sneaks into those DMs he starts trying to make some crazy trades for his decked out rifle.

The “I Know What I Got.”

The “I Know What I Got,” is the type of guy who doesn’t know what he’s got. He or she often doesn’t understand what they have at all. They will mistake their gun for something much more valuable than it actually is. Like Bubba, they are mostly harmless and often overprice their gun online. For some reason, they see old Double Barrel shotguns that are worth a lot of money and assume their Savage 311 is easily worth 1k. Then they start offering you that shotgun like they are doing you a favor.

Annoying sure, but it gets worse. They often leave the price unknown and want you to “make Offers,” and when you do they pick and poke and proclaim that “I know what I got,” before tossing out a crazy price. They often own beat to hell and rusted Colts that are worth well over a grand, or are quick to send a link to a random listing on Gunbroker for a gun close to what they have, but often well beyond what they have.

The Weird Trader

A Weird Trader is a person who rarely annoys me. They are just interesting people. Gun trades are not uncommon on Armslist, but the Weird Trader doesn’t want to trade a gun for gun. No sir, he has something else in mind. In my time on Armslist I’ve been offered a ton of different weird non-gun items. This includes Taxidermied animals of all kinds. I’ve been offered a boat without an engine, or trailer, that was sitting in a junkyard. I’ve been offered a Parrot before too, which was my favorite.

I also get offers for Pit Bulls a lot. Like why are there so many Pit Bulls? I’ve seen the Weird Trader post on Facebook with a variety of items he or she wants to trade for guns. This includes services like car detailing, home cleaning, and of course tattoos. The Weird Trader is one of my favorites, I’ve never taken a trade from the weird trader, but I appreciate their offers.

The Cheapskate

We all like a good deal, and admittedly I’ve tried to negotiate for a lower price when I see something slightly above average. However, the cheapskate is different. He wants to grind your price down by at least 25%, if not 50% and then after you refuse his offer he keeps bothering you about it. Sometimes he mentions he’s out of work and broke, or his kid just went to the hospital, or this or that, and tries to guilt your price down. Other times the cheapskate tries to make it seem like they are doing you a favor by buying your gun. If you refuse long enough they spiral into a pattern of insults and a lack of self-control. It’s a really fun time with a dedicated cheapskate.

Listed

Armslist is a cool website, one that I love. Armslist is a great place to find used guns, as well as weird weapons that tend to be hard to find in other places. Knowing how to use it is invaluable. From other Armslisters what are your experiences? Your tips? Tricks? Let us know below your rules for Armslist.