Yeah, I pretty much always buy online now- it's easier than you might think.
If you're not familiar with the FFL dealers in your area, use
Bud's Gun Shop's FFL search tool... enter your ZIP code and it will bring up a list of FFLs nearby. The best part is they list how much the transfer fee runs at each FFL- that's how I chose the local shop I always use- they only charge $15 to transfer compared to a lot of places that are $20-40, like Richie said. I always buy from somewhere that has free shipping, so it's just the listed price of the gun + $15, and after a quick background check (should be free/included in the transfer fee) at the gun shop, I'm out the door...
(SOS has
their own FFL search tool, but it doesn't keep a record of how much the transfer fee is.)
Btw, for the best online prices, check out SlickGuns (
https://gun.deals/)... it's a listing of all the online prices for a certain model. It works best if you have the UPC of the model you're looking at. For instance, here are the listings for:
I feel like we need a "sticky" post about online sales... I don't mind explaining (at all), but it seems like it comes up every few pages...