Used Guns for Sale: Surplus, Police Trade-Ins & Pre-Owned Firearms

Quick answer: Used guns on this page are pulled live from Guns.com (about 11,200 listings), Classic Firearms surplus and police trade-ins, and a handful of other retailers we track. Average prices land near $394 for police trade-ins, $594 for military surplus, and $927 across the broader used market. Filters on the left narrow by condition, brand, retailer, and price.

Every card links direct to the retailer shipping the gun. No middlemen.

I built this page because the used market is the best value in firearms right now and the existing options for shopping it are either dead forum classifieds or one-retailer-at-a-time. Pulling everything into a single search saves the eight tabs and the guesswork.

Why Buy Used?

The math on used has always been simple. A Beretta 92S Italian police trade-in for $479 shoots the same 9mm as a $700 retail M9. A Mosin-Nagant pulled from a Russian arsenal in 1948 still puts rounds where you point them. A factory-refurbished Glock 19 with a fresh finish is mechanically identical to a new one, just $150 cheaper.

For a fuller new-vs-used decision framework, see our used guns vs new guide.

The used channel is also where you find guns that aren’t being made anymore. Original Belgian-mfg Browning Hi-Powers, Italian-built M1 Garands, Yugo M48 Mausers, CMP-released 1911s.

If you want the actual article and not a modern reissue, used and surplus are the only paths.

And the inventory is bigger than people think. Guns.com alone moves through 11,000+ used listings at any given moment, with new arrivals daily as dealer trade-ins land. Add Classic Firearms surplus and a few other indexed retailers and the pool is large enough that “I want a used compact 9mm under $400” almost always has an answer that ships this week.

Used Guns by Category

Sub-hub deep dives: for the category you actually shop, read the dedicated buyer guide. Used handguns covers police trade-ins, top model picks, and the 5-point inspection checklist, plus our dedicated used 1911 buyer guide covering the five brand tiers from Tisas to Wilson Combat. Used rifles covers AR-15 trade-ins, the used M1 Garand buyer guide (CMP grades + manufacturer decoder + foreign returns) (deep-dive at our used AR-15 buying guide), CMP M1 Garands, and military surplus rifles. Used shotguns covers Remington 870 (deep-dive at our used Remington 870 buying guide) and Mossberg 500 police trade-ins, Benelli semi-autos, and vintage Winchester Model 12 and Browning A5 collectibles. For investment-grade pieces $15,000+ see our vintage guns vendor guide covering Rock Island Auction, Morphy, CMP, and Collectors Firearms.

Used guns split into three buckets — police trade-ins, military surplus, and dealer-rotated pre-owned. Each one has its own price ceiling for “still worth it,” and the buying logic is genuinely different. Here are the three rules I lean on:

• Used handguns are dominated by police trade-ins and dealer trade-ups. Beretta 92, Glock 17 / 19, S&W M&P, and Sig P226 / P229 service pistols sit between $299 and $549 in the current pool. See our dedicated used Sig P226 buying guide for variant pricing (Standard, Legion, Mk25, DAK), the 10-point inspection, and where to find federal trade-ins. The big handgun savings start at the $400 mark and grow as you move up the duty-pistol tiers.
• Used rifles split between American hunting bolt-actions (Remington 700, Winchester Model 70, Ruger M77), military surplus (Mosin-Nagant, Mauser, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, SKS), and modern semi-autos. Surplus is where you pay the smallest premium versus historical significance. Hunting rifles are where you find quietly excellent shooters from estate sales.
• Used shotguns are the most under-shopped category. Remington 870 and Mossberg 500 pump guns trade hands constantly because so many were produced. Higher-end side-by-sides and over-unders from Browning, Beretta, and Winchester appear regularly as estate liquidations at 40 to 60 percent of replacement cost.

Dedicated catalog pages for each category are in build. Until they launch, the filter sidebar above narrows the live index by brand, condition, retailer, and price band.

For a quick TCO sense-check: a police trade-in Glock 19 Gen 3 at $379 plus Trijicon HD night sights at $80 plus a $40 gunsmith inspection lands at $499 all-in — versus $649 for the new-production equivalent without sights. That $150 net delta is the typical floor for used-vs-new on a duty pistol. On 1911s, surplus rifles, and shotguns, the delta widens substantially.

Police Trade-Ins: The Best Value in the Used Market

When a department upgrades its sidearm fleet, the old guns go to wholesalers who clean them up, inspect them, and resell them at a discount. Trade-ins are almost always in good mechanical condition because officers carry their duty weapons constantly but actually shoot them rarely. Holster wear is normal. Internals are usually still tight.

The current sweet spot:

• Beretta 92S/92SB Italian police trade-ins — $429 to $499. Made in Italy, 15-round mags, mechanically excellent. The 92S is the immediate predecessor to the M9.
• Glock LEO trade-ins — $319 to $549 depending on generation and condition. Most common: Glock 17 Gen 2 (around $319), Glock 23 Gen 3 in .40 S&W ($339), Glock 43 sub-compact ($329).
• Beretta 84/85 Cheetah series — $299 to $399. Compact .380 ACP, Italian LEO surplus, DA/SA.
• S&W .38 Special revolvers — $249 to $429. Model 10, Model 64, Model 686 — the workhorses of pre-Glock American policing.

The catch: police trade-ins ship as-is from law enforcement use. Expect honest holster rub, finish wear, and occasionally a chipped grip or worn magwell edge. The bores and the lockwork are what count, and on duty pistols those are excellent because cops shoot maybe 200 rounds a year on the qual range.

Military Surplus: Where You Buy History

Surplus is the deep end of the used pool. These aren’t reproductions or new-production imports labeled “milsurp style”. They’re the actual guns soldiers carried, then sat in cosmoline for 50+ years, then got pulled and inspected.

What’s available right now in our index:

• Bulgarian Makarov 9×18 — $349 to $419. Arsenal-marked, factory-new condition under a layer of preservative.
• Polish Radom P64 9x18mm — around $359. Smaller and lighter than the Makarov, similar Cold War vintage.
• Tula Mosin-Nagant M91/30 — around $429. Russian arsenal refurbs from the 1940s-50s production runs.
• Yugo M48/M48A Mauser 8mm — around $499. Czech BRNO-contracted Yugoslavian production, very good condition.
• M1 Garand sniper variants — $4,999+. Genuine arsenal-built, not a parts-build reproduction.

Condition grading on surplus varies wildly by source country and arsenal. “Good” usually means functional with honest wear. “Very Good” means the bore is bright and the finish is mostly intact. Read the seller’s grading scale before clicking buy.

Classic Firearms is the biggest surplus operator in our index right now. Their grading skews conservative, which is the way you want it. If they call a rifle “Good”, expect “Very Good” when it lands. If they call it “Very Good”, expect a gun that looks better than your range rifle.

For collector-grade surplus, the Civilian Marksmanship Program remains the gold standard for Garands, 1903 Springfields, and the M1 Carbine. The CMP is congressionally chartered, sells direct, and ships through their own program. Pricing and inventory move with their annual release schedule rather than the live market we track here.

Factory Refurbs and Certified Pre-Owned

Factory refurbs are guns the manufacturer took back, replaced the worn parts on, refinished, and resold with a fresh warranty. Beretta does this with police trade-ins. Sig does it with returns and dealer demos. Glock occasionally releases lots of agency-trade-in pistols that have been factory-rebuilt and re-finished.

Mechanically they’re new with a small cosmetic discount. Price savings versus new run 15 to 25 percent. The Beretta 92S “Refurbished Excellent Condition, New DuraCoat Finish” listings on Classic Firearms are a current example: $479 for a 9mm full-size with a fresh finish, vs $699 for the new-production M9A1.

Certified pre-owned is one tier down. A retailer (not the manufacturer) has inspected, function-tested, and graded the gun. It comes with the retailer’s warranty rather than the factory’s.

Guns.com runs the largest certified pre-owned operation we track. Their used inventory rotates fast and a lot of it is dealer demos, estate sales, or trade-ups that never saw much actual shooting.

How to Date a Used Gun by Serial Number

Knowing the manufacture year matters for two reasons: it sets a value floor (pre-’64 Winchester Model 70s are worth a multiple of post-’64s, for example), and it tells you which parts catalog and which generation of upgrades will fit. Each major manufacturer publishes or has had archived a serial-number-to-year lookup. The four most-asked-for:

• Smith & Wesson — for revolvers, the year is encoded in the serial prefix letter combined with the model stamping. The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson (Supica/Nahas) is the bible. For modern M&P semi-autos, S&W will give you the year on a customer-service phone call.
• Glock — the year is the third character of the serial number. “F” = 1990, “G” = 1991, all the way through. Glock skips “I” and “O” to avoid confusion with 1 and 0. A G17 with serial starting “ABC123” was built in the year corresponding to “C”.
• Sig Sauer — call customer service or use the Sig Talk forum sticky. The factory has internal databases but doesn’t publish a public lookup table.
• Winchester — Madis numbers (“Winchester Dates of Manufacture”) for pre-1992 production. Post-USRAC (1992+) is by serial-prefix lookup at Winchester customer service.

For C&R-eligible imports (surplus rifles 50+ years old), the import-mark stamps tell you the importer and rough era. A “CAI St Alb VT” stamp means Century Arms imported through their St Albans facility. The arsenal stamp itself (Tula star, Izhevsk arrow, Cugir triangle) tells you which national arsenal originally produced it.

Year of manufacture matters more for shotguns and Mausers than for modern duty pistols. A 1959 Winchester Model 70 is worth substantially more than a 1968 Model 70. A 2008 Glock 17 Gen 3 is functionally identical to a 2018 Glock 17 Gen 3.

Curio & Relic (C&R) Buyers: The 03 FFL Path

For surplus and antique buyers, the Type 03 Federal Firearms License — better known as the C&R FFL — is the most underused $30 investment in the firearms hobby. The 03 FFL lets you receive C&R-eligible firearms direct to your door, bypassing the local-FFL-transfer fee that adds $25 to $50 to every other used purchase.

What qualifies: any firearm at least 50 years old (the rolling cutoff currently catches anything made 1976 and earlier), plus a curated ATF Curio & Relic list of newer guns the agency has specifically designated as collectible. The Mosin-Nagant, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, M1903, Mauser K98, Walther P38, Tokarev TT-33, Makarov, Beretta 92S, and many more are all on the list.

The application is one ATF form (5310.16), a $30 fee, fingerprints, and roughly 60-90 days. The license is valid for 3 years. Most C&R holders make the $30 back on the first surplus rifle they buy without paying a transfer fee.

What it does NOT let you do: receive modern pistols, AR-15s, or any non-C&R firearm direct to your door. Those still ship to your local FFL. The 03 is a collector’s license, not a workaround for the standard transfer flow.

Top Used Gun Brands in the Current Index

Six brands account for more than half of the used inventory we track. Each has a different used-buying logic, and the dealer with the best price on one isn’t always the best on another.

Brand	Used Listings	Typical Price Range	Best-Selling Used Model	Why Buyers Pick It
Smith & Wesson	1,487	$249 – $1,499	Model 686 4" .357	Deepest catalog, revolver heritage
Ruger	889	$279 – $899	P89 / P95 full-size 9mm	Holds value, discontinued bargains
Sig Sauer	833	$549 – $1,299	P226 / P229 police trade-ins	Factory CPO + warranty included
Colt	566	$999 – $5,000+	Series 70/80 1911, Python	Collector market, no depreciation
Glock	534	$299 – $549	Gen 2/3 17 & 19 trade-ins	Volume play, proven reliability
Winchester	532	$499 – $1,599	Model 70 + Model 94 lever	Hunting heritage, overlooked deals

Smith & Wesson — 1,487 used listings

The deepest used catalog by a wide margin. M&P 9mm and .40 S&W pistols dominate the duty-trade-in section; classic K-frame, L-frame, and N-frame revolvers (Model 10, Model 19, Model 27, Model 686) flood the retirement-and-estate market. The sweet spot: a Model 686 4″ .357 between $549 and $749, or an M&P9 trade-in around $329.

Ruger — 889 used listings

Ruger holds value better than most makers, which means used Rugers are usually priced 10 to 20 percent below new rather than the 30 to 50 percent you see on used Glocks or M&Ps. The exceptions are discontinued P-series pistols (P89, P95, P345) at $279 to $369 — old-school full-size aluminum-framed 9mms that shoot better than their price suggests.

Sig Sauer — 833 used listings

Used Sig is where the police trade-in market gets interesting. Sig P226 and P229 trade-ins ship between $549 and $749 — half the cost of a new German-frame P226. The Sig name on a used pistol is worth paying attention to: the company refurbishes and certifies many of its own returns, so a “Sig Certified Pre-Owned” listing carries the full factory warranty.

Colt — 566 used listings

Used Colt is a collector market more than a working-shooter market. Original Series 70 and Series 80 1911s in good condition land between $999 and $1,599. Python revolvers are their own world — original-production examples (pre-2020) trade between $2,500 and $5,000+. The current new Python (2020 reissue) doesn’t depreciate the way most modern guns do, which keeps used new-Python pricing tight to MSRP.

Glock — 534 used listings (see our complete used Glock 19 buying guide for generation-by-generation pricing, the 7-point inspection checklist, and where to find police trade-ins)

Used Glock is the volume play. Gen 2 and Gen 3 trade-ins from agencies sit between $299 and $399 across the 17, 19, 22, 23, and 26 models. Gen 4 trade-ins are catching up at $399 to $499.

Buy on condition and original-mag inclusion, not on generation — a Gen 3 Glock 17 with the original 17-round mags is a better deal than a Gen 4 17 with a single 15-rounder. For the modern context, see our Glock 17 Gen 6 review.

Winchester — 532 used listings

Mostly Model 70 bolt-action hunting rifles, Model 94 lever-actions, and Model 1300 / Model 12 pump shotguns. Pre-’64 Model 70s are the collector segment ($1,500+); post-’64 to 1992 (“USRAC era”) Model 70s are excellent budget hunting rifles between $549 and $799. The Model 94 lever-action is the most overlooked used-rifle bargain in the catalog — pre-2006 production examples in .30-30 are everywhere at $499 to $799.

What to Watch For Before You Buy

Used guns ship as-is. Read the seller’s return policy before checkout. Most reputable used dealers accept returns for non-disclosed defects, usually within 3 to 5 days of receipt. Functional defects you noticed at the range are on you to surface fast.

Get the gun to a gunsmith for a pre-shoot inspection if you’re spending real money. A $40 inspection on a $1,200 used rifle is cheap insurance. Look for:

The 10-point inspection I run on every used gun before the first range trip groups into three quick passes — visual, function, mechanical:

Visual pass (4 points)

1. Bore condition — pull a bore light and look for pitting, copper fouling, or shot-out lands. Heavy pitting that wasn’t disclosed is grounds for return.
2. Frame and slide cracks — examine the rail stress points on polymer pistols, the cylinder window of revolvers, and the receiver-to-barrel junction on bolt-actions. Hairline cracks tank value and are usually safety-critical.
3. Slide rail wear — peening, galling, or chrome flaking on slide rails on a semi-auto signals heavy unsupported round counts. Bolt-face erosion on bolt-actions hints at hot loads.
4. Refinish red flags — bluing that doesn’t match across slide / frame / barrel, or a uniform black coat hiding pitting underneath, both suggest a refinish covering damage. A clean factory refurb won’t fight this look.

Function pass (3 points)

5. Trigger pull and reset — dry-fire (snap-cap if hammer-fired) through every trigger position. Gritty pulls, dead spots, or failure to reset on semi-autos are immediate red flags.
6. Safety and decocker function — engage / disengage each safety, decocker, and slide-lock five times. Manual safeties that don’t click positively, or decockers that drop the hammer onto the firing pin, send the gun back.
7. Magazine lock-up and drop — every magazine should seat fully, lock positively, drop free under gravity, and reseat without forcing. Mag-well wear on used Berettas and Sigs is the number-one cause of feeding failure.

Mechanical pass (3 points)

8. Headspace on bolt-actions — a no-go gauge tells you in 10 seconds. Excessive headspace on a $250 surplus rifle is a fixable gunsmith job. On a $1,200 sporter, it’s a return.
9. Cylinder timing on revolvers — slowly cock the hammer and watch the cylinder lock up before the trigger breaks. Cylinder play at full cock means timing is off; lead-shaving along the forcing cone confirms it. A timing rebuild is $80 to $120 at a competent revolver smith.
10. Recoil-spring fatigue — racking should feel firm, not loose. A slide that runs back under its own weight needs a new recoil spring (a $15 part on a Glock, a 20-minute job on most platforms). Weak extractor tension causes failures to extract under rapid fire.

A used gun is still a regulated transfer. It ships to your nearest licensed gun store, you fill out a 4473, and you pass the same NICS check as a new gun purchase. There’s no shortcut just because the gun is pre-owned. Federal transfer rules are documented at the ATF firearms portal.

Red Flags: Listings to Walk Away From

The 10-point inspection above tells you what to look for. The other half of the discipline is knowing when to close the tab. Five patterns that turn up repeatedly in the used market and almost always end in either disappointment or a return-shipping argument:

• Refinished surfaces with no original-condition photo. Cerakote, DuraCoat, or fresh bluing on a used gun is fine when the seller discloses it and shows the underlying metal. When the only photos are post-refinish, assume the coating is hiding pitting or holster wear that would have failed the visual inspection.
• Mismatched serials on milsurp. On Mausers, Mosin-Nagants, and Garands, matching serials across receiver, bolt, and (for the K98) buttplate add 30 to 100 percent to value. A “force-matched” rifle (electro-pencil-edited numbers to fake a match) is worth less than an honestly numbered mismatch. If the listing doesn’t mention numbers at all, assume mismatched.
• Bubba’d C&Rs. Sporterized military rifles — cut-down stocks, drilled-and-tapped receivers, replaced barrels — are a category of their own. They’re fine as shooters at $200 to $400 but should never be priced as original collector pieces. Watch for collector pricing on visibly modified guns.
• “Shooter grade” with no provenance. Translation: the seller doesn’t know what arsenal it came from, doesn’t know the year, and likely got it as part of a bulk lot. Often fine for cheap range fun on $200 SKS or Mosin. Avoid for anything over $500.
• Custom internals from individual sellers. Aftermarket triggers, polished feed ramps, lightened firing pins, replaced extractors — every one of these voids the original manufacturer warranty and introduces compatibility unknowns. A drop-in trigger from a major maker (Apex, Timney) installed by a known smith is usually fine and disclosed. “I did some work to it” without specifics, from an unknown seller, is not.

State-specific rules can also apply to used purchases. California has its handgun roster. New York has the SAFE Act. New Jersey requires a permit to purchase.

If your state has restrictions on private transfers or used handguns specifically, the listing usually won’t tell you. Check our state gun law guides before you click buy.

How We Curate This List

The catalog above isn’t a static editorial pick. It’s a database of every used firearm listing currently in stock across the retailers we index through AvantLink and direct retailer feeds. Guns.com tags its inventory with “used guns” keywords in its datafeed. Classic Firearms identifies surplus and police trade-ins in product names that our importer pattern-matches.

The system runs a fresh import overnight every day. New trade-ins, surplus arrivals, and sold-out listings update automatically. If you see something listed at a price that looks too good, click through — the retailer’s site is the live source of truth, and an in-stock item at the listed price is the only thing we’ll surface on this page.

I built the filtering logic to be conservative about what gets called a “firearm” versus an “accessory”. Holsters, scope mounts, reloading dies, and gun-cleaning kits get rejected at import time even when they happen to include “Pistol” or “Rifle” in the product name. The result is a used-guns search that returns used guns, not used gun accessories.

Pricing, brand counts, and inventory totals on this page are pulled from the live UGS retailer-feed index. Current snapshot: 2026-05-17. Numbers refresh nightly.

Where to Buy Used: Top Dealers in the Index

The used market online has roughly five operators worth tracking and a long tail of regional FFLs running classified sites. Of the ~11,700 used listings we track, more than 98 percent ship from three retailers, per our 2026-05-17 inventory snapshot. Knowing how each one operates helps set realistic condition and pricing expectations.

Dealer	Used Listings	Specialty	Return Window	Best For
Guns.com	11,531	Certified pre-owned + dealer aggregation	3 days from FFL receipt	Volume + photography quality
Classic Firearms	117	European military / police surplus	Per-product policy	Surplus + conservative grading
Sportsman's Outdoor Superstore	46	Used hunting rifles + shotguns	Per-product policy	Detailed condition descriptions

Guns.com — 11,531 used listings (the volume leader)

The largest used inventory in the United States outside the auction houses. Guns.com aggregates listings from a network of partner FFLs and runs its own certified pre-owned operation in-house. Inventory rotates fast — a listing flagged “in stock” usually ships within 48 hours.

Photography quality is the best in the used market, with multiple angles, finish condition shots, and serial-number coverage on most listings. Return windows run 3 days from FFL receipt for non-disclosed defects.

Classic Firearms — 117 used listings (surplus specialist)

The dominant US importer of European military and police surplus. Classic Firearms grades conservatively — when they call a Mosin “Good”, expect Very Good when it arrives. Their police-trade-in pricing on Beretta 92S, Bulgarian Makarov, and Polish P64 is the sharpest in the market. Best for shooters who want surplus or factory-refurb at the lowest defensible price.

Sportsman’s Outdoor Superstore — 46 used listings

A smaller used catalog but well-curated. Sportsman’s leans toward used hunting rifles and shotguns (Remington 700, Browning A5, Ruger M77, Winchester 70) rather than handguns. Inventory turns slower, which means the listings you see today are often still available next week. Their condition descriptions skew detailed — they’ll call out scratches and finish marks the photos don’t show clearly.

For broader context on dealer reputation and store experience beyond used inventory, see our best gun stores guide.

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We do the same live price comparison on new firearms, ammunition, gun parts, and accessories. Different inventory streams, same approach. Real prices from the retailers actually shipping the goods, no fluff in between.