I haven't bought a gun for a long time, and I can't say that has been something I missed. I sure like having a new one, even looking at them all, comparing, holding them...but the gun store experience is something I've always found frustrating.

Today perfect case in point, I went with the money to buy and the exact model I wanted to buy. Saw online they had it going on sale for a decent price. No need to finger-fuck anything, no talking it over, just hand me the 4473 and we're on our way.


So, being savvy to how the gun stores have changed in the last 7-8 years, I go on a Tuesday afternoon to avoid the weekend derp.


I walk in, there's 2 guys working the big counter, there's a number machine, 3 people at the counter (two being helped, a third milling about). Not sure if they're working on the number machine or not, I grab a number just to be safe and stand there.


After 20 minutes of listening to the 2 guys being helped, neither of which had ANY intention of buying anything...one is telling his Elk hunting story and the other can't decide which cheap Burris scope to put on his bolt gun, the other guy standing there walks away...leaving me "next". For all I know the tire kickers had been there for 3 hours.


20 more minutes go by, and I'm getting pissed. This is 100% on the dickwads behind the counter, if your customer just wants to stand there and do face time because his wife is a sour cow he needs to escape from 2 hours every day, it's your job to say "Can you hold on a minute, this guy has been standing here a while and I need to help him". Nope, both counter dicks just stand there and chit chat. First rule of a good salesman: Always be closing. Closing is not listening to a fat fuck who couldn't walk up a broken escalator talk about an Elk hunt he didn't do.


By now, a couple other people have walked up to around the counter, 3 of us plus the chatty two bar flys. Finally, Elk hunter gets up off his stool (another pet peeve, don't put a fucking chair by the counter...this encourages social time, it's a fucking gun store not a bar), and before counter guy can do anything one of the dudes just buts right in and starts hitting him up to look at a gun. Again, failure on the counter twat's part - pay attention to the order, or work off your numbers. And, fail on the part of the rude cock face customer. Have some fucking manners, gun owners shouldn't be on par with the Walmart Black Friday house fraus.


Not wanting to be a confrontational dick, I let that slide...but I'm getting pissed. The other guy finally decides he'll go home and do some research on shitty scopes, so he leaves. The dude helping him turns to the person closest to him (not me) and asks if he needs any help. At this point, fuck it, I'm hot.


I spoke up and said "Hold on a sec here, I was next". The counter guy goes "We get really busy in here sometimes, it's hard to keep track" and the guy he asks looks at me like I'm the bad guy (he also saw me standing there when he walked up and gladly accepted the help knowing he was butting in line).


I'm just livid at this point, and turned off of the idea of giving either of these guys a $1 on their commission, so I said "You know what, fuck it, you go back to bartending and listening to stories, and I'll go buy a gun somewhere else. BTW, I took a number." and out I walked.


Got home and ordered the fucking gun from Buds.


I know, CSB and all that, but seriously I have had a lifetime of the putzes that mill around gun stores with slobber glaze on their chin and the barely employable turds that work the counter. If I never step foot in one again, it'll be a good life. Fuck, I wish you could just Amazon Prime all your guns and ammo.


If you work at a gun store and any of this hits close to home, clean up your fucking act. It's a business, don't let lonely porkers sit there and drive off your business. If they're not serious, MOVE THEM THE FUCK ALONG.


Tomorrow's rant, Uncle Mike's products should not constitute the bulk of your accessory isle.


/Soapbox.

I don't like gun stores either.

Rather do my shopping online.

Those fucking guys kill me!

My LGS always has 2 or 3 random 75 year old guys in there arguing with the guy who runs it about how "he's wrong" about something. Anything, they know he's wrong. It's jus some random, endless thing that goes on for 20 minutes while you stand around waiting to give them money.

You could be a little assertive. "Hey sorry to interrupt but I would like to buy xyz."

Was this a store with the intials GM?

Same at gun shows, can't buy shit cause the kitchen table dealers are there to talk with old friends.

Manager

Get him now.

You need to be louder theses days.

me too

and I walk into one every morning



Much prefer emails and dropping a pistol into a UPS box

instead of waiting on Fatty Brony McB.O. tell me about his gout and 68 Dodge that hasn't run since 1983



Yeah many gun counter monkeys really need to learn to detach themselves from people like that

No matter how busy I greet/acknowlege everyone as they walk in door , and try to get in a "you looking for anything specific" in

Hand them an item to look at and and move to the next guy wash/rinse/repeat keep cycling through customers

its not rocket science
 

Best rant ever.  10/10

That does suck, trying to be the considerate client.

Do your community a favor and get on yelp now and post your thoughts.

This is why i typically buy online unless I can get a decent price locally. I'll buy local if the price is right, even if the store is a bit out of my way (as the one particular LGS I do go to once in a while is not typical).

So what was the gun?

That could be a store I used from time to time. Problem is (and I'm not defending what happened, don't get me wrong) that the elk hunter probably spends a shitload of money there..... not every week, but once or twice a year he'll drop thousands on stuff. The guy I'm thinking of was a farmer, and about twice a year he'd be rich, so he'd buy a couple of dozen guns.........

Anyway, the counter guys probably dread seeing him pull into the lot, because he's an asshole and wastes their time, but their boss likes those semi-annual sales. So they put up with it.


So yeah, that's a fucked up way to do business. But glad you're getting what you wanted.

haha you have trouble with keeping track of the order people walk in...... when you have a number system?  Retards.  I don't blame you for leaving.

nvm

Being in sales I know exactly what you are talking about. I am the other way when I am in a store where I know people that work there. If no one is there, I will bs with them. The second someone walks in the even looks like they are ready to buy something, I will move out of the way and tell the people to talk to the salesperson as they are there to buy and I am there to talk. Way to many people are clueless as to how a business should actually operate.

Worked at a very high volume place for a number of years and saw guys do this shit all the time. Guess thats why their numbers sucked at the end of the month.


Since I left that part time gig almost 3 years ago I have been on to a gunshop twice and only bought once.

Make sure you tell us how they handle the 4473 when you come back.  

Get the haircut first

Maybe I've been lucky (and the more I hear, the more I tend to think so), but that has generally not been my experience at local gun shops.

What store OP?

You just described my first and last trip into an AT&T Wireless store to buy an iPhone 6 for my wife a few months ago. Spent 25 min waiting in a line of three people, while counter staff works with what are clearly a bunch of hipster Apple fan bois sharing their data plan woes, with no plan on buying a phone or data plan. After nearly 40 min of waiting, I get to the front of the line, and promptly told "no iPhone 6's in stock". I wanted to punch every living being in the store. And hipsters twice for good measure. Now we buy our replacement phones online and they are shipped, activated to our house in 48 hours.

Random folks walk by my gun counter and I hand them the Springfield 1911, and work down from there.  Even if they're just there to get fishing gear.

Turned a Taurus .22" LR pistol sale into a 3 gun sale last week.  Didn't know she was there to buy a crappy .22".  Put her into a 9x19mm 1911 first.

I don't buy guns in person, ever.

I don't know of any other business where the sort of nonsense described in the OP is not only tolerated, but seems to be the industry norm.

I'd have asked them if I could start filling out the 4473 while "you two guys chat".

ETA:

That's a lie.  I would have bought it from Bud's in the first place and shipped it to a $10 FFL transfer guy I know.

I will freely admit to tire kicking.. The difference is I wave the counter jockies off

 


"I'm just lookin, don't mind me"/"I'm alright, just browsing"


Frees up their time and mine.

I'd be pissed too... NO excuse for what you described.

You did right OP. Fuck them and fuck giving your hard earned money away to some douches
that don't appreciate their customers.

I walked out of a paint store few weeks ago on same principal. If I walk into a place an there
are more staff/sales people than customers, and I am not acknowledged within 3-4 min...I am out.

All ya gotta do is acknowledge me....and I have worked retail in past as well.

I don't mind waiting in line, but nothing makes me rage faster than getting cock blocked by Johnny-come-latelies and the counter help being too cretinous to realize it.

You would positively hate one of my local gun stores. They provide rocking chairs, jars of boiled peanuts in the shell and loads of gun magazines spread out on old whiskey barrels for their customers. Think: Cracker Barrel meets gun store meets old timey doctor's office.

Despite their slow-ish service, the guy who owns it is alright in my book. He shipped off a gun for me for repair (that I didn't buy off of him) when the local UPS branch wouldn't. Provided the box, wrapped it up and everything. Only charged me what UPS charged him.

Sometimes slow, but personal service can be good.

Cause if it is, it mirrors my experience there about a month ago, I walked the fuck out, and paid an extra $20 for a G26 at another place, not Gangster Mountain sized, 5 minutes closer to home. And the 4473 process was so much faster than GM too. I'm never buying another fucking thing there that cannot be rung up at the register without assistance.

Yeah, I could have been just as thoughtless as they were, and gotten what I wanted.

You're absolutely right.

 
No.

Ohio.

 
Hi-Point 380, I was feeling like spending big today.

Solid rant. 8.5/10

The only gun shop around here is horrible. They act like you fucked up their soduku puzzle when you walk in, and their prices are stupid high on everything. I get my stuff online anymore.

WHAT STORE WAS IT?

 
I wouldn't give them the over-priced transfer fee, no fucking way. Local pawn shop does them for $10, no muss no fuss....already on file with Buds too, just stop by and pick it up when the tracking says it's there.

Ya know, I must go to the only decent gun shop in the US Fair prices, friendly staff, no bullshit

This.


Same here, local pawn shop has cheaper transfer fee.

 
Cabelas @ Polaris, but I've had just as rotten of a counter experience at Vance's and FF&F and even worse at some of the smaller shops, so it doesn't matter IMHO...they're all staffed by morons and frequented by lonely turds.



 


The whole industry is spoiled by a general public who will put up with it.


 

ETA, my brother had an almost identical experience at the new Field & Stream at Easton (I'm on the phone talking with him right now, ended up driving out to Buckeye instead).

Not his job. He shouldn't have to do that. Customer service is becoming a lost art

My phone stopped working so I took it to the apple store to see what I was looking at to get it replaced. Bitch employee took it and disappeared to the back room. I was holding my one year old baby for an hour waiting for her to come back. I finally had to make a scene to get her to bring my phone back, although my baby had been crying for like 30 minutes before that so everyone in the store were already appalled by the situation.

Common sense doesn't exist in retail.

Good rant, OP.

I had to listen to a LGS owner tell stories about being a super secret delta squirrel that got tortured in 'nam the last time I wanted to pick up a couple spare mags.

I went to get a haircut once, and as soon as I walked in they said "wait won't be long, you're next".  I thought this was odd because there were a few guys sitting there who looked like they were there for haircuts.  Sure enough, they took some of those guys next (which of course they should have), but then after I sat there for 15 minutes a guy walked in and before I knew it he was sitting in the chair to get his hair cut and I hadn't been helped yet.  I just got up and left, never went back.

Sounds like the typical gun store. We have one here that uses a ticket system as well, they also have an "express line" where you stand if you're just there to buy accessories, ammo or gun pickup. Sometimes it's faster to just grab a ticket and have a seat in the waiting area and browse arfcom until my ticket is called.

I thought for sure you were gonna say Vances or Buckeye Outdoors

I've had good luck at Vance's Cleveland Ave now that their new store opened.  Seems like the new store attracts all the people that wanna chat and take forever and all the people looking for their first gun and all that.  Cleveland Ave location now seems to be get in and get out no bullshit.  Staff even mentioned that last time I was there, said the new store down South is more or a tourist trap thing.  That said, I usually buy at Vance's for their LEO discount but Gun Envy is my other go to.  

lol damn counter jockeys wouldve salivated at the chance to sell you a hi point

anyways, good rant....

out of the three closest LGS (not BassPro or etc big chain)

- one is small and fuddy with sky high prices on everything, and crappy CS but light gunsmithing (barrel crowning and etc) that isn't overpriced is available so I go there for that.

-The other two are middle sized independents with decent CS where I buy nothing but on sale mags or reloading stuff to avoid hazmat fees and I DO handle unfamiliar firearms  to verify if I want to buy them online (local in home ffl is $25 per transfer) or not for 3/4 of the price.  The markups on guns and ammo vs online stores make it a no brainer.  If I see a place that has used and beat to hell glocks for the same price as NIB again I am going to puke.