Pawn Shop staff playing with Guns

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lan40583

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Last week I visited my local pawn superstore to take a look at what guns they had behind the counter. This shop is the largest in the area (East Dallas) and usually has about 50 long guns on racks and several dozen handguns at any given time. On this day, I took a look at a nice looking 4 inch Ruger Security Six. When I asked to check the lockup on the gun, the clerk said I could, but then I had to explain to him why he needed to take the trigger lock off the gun for me to do that. The Six turned out to be extremely tight, and did not appear to have fired large quantities of magnum loads. The clerk quoted me a price of $345 after taxes, and because I did not have the money on me, I told him I would be back in a few days.

Fast Forward to this afternoon: I went back to the shop with money in my pocket to pick up the gun. They had several new revolvers today, so before I put my money down I decided to look at a 6 inch S&W model 19, but in the end I told the clerk (a different guy this time) that I wanted to purchase the Ruger. He takes the gun in his hand and walks me the 100 feet or so over to the sales counter.

As we're walking I hear a really fast clicking sound, and when I look over at him the clerk is spinning the cylinder on the gun OVER AND OVER AS FAST AS HE POSSIBLY CAN WITH THE CYLINDER CLOSED! :cuss::fire: "Whoa!" I exclaimed, "Don't do that man, that will seriously mess up a revolver in VERY short order."

When we get over to the cash register, I ask to see the Ruger again to check if there is any new damage to the gun, and sure enough the cylinder will not positively lock closed anymore. I point this out to him, and let him know that "You shouldn't handle guns like they do on TV. This isn't safe to fire anymore because you either bent or broke part of the workings of the gun." He apologized after I handed him the gun again, and had the nerve to ask IF I STILL WANTED TO BUY IT! :banghead:

Needless to say I left the store that day in a baaaaaaad mood. So bad that I gave them a call once I got home and "offered some suggestions" about re-training their employees in safe gun-handling.

The moral of the story: Guns are fun, but they are NOT toys!
 
Your "suggestions" will not matter much... they'll sell find some other poor chump to sell the pistol to, either in store or online.
 
If the bolt wasn't damaged then there was no problem. In any case, it was their gun until you bought it.
 
Your "suggestions" will not matter much...
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I totally disagree! I believe that the OP did exactly the right thing and that the counter folks learned a valuable lesson. That is : If you play with the merchandise and break it, it'll be harder to sell.
 
Forgive my ignorance. But I own 12 revolvers and I did not know that a revolver even had a "bolt". To which bolt are you refering to Bubba613? Not trying to be nasty or anything, just curious. To the OP, You did the right thing for sure.
 
Your "suggestions" will not matter much...
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I totally disagree! I believe that the OP did exactly the right thing and that the counter folks learned a valuable lesson. That is : If you play with the merchandise and break it, it'll be harder to sell.
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You can disagree, but the truth is that unless the OP talked to the store's manager (not an assistant) and the manager is well enough informed before the phone call, it is likely that the phone call will be blown off. It may have been the right thing to call, even better to have called the manager over at the time and explained the problem live with the particular gun, but that didn't happen and a great opportunity was lost.

Pretty much everybody and their dog that comes into a pawn shop knows more about the merchandise than any of the staff and the staff are told that by customers on a regular basis. It is a common ruse to try to give off the persona of authority so as to be able to convince the clerk that the price on an item is far too high (if being offered for sale by the shop) or far too low (if being sold or pawned by the customer to the shop).

Coming across as upset, angry, bothered, degrading, etc. will result in your words being cursorily blown off and they may be blown off anyway as you probably aren't the first expert in there that day to tell them that they don't know what they are doing....even if you are 100% absolutely right.
 
Forgive my ignorance. But I own 12 revolvers and I did not know that a revolver even had a "bolt". To which bolt are you refering to Bubba613? Not trying to be nasty or anything, just curious. To the OP, You did the right thing for sure.
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Some people call it a cylinder stop. The thing that locks the cylinder during firing.

Call me crazy, but if the gun wouldn't lock up after the clerk fiddled with it, I'd wager that there was a problem.
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OK, you're crazy.:D

I don't know that the gun wouldn't lock up. I wasn't there. If the stop was broken off (hard to imagine, this is a Ruger we're talking about) it would be pretty obvious. Equally possible is he didn't have the cylinder closed fully. I've seen it happen.
 
When we get over to the cash register, I ask to see the Ruger again to check if there is any new damage to the gun, and sure enough the cylinder will not positively lock closed anymore.
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I'm just going by the OP's description. If he knows enough to check the lockup on the gun in the first place, I'd figure he knows enough to describe damage caused by a foolish clerk.

Who knows though - as you say, it's hard to know exactly, not being there. But taking his word for it, it sounded damaged to me.
 
Double Naught Spy said:
You can disagree, but .......


Pretty much everybody and their dog that comes into a pawn shop knows more about the merchandise than any of the staff and the staff are told that by customers on a regular basis. It is a common ruse to try to give off the persona of authority so as to be able to convince the clerk that the price on an item is far too high (if being offered for sale by the shop) or far too low (if being sold or pawned by the customer to the shop).

Coming across as upset, angry, bothered, degrading, etc. will result in your words being cursorily blown off and they may be blown off anyway as you probably aren't the first expert in there that day to tell them that they don't know what they are doing....even if you are 100% absolutely right.
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Now with that....I gotta agree. Besides, it was a pawn shop. Did you really expect cheap guns and a knowledgeable staff?
 
One of the reasons why I only ever buy things, including guns, new. I don't trust anybody to not mess things up other than the people who built it. And even then there's still a small chance. $345 is a lot of money to bet in a dice throw based off the incompetence of a pawn shop clerk. To me, it's best to stay away from that who deal altogether.
 
So you can spin the cylinder on a DA revolver with the cylinder latched?

I don't understand what he did.
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Yeah. Half pull the trigger so the bolt retracts, freeing the cylinder, and spin it. If you let go of the trigger the bolt will engage again and might possibly crack or shear off. But that seems pretty unlikely to me.
 
If you pull the hammer partly back the cylinder will be free to spin. This by itself is relatively harmless (competitive shooters routinely do this with freshly loaded guns to ensure that there is no binding) but does tend to leave a score mark around the cylinder.

Spinning the cylinder rapidly with this method and then releasing the hammer causes the bolt to slam into a notch, which can damage it. The old TV trick of spinning an open cylinder and slamming it shut with a flick of the wrist can cause the same damage - and some other types too.

It's my opinion that holding the hammer back and spinning the cylinder in the manner described could not possibly have prevented the gun from locking up. Of course, that little demonstration probably indicates that other types of foolishness are common enough in that place, so lord knows what else they may have done to the gun.

<edit> Bubba beat me to it. Great minds...
 
Yeah. Half pull the trigger so the bolt retracts, freeing the cylinder, and spin it. If you let go of the trigger the bolt will engage again and might possibly crack or shear off. But that seems pretty unlikely to me.
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If you pull the hammer partly back the cylinder will be free to spin. This by itself is relatively harmless (competitive shooters routinely do this with freshly loaded guns to ensure that there is no binding) but does tend to leave a score mark around the cylinder.

Spinning the cylinder rapidly with this method and then releasing the hammer causes the bolt to slam into a notch, which can damage it.
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Wow, thanks guys. I had no idea this was an acceptable practice. However, from the loud ratcheting sound the gun was making, it sounded like maybe he was pulling/releasing the hammer like each of you suggested.

In either case, I know for a fact that I closed the crane as far as it could go. when I said the cylinder would not lock up, specifically what was happening was that it would find the notch on the cylinder and stay there, but with the slightest left turn the cylinder would turn approximately 1/2 way to the next slot, but not any further than that, and then could be turned back into the original notch, but not further to the right than that. I opened and closed the cylinder on different notches several times to make sure, but the same thing happened each time.
 
Wouldn't surprise me if the crane was bent from flicking the cylinder open and closed "like they do on TV".

I've had some good guns for good prices from pawnshops - but I approach pawnshop guns with a great deal of caution, and I've found an awful lot of bad ones...
 
It does sound like the crane might be out of alignment.

Releasing the bolt, either by trigger or hammer, and spinning the cylinder won't hurt the gun if it is done correctly...we used to do it all the time in competition to check for binding of shells from high primers or rounds that weren't completely seated in the chambers. The ratcheting sounds is normal...it reminds me of the spinning of the cylinder on a SA revolver
 
IAN - if you talked to the store owner or senior manager, you did the right thing,especially if you mentioned that this caused the store to lose a sale.
 
This may make you nauseous…

Back in the 80s I visited a sporting goods store near Charleston AFB in South Carolina. Every handgun in the display case looked like it had been tumble dried. Wood grips were chipped, scratched, and dinged, the metal finishes were scratched, sights were bent, etc. The kicker was they were asking MSRP for all their guns, which were technically ‘new’.

A few weeks later I was in and there was a more mature clerk working, so I asked him about the condition of the handguns. He said that they had to lock up the handguns every night so the kids that worked there would position a shopping cart centrally, then toss the handguns in from wherever they happened to be standing. He didn’t seem too confident that they’d ever sell one.
 
You see them do some stupid stuff sometimes. Last gun I bought at a pawnshop was a Winchester Model 70 in .270. Pretty good find - it was in pretty decent shape, had Leupold VariX-II atop it, and was a much older model (post-64, but just barely - made in 1964 exactly :)).

Anyways, after I told one of the clerks that I was going to by it, we went back to to register to start the 4473 routine. While I'm filling out the paperwork, a second, very annoying clerk comes up. He picks up the rifle and starts looking through the scope, picking out targets on the wall, and quoting movie lines (I'm guessing from westerns and such). Then he actually DRY FIRED the gun - never having checked the chamber.

At that point I just had to remind him "You know I'm buying that. I'd rather it not be dry fired.". He put it down and walked off. The gun wasn't damaged in this case and I still bought it, but it's amazing the lack of professionalism shown by some people.
 
Was his name Chumlee?
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I wouldn't be surprised in the least if it was. Those THR folks living in the area of this pawn shop would greatly benefit keeping in mind that this is/was occurring at this shop.

Sadly it probably happens across the U.S. more often than most probably realize.
 
...I hear a really fast clicking sound...
...the loud ratcheting sound the gun was making...
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That was the cylinder latch skipping around the cylinder, from notch to notch. No real harm there, but when the bolt slams the cylinder to a stop, some harm there.

Also, this problem isn't isolated to pawn shops. I've seen the counter guys at places like Gander Mt, Sportsman's Warehouse, Cabelas, "play" with the merchandise too.
 
CoRoMo said:
Also, this problem isn't isolated to pawn shops. I've seen the counter guys at places like Gander Mt, Sportsman's Warehouse, Cabelas, "play" with the merchandise too.
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I was in a small private sporting goods shop the other day, and stopped by to look at the gun counter. I was looking at a brand new sp101 that they had. When I handed it back to the guy at the counter, he flicked the cylinder closed with significant force, TV style. When I saw that, the chances of me ever purchasing a gun from them decresed significantly. Who knows how many times that happens to that gun each day.

Anyway, this phenomenon is hardly limited to pawnshops unfortunately...
 
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