Gander Mountain Chuckle...

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dsm

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So I call the local rip off Gander Mountain store and connect to the firearms department. The guy answers and I simply ask if they have Lyman's 49th edition loading manual. His reply: "Hold on, I'll connect you to the fishing department." LOL! I'm like WHAT? He asks me to repeat. I did and said he would have to check. A minute later another guy gets on and asks what I am looking for. I tell him what i'm looking for and he replies with "Hold on, I will have to check; I'm in the middle of a firearms sale and have to walk away from the counter. I was put on hold and had to hang up because 10 min elapsed! This is not the first time something like this happened either. Couple years ago, I ask a guy at the firearms desk where the chronographs were. His reply: "What is a chronograph?" LOL. I didn't even bother answering and promptly said thank you and walked out!
 
I stopped going into our GM years ago because of the lack of stock in reloading supplies and the awesome lack of knowledge from the morons behind the counter. I'd rather support my small local gun stores. Last time I remember I was in GM the only thing they had in the pistol cases where glocks, sigmas and ruger .22. The guy behind the counter was supplying some serious false information about what he was trying to sell. Never again.
 
Gander Mountain WAS a great shooting resource before places like Cabelas came into being and before the internet was even a glimmer in Al Gore's eyeballs- lol

The couple stores I have visited lately all offered VERY high priced items with limited selection. I don't spend money there anymore.
 
I think I went in there once about 2 years ago. Didn't do much and didn't ask much. Prices were meh....Then again I wasn't into reloading then. Just looking for a new firearm.
 
I try to stay out of that store as much as possible, but will go there to see if they have what I need when i'm in a pinch. I called around to every local store and NONE of them carry the Lyman manual! My area is pretty dismal for loading supplies within reason. There is a huge distributor about 1.5 hours away, but not convenient for little odds and ends. I use them to buy powder, primers and shotgun loading stuff. Everything else it purchased ONLINE and looks like I'll be ordering the manual online as well. I mean I try to support local, but local is pretty dismal!
 
I used to work part-time at the GM gun counter in Woodbury, MN. This was in 2006. Most of the guys I worked with knew their stuff pretty well! I couldn't say I agreed with them all the time but it was kind of like talking to people on this web site; different opinions on calibers, etc.
I went in to that store while I was in MN for Christmas about a month ago. WOW what a difference. Everything was super expensive, ridiculous really. They had taken out the gunsmith shop, and the rifles are all behind the counter now (when I was there they were all out where you could handle them). One associate was showing an M1A to a young man with his drawers around his knees. I had a bit of a laugh, then I left.
 
When GM opened here several years ago it was a decent place to shop. Prices were kinda high, prolly full MSRP, but they had a good stock of everything. They also had some very knowledgable people working there.

NOW... several years later, the prices are just stupid, the selection is terrible and the people that work there are, well kinda like the prices. I only stop in there once in ablue moon to check the used gun rack, because sometimes they will get something really nice, but outside of that I haven'tspent a dime there in 4 or 5 years. Don't plan to either.

A recent trip there is an example. Me and my dad were driving by on the way back from lunch, he wanted to stop in and maybe pick up a brick of 22 ammo. I checked out the rifle racks, 80%+ of the new rifles were Rossi or other lower end stuff (nothing at all wrong with lower end guns, just that GM used to carry more mid to higher end stuff), and the selection of handguns was underwhelming to say the least. Not that I expected anything different. The selection of reloading components was nearly nil and the prices for shot and powder and primers made me literally laugh out loud.

I did find one thing that I wanted, a tackle box for fishing this spring, but I almost got sticker shock at the price. $87.00 for a plastic box! 2 days later, I found the EXACT same tacklebox, same brand and model # at Wal-Mart (another store I really don't care for) for $42.00.

Wow.

W101
 
So I call the local rip off Gander Mountain store and connect to the firearms department. The guy answers and I simply ask if they have Lyman's 49th edition loading manual. His reply: "Hold on, I'll connect you to the fishing department." LOL! I'm like WHAT? He asks me to repeat. I did and said he would have to check. A minute later another guy gets on and asks what I am looking for. I tell him what i'm looking for and he replies with "Hold on, I will have to check; I'm in the middle of a firearms sale and have to walk away from the counter. I was put on hold and had to hang up because 10 min elapsed! This is not the first time something like this happened either. Couple years ago, I ask a guy at the firearms desk where the chronographs were. His reply: "What is a chronograph?" LOL. I didn't even bother answering and promptly said thank you and walked out!

I have to play devil's advocate here. I used to work the gun counter at a bass pro. The damn phone rings off the hook. It gets to the point where we needed a "secretary" during hunting/xmas season. And then we had customers getting pissed cuz the guy was answering the phone instead of working the counter.

When I was selling a gun the customer in the store came first. You have to make the decision to help either the person there physically or the person on the phone. And if I was the customer at the counter and my salesman ran off to go locate something for someone on the phone i would be pissed.

I've seen my share a morons on the counter like everyone else. Now I'm a walking encyclopedia on modern hand guns. I know shotguns, rifles, and scopes pretty well. Meanwhile i only knew the basics of muzzle loading and reloading at the time. It is physically impossible to be an expert on everything in the gun dept. The guys get no training on inventory and are paid 8-9 bucks an hour which doesn't keep around any knowledgeable people around except part timers with real jobs.

In the end its best to either go to the store in person or just order online. If their counter is busy you're gonna end up on hold for a while and its roulette if you get an employee who knows about the item you're requesting
 
I have to play devil's advocate here. I used to work the gun counter at a bass pro. The damn phone rings off the hook. It gets to the point where we needed a "secretary" during hunting/xmas season.

Maybe they should get a secretary. The reason people call is so they don't have to waste gas at $3.30/gallon to go 20 or more miles round trip only to find what they wanted isn't there. When inventory is as poor as Gander Mountain's is and when prices are as high as theirs is, I'm either going to call before I go or only go when I have other business near their store.

Actually, considering how Gander Mountain has deteriorated, I'm surprised they're still in business.
 
I like the Gander Mountain by me, they have tons of guns that I can pick up and look at without having to ask a sales person for help. The last lady I bought my suns youth shot gun from was well versed in guns and we had a very nice convo about a variety of different firearms. I am sure the prices are a lil high for some of the guns but the two I have bought were fairly priced and the one was cheeper than the other chain gun shop I went to. Their reloading supplies arent very good or really kept up on but they do have basic stuff. Gande Mountain is also the only place I can walk in and buy my trapping supplies. Maybe the one around here is just the odd one out, but I am happy with them.
 
Agreed. GM is a place to go to when you need something and you know they will have it, kinda like when you go to a supermarket or Sears. They have "sales accociates" not skilled in the trade salesman. One by me has a couple of retired fellas, but they tell me its so busy they never have time to really give good service. I treat that place as somewhere I can go waste some time, not get to (or really even Have to) BS with anyone, and look at and handle USED long guns. Some are great deals and its where I find most of my used treasures. They lowball the heck out of the seller and only mark up a SET percentage.....not going used rate always. Found some great deals. But over all its not a great place.
Most of my money goes to LGS
 
I went to the local GM to get just a few hundred LRM primers for my new S&W 500. Not sure if I wanted a full thousand since that's the only firearm I have that uses them. I found a few boxes of CCI's. They were untaped, so I had to slide the pkg open to see if they were full, especially since there was a small pile of loose primers on the shelf next to the pkgs.

One box was missing 5 primers and I asked a clerk about it, figuring maybe they'd knock a buck off the box to get it off the shelf. I wasn't about to guess which primers on the shelf were LRM's. I could get the "large" right but that's about it.

Clerk declined to sell me the box at any price, said he had to scrap it as defective. So the store takes a loss, and I'm not happy.

Loss/loss situation. I told him they should tape the boxes. He ignored me.

Gouger Mountain, blechh.
 
Ours is VERY proud of their stuff & it shows in their prices. Used guns are above MSRP for new in some cases.

The reloading section is poor. 2 different powders, small assortment of primers, & a few odds & ends for tools. They had a little brass & some bullets but it would be much cheaper to buy 2 boxes of loaded ammo (at their prices) than to buy 100 pieces of brass & 100 bullets from them.

Anyway, I stay out of there. hadn't been there in a few years & went to check out their reloading stuff. i asked where the reloading stuff was (obviously that tiny bit I passed must have been just a portion) but the guy said you have to go online to their website for most things. Why on earth anyone would go online & pay their prices is beyond me.
 
Well, I was at my local Cabela's here in the peoples republic (crook county) ...I'm in line waiting to pay for some reloading manuals and brass. There's a gentleman ahead of me apparently from Colorado. The cashier wouldn't sell him ammo"cuz you don't got a FOID card"...this poor guy asks , "a what"?!?! Amazing how they are ok giving away business and so ignorant of the law.
 
Here in Central Minn. we had a very nice Sportsmans Warehouse store, it was just awesome, lots of reloading supplies and guns and people that really knew what they were talking about, well, the heads up decided to close this store.
The corporate dicks screwed it up by poor management, on thier part, go figure.
However the most crappy Gander Mt. store you have ever seen is still in business--figure that one out, I mean it is not to believe how this store is still in business.
We are lucky we have a Schell's All Sports here, great store.
 
The Gander Mountain in Joliet IL has an Enfield Mk 4 Type 1 for $699.

I thought I was seeing things, since the last one I bought was $150, and it was in better shape.

They won't last long with those kinds of prices.
 
The only Gander store I've ever visited is in Jacksonville, FL. It started several years ago with a wide variety of very nice guns and a decent 'smith shop but their reloading supplies were limited and the prices pretty high. Over the next three years the inventory got smaller and prices rose more. My most recent visit was almost a year ago and I had to laff at the deterioation in stock and prices; for instance, GM's primers were 50% higher than SW on that trip! Of course they don't need to sell a lot of stuff at those prices do they?

I don't mind that specialty stores of any kind don't have knowledgeable sales staffs. Not a lot of people know much about what I'm interested in anyway and I understand they have to hire from those who apply. Seems even "experienced" reloaders often know a lot less than they think they do. ??

I do most of my retail purchasing at the Sportsman's Warehouse in Columbia, SC because they didn't rip customers off like our local store in Hendersonville, NC, did during the panic buying of '08 when it became clear BO/Democrats were going to be elected. I have a long memory and stand by those who stand by me ... and vice versa.
 
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For what they pay clerks I am surprised they knew what guns were. I went to one once and it was as described, lousy prices, lousy service and lousy stock.

We have had several stores like them fade in our area,,,,,all for the same thing. Lousy service, lousy prices and lousy inventory.
 
Ive been to GM in Indiana and Michigan and the gun counter service sucks at both. Reloading supply selection very weak. A placed doomed to be irrelevant due to the internet.
 
I went into the one in Columbus last week trying to get some .223 hunting rounds. They had nothing but 2 boxes of fmj for .223 and their ammo shelf was very spotty and half empty. I was dissapointed so I drove to Dicks and they had 6 boxes of Hornady 53 gr Superperformance for $25 a box and that was it.

I ended up ordering some HSM from the Hunting Shack. I won't bother with GM anymore.
 
There's a GM about 15 mi. SO. of me, have been in there about 4 times. I was in there before Christmas, the gun counter guy said they'd have more stock in after Jan. 10, so I went to the reload section. Just like Mother Hubbard's cupboard ! I wanted some .38 bullets and some .223 bullets, NOTHING. So, Jan 12 I went back, same exact dusty shelves, nothing more on them, I won't be back!
 
It could be worse DSM...you could be on an Island in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska. Gotta order everything online...shipping is pricey...and powder selection is very limited...I have only seen one type of blackpowder here...and only 2 different types of smokeless
 
The several Gander Mountains I've been in have not catered so much to the gun owners/buyers. Lack of knowledge in that area is just a small part of the reasons I don't go there. They got rid of most of the reloading supplies and have many guns marked for selling at retail prices. Seems to me they prefer catering to the yuppie types for expensive skiing/snowboarding equipment. It's not really a gun store, they just happen to sell guns there.
 
What BigN said. That seems to be true of all the big stores (Cabelas, Bass Pro, etc).
Was in a new GM once. Like others mostly clothing. I did see a nice looking shirt on the way out. They had a whole rack full of the same shirt at a good price, so I bought one. When I wore it it fit well but seemed to look kind of strange. The first time I went outside into a cold wind I realized why. The neck was about a size 24. I could actually button it around my chin!:D
 
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