The chances of meeting a retail salesperson who knows more about the products than an educated consumer are really, really low these days. Retail jobs don't pay terribly well and very very few people see that kind of work as more than a (hopefully) brief stop along the way to a better job somewhere else. To find an educated enthusiast working in that environment would be only slightly more likely than finding one working almost anywhere else. Besides, the stores aren't paying these folks to educate themselves about the products (much beyond where on the shelves some of the more common items are located) and a $10-$15/hr. job probably doesn't leave a lot of room in the budget for the average floor salesman to purchase and use many of the (fairly expensive) products he's selling.
Anyone who's got the discretionary income to have invested in enough different guns and reloading equipment to be familiar with even a decent percentage of the wide variety of specailized tools and dies that reloaders might come in and ask about is probably not looking for a low paying job serving unhappy, rude, and clueless customers for long hours every day.
Every once in a while you run across a retired guy who's working that job for ammo money and to fill his spare hours -- and he just might know a lot about it. But those guys are rare.
And anyway, Cabela's, Bass Pro, Gander Mt., etc. are only going to stock a handfull of the most popular items in any category anyway. Probably well less than 1/2 of the stuff that's in their catalog and on line is available on the shelf in the store. The space is just too expensive to stock a pile of things that they'll sell less than one a month of. You may have noticed that this isn't the old style gun and hardware store where oddball stock could gather dust on some back shelf for 30 years while the daily regulars play checkers around the pot-belly stove. These places have to move the products to pay their bills.
And that fond memory of the old days where you could have scrounged that "left-hand, small-base, double-crimp, whatzit, in .416" in some dusty small-town shop are largely a myth anyway. In reality, they stocked what sold, too. If you wanted something specialized or unusual (what was unusual back then...and would probably be common, now), that was a mail order proposition and, if you had a catalog for the company that made the item, you could call the up (or send a letter!) and expect to have it in "4-6 weeks."
We have TONS -- literally tens of thousands -- of items easily available now that our grand dads never would have even thought to ask for. All you need is a computer and a credit card -- it wil be on you door step before the week's out.
Look at a Cabelas or Bass Pro these days. Retail is just a form of entertainment. Shopping is a pass-time, not a way to get what you need. If you want a fun way to kill an afternoon and have yourself a slice of cairibou-topped pizza, go to Cabelas. If you need a reloading part, order on line.
-Sam
