Ever regretted going to a LGS?

[D.B. Cooper]

C'mon, man. I'm from Detroit. We all knew Hoffa was buried under the (now demolished) Pontiac Silverdome.

Nope, left field in Yankee Stadium...........

Actually, he moved into my neighborhood about 4 years after I moved in. He's not a bad guy, really. For the most part. Just don't piss him off.

In an effort to make this more on topic, we should do a whole discussion thread: "What should have been Jimmy Hoffa's EDC?" OR "Jimmy Hoffa would still be alive if Detroit allowed CCW-Prove me Wrong."

 

[D.B. Cooper]

He gets $5 for transfers and does them free if you buy one hour of range time. One other shop also does $5 transfer fees.

That is insanely cheap! The absolute cheapest around here is $25 (the shop I referenced earlier) with $30-$35 the norm and $50 at the upper end. $5 is just wow.

 

[herrwalther]

Plenty. One runs the shadiest yet cleanest operation I have ever seen. And the other is holding a M1917 of mine hostage. Just shows I should stick with the shops I know best.

 

[TTv2]

I've gone to a few, but one that I won't be going back to because I know for the next 5 years the guy who runs it will be asking $40 for 50 rds of his reloaded 9mm.

Recently had two pistols transferred and the place I have had do them for years because they offer a discount for local gun club members was $15 for up to 5 guns at once is now $30 for each gun. The FFL's have all seemingly caught on to the popularity of transfers and all seem to be colluding raising the prices, doubling in some cases, but doubling in price seems to be the new normal.

I can't wait for the recession that's about to hit. It will normalize a lot of things, one being FFL's and their transfer fees. You're spending about 20 mins on each one, asking $30 or $60 for each transfer is like $100/hr.

Sorry FFL's, but your labor isn't worth that.

ETA: Also, last time I went to complete the transfer, the local FFL switched to tablets for the 4473. Call me a germaphobe, call me old fashioned, but I'm not touching or spending the time typing out all my info and likely catching the Flu on a stupid tablet when the old paper system is cleaner and works just fine.

 

[Styx]

So this little shop in Texas was having to be relocated due to a highway expansion project, then Covid set in…. Long story short they finally opened in their new location which is on my route to the rifle range. I’m all in favor of supporting small businesses with my cash so in I went. I won’t be back. Their firearms were without exception, all ‘tactical’ and heavily overpriced, as well as their ammunition, what little there was. The inventory on display was just that, display. I asked about one of their AR-15 on the wall and they told me I would order it and pay, then wait for them to call me when they get it in. I felt like I had committed to a purchase by walking in, so I bought a box of ammunition. Anyone else visit a shop and never went back?

I rarely buy anything at LGS. I do all my shopping online. I support my LGS by giving them $25 or so business for transfers.

 

[Ks5shooter]

All the good old school ones are gone. When I go to my property upstate Pa there are a few of them that are great with good inventory. Right after hunting season there are a lot of good bolt gun deals. Buy b4 season guns sell after.

 

[TTv2]

Reading thru the thread, I see the common issues are service related, not so much prices. I'll admit I'm more of a price focused guy, if you're charging me a price I feel is high for work, I have to weigh whether it's worth it or not. I mentioned the new cost of a transfer at my go-to FFL and it's a good 20 minutes further than my closest FFL, but they were much cheaper to do transfers with for new guns and still are, but if I get anything off gunbroker I'm going to have to go back to the closer place and see what they're charging now.

That said, I definitely have a better rapport with my go-to because I've been going there for years and the closer one I haven't been in for probably close to 4 years now.

Attitude of staff doesn't really bother me, if you're friendly that's great, if you look like a mannequin and have the personality to match, but offer me a service at a price I like, I can work with that. What I don't like working with is incompetence, which is why I avoid places on the weekend because it seems no matter which FFL I go to, if it's a weekend, the staff all seem to be a few fries short of a six pack.

When you sell me a gun, know if it's used or new and tell me up front so I can make a decision that doesn't result in wasting either time for either of us. When I ask to look at a gun, don't stare at me for 4 seconds like you just got frozen in time or your nicotine patch just kicked in before moving to pull it out. When I go in to get my check for a consignment sale, don't make me wait behind other customers because I want my money NOW.

I'm long over complaining about prices of guns because I realized years ago that the LGS wasn't trying to sell me a $200 used .40 Hi Point or $300 new Ruger Wrangler, they were trying to sell Skinflint Doofus those guns. Online is cheaper and as much as others keep telling me EVERY online retailer is charging sales tax, other than Gunbroker, I magically haven't been getting hit with any. Must be because I really special .

I'm not one to jump on the local FFL is a dead/dying model and chains are the way to go, but I definitely do think there is something to say that if you can't sell me a product cheaper than someone else, you're not getting my business. Transfers are a different story, I can't expect a min wage part time associate who has more metal in their face than a combat veteran with shrapnel wounds to know how to do that, nor their manager and complete the process in less than 2 hours, so I stick with the FFL's for that. However, thru my frequent visits to one, I've gotten to know the staff at it will keep me going back for most transfers that aren't used pieces on gunbroker.

 

[JEBruns]

We have the gamut of LGS's around here. From a tiny shop that an acquaintance owns to Bass Pro, and pretty much everything in between. I'd say the customer service is very good at all of them. We try to give them all some business.

 

[mmb617]

There are five gun stores within 10 miles of me. I've been in all of them and never had what I'd call a bad experience in any although I do think the one is always too high priced on everything so I don't shop there.

One of them has an indoor range and I have a membership there to use the range but I haven't shopped there.

The one that's my favorite has good people working there and if it's not busy I usually end up talking for a while with the counter guy who shares my political views. Even when it is busy I don't mind waiting as it's not boring. One time I was in line and two older vets struck up a conversation and it turned out one had served on a battleship and the other on an aircraft carrier. Listening to them talk about some of their experiences was very interesting. These guys were both older than me and still shooting regularly so that gave me hope for the future.

I go to that store sometimes just to browse because I like the atmosphere, and I usually end up buying something, often a lb of powder even if I don't need it right now. And once in a while I get a surprise like when I asked if they had any large rifle primers, knowing those are unicorns right now, and they did have a few that day.

 

[Anchorite]

Well, guys, get used to it. Regrettably, that's the way of the future. (And the present.) Plastic tactical sells and generates profits. The days of blued steel and wood are gone. Even in the hunting forums, or actually in the field, bolt action hunting rifles are stainless/ceracote and synthetic. Without having real numbers, just anecdotally, I'd surmise that AR15s out sell mil-surps by wide margins. Take a look around on your next trip to the range. Heck, I say a bolt action AR last weekend set up as a hunting rifle.

You’re right. Gone are the days of the Case knife displays, and guns of wood and steel. It’s all about the plastic-tactical-fantastic and Kreed-mores. Tragic. Some folks will grow up and never see a bolt action rifle in the wild again, or a revolver.

 

[tubeshooter]

Well, for the price of gas money plus a few minutes of your time you now know a LGS you wish to avoid. Sonny essentially advised C the same thing. Language NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuc-HOuwg-Q

I understand where you are coming from and I agree that it is the best face you can put on the situation.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Recently had two pistols transferred and the place I have had do them for years because they offer a discount for local gun club members was $15 for up to 5 guns at once is now $30 for each gun. The FFL's have all seemingly caught on to the popularity of transfers and all seem to be colluding raising the prices, doubling in some cases, but doubling in price seems to be the new normal.

First of all, $30 has been the standard transfer fee near me for a long time now. Second, I doubt it's collusion. If LGS A calls LGS B and asks their transfer fee, and then LGS A adjusts their transfer fee (up or down) to match LGS B, that's not collusion; that's just competitive pricing. IF LGS A and B (and C and D) get together after work and agree that no one will transfer a gun for less than X dollars, then that's collusion. Every shop in town charging the same or similar rates for same or similar products or services is not necessarily collusion.

I can't wait for the recession that's about to hit. It will normalize a lot of things, one being FFL's and their transfer fees.

You're certainly correct. It will "normalize" things, but be careful what you wish for. The mechanism to accomplish that goal will be job losses and crashing retirement funds. There is going to be a lot of pain. I've already lost about $5-7k in my IRA, just in 2022. I can pay a lot of $30 transfer fees with that. I'd much rather keep my job and my retirement and deal with the high prices.

You're spending about 20 mins on each one, asking $30 or $60 for each transfer is like $100/hr.

Sorry FFL's, but your labor isn't worth that.

That's a very socialist/communist world view. If you're only accounting for labor to establish value, you're missing the whole point. Socialism does that very well. In that system, the more labor required to produce something, the more that something is worth. This isn't always correct.

All you're seeing is filling out a 4473. There is also time spent receiving that firearm, inspecting it, and recording it in the bound book. There is secure storage space while it is at the FFL. There is insurance against break-in and theft, flood, etc. There are annual FFL fees. There is probably a prepaid legal retainer to (thank you ATF). As well as time spent dealing with the ATF. All of those are business costs incurred with operating a LGS, maintaining an FLL, so that you can transfer a gun from some online vendor to you, without you incurring those costs for yourself, which you would required to do to buy that gun otherwise. Unless you're buying ten guns per week, every week, that $30 transfer fee is a bargain at twice the price. That kid behind the counter filling out your 4473 is providing a lot more value to you than the 20 minutes it takes to fill out the form.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

You’re right. Gone are the days of the Case knife displays, and guns of wood and steel. It’s all about the plastic-tactical-fantastic and Kreed-mores. Tragic. Some folks will grow up and never see a bolt action rifle in the wild again, or a revolver.

Case knives. Yeah. I get you. You get me. There's a small, family-owned hardware store in my hometown that is like a mega dealer for them. Probably carries every one of their knives. Took my son there on his 18th birthday and let him pick one out. He went for a single blade trapper in the blue Abalone scales.

Their knives were never cheap, but they're out of hand now. I have a 3-blade Trapper/Hunter (trapper blade, saw, and gut hook, that I bought in 2018. It has doubled in price since then. (Which, is kind of okay. I've always been an SAK guy anyway-although those are climbing slightly.) I also have their 5" fixed blade in my game processing bag. (So, the 5", the trapper/hunter, and a Benchmade fixed blade gut hook are my field tools.)

You know, keeping this connected to the topic at hand, those Case dealers are another business model that, like the LGS is dying. There is NO Case dealer like that in my entire state. BassPro/Cabela's and Sportsman's sell a few variants but not many. If you want a Case knife in my town, knifecenter.com is your best bet. I suspect that, if there were as many regulations on knives as there are on guns, Case would be out of business by now.

 

[jmorris]

Only when I was broke.

Or actually listened to the conversations going on. Some people would lie if the truth sounded better. Or maybe if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance maybe you can baffle them with BS.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

One time I was in line and two older vets struck up a conversation and it turned out one had served on a battleship and the other on an aircraft carrier. Listening to them talk about some of their experiences was very interesting.

Wait. You didn't blurt out "GO ARMY! BEAT NAVY!"?

Not even a YMCA wise crack?

 

[Laphroaig]

All you're seeing is filling out a 4473. There is also time spent receiving that firearm, inspecting it, and recording it in the bound book. There is secure storage space while it is at the FFL. There is insurance against break-in and theft, flood, etc. There are annual FFL fees. There is probably a prepaid legal retainer to (thank you ATF). As well as time spent dealing with the ATF. All of those are business costs incurred with operating a LGS, maintaining an FLL, so that you can transfer a gun from some online vendor to you, without you incurring those costs for yourself, which you would required to do to buy that gun otherwise. Unless you're buying ten guns per week, every week, that $30 transfer fee is a bargain at twice the price. That kid behind the counter filling out your 4473 is providing a lot more value to you than the 20 minutes it takes to fill out the form.

I can see both sides of this argument. Jacking up the transfer fee to $60 or more lets your clientele know either buy it here or else. I get it that there is probably more to doing a on-line transfer than meets the eye, and I can't blame a shop for not liking the competition. But charging the same for a face to face transfer is gouging, plane and simple. I'd think that the opportunity to get 2 people into your store might get you some other business that day and cultivate return customers for the future.

I bought a rifle recently, and priced it at a local shop. I saw that it was cheaper on-line even with a nominal transfer fee. I called another site recommended shop to set up the deal and they asked me what I was paying. Their final price was a few dollars cheaper with out having to pay the entire transfer fee. Guess where I bought it? Plus I took a pistol in to have an adjustable rear sight installed. It was a good experience and that shop is now on my radar.

E-commerce is a fact of life. The brick and mortar guys better find a way to co-exist or go extinct. Reasonable transfer fees might be a good business model.

 

[BlueHeelerFl]

Customer's are a bother to him, it seems, while he would rather be working on his outdoor recreational toys.

I have seen this in both the Poconos and where I am in FL where businesses are randomly closed because the owner decided to go hunting or fishing but never put a sign on their door, or changed their voicemail to let potential customers know they wont be available.

Last year my washing machine had the poor timing to break during the airshow. Not only could i not reach anyone to fix it, the 2 repairmen that i contacted never returned my calls.

 

[BlueHeelerFl]

Back in the early 90's when I applied for my NYC rifle\shotgun permit I visited a few lgs's in the city. One gunshop in Brooklyn was also listed as a "police supply shop". When I walked in and said hello the owner and the 3 guys he was talking to at the counter all looked at me annoyed that I interrupted their conversation. Not once did the owner greet me or ask if I needed anything.

So I took the hint and left.

 

[Tinker-S]

So this little shop in Texas was having to be relocated due to a highway expansion project, then Covid set in…. Long story short they finally opened in their new location which is on my route to the rifle range. I’m all in favor of supporting small businesses with my cash so in I went. I won’t be back. Their firearms were without exception, all ‘tactical’ and heavily overpriced, as well as their ammunition, what little there was. The inventory on display was just that, display. I asked about one of their AR-15 on the wall and they told me I would order it and pay, then wait for them to call me when they get it in. I felt like I had committed to a purchase by walking in, so I bought a box of ammunition. Anyone else visit a shop and never went back?

No.

 

[Tinker-S]

I am sorry, but this is the second thread on the same issue that I see/read.
It seems to me that some of us go to a store looking for something to fuzz about, then we take it on the business as if the people there did us wrong. Yet, we do not give feedback to the owner/employees.
I could be mistaken, but if I feel offended if somebody looks at me the wrong way, I just stay home and shop on-line. Better prices, and I do not have to show my mug to others.

 

[theotherwaldo]

You’re right. Gone are the days of the Case knife displays, and guns of wood and steel. It’s all about the plastic-tactical-fantastic and Kreed-mores. Tragic. Some folks will grow up and never see a bolt action rifle in the wild again, or a revolver.

My favorite LGS started out as a farm and ranch supply store back in the 1940's and is still run by the same family.
There are over-sized cut-away training mock-ups of WWII rifles and machine guns and other relics scattered around the building.
The entrance still has a huge knife display area, including Case knives, right beside the stuffed brown bear and battleship bell.
The bay on the left is full of guns and hunting gear, the bay on the right is loaded with safes, outdoor cooking gear, pallets of ammo, shoes and boots and misc. hardware. The back bay is seasonal, rotating through hunting garb, archery gear and whatever is currently in fashion.
I never regret going there.

 

[Necessary_Nutrient]

Reading half of these makes me wonder if the store guys couldn’t follow our nonsensical, passive-aggressive speech patterns.

That said, I got charged a 50 dollar transfer fee after being quoted 35 over the phone locally and they weren’t interested in my story so I paid and won’t be back. Nice range but max prices on everything and edgy customer service as described.

 

[carbuncle]

So this little shop in Texas was having to be relocated due to a highway expansion project, then Covid set in…. Long story short they finally opened in their new location which is on my route to the rifle range. I’m all in favor of supporting small businesses with my cash so in I went. I won’t be back. Their firearms were without exception, all ‘tactical’ and heavily overpriced, as well as their ammunition, what little there was. The inventory on display was just that, display. I asked about one of their AR-15 on the wall and they told me I would order it and pay, then wait for them to call me when they get it in. I felt like I had committed to a purchase by walking in, so I bought a box of ammunition. Anyone else visit a shop and never went back?

Yes, tjere was an LGS near me with a terrible rep. I went in one day just to see what the deal was, and the rep was well-earned. The guy either died or the biz failed, and the same location is now an satellite of the biggest retailer in our state whichbis much more fun to visit.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

But charging the same for a face to face transfer is gouging, plane and simple.

How do you figure? And what is gouging? How many FFLs are providing gun transfer services in the area? 2? 5? 20? How many are willing to do it for $5? If there are 20 LGS in a 10 mile radius, you'll likely see lower transfer fees. If there are only two...you can either spend $30 in gas driving 100 miles to the next LGS to only pay a $25 fee. (More realistically, if there is only 1 LGS within 100 miles, that transfer fee is going to be huge.) If $30 was gouging, then no one would pay it, and the price would come down.

It's all about supply and demand. There is obviously not enough LGS to meet the demand for gun transfers. Why don't more people open their own LGS? Because the regulation, liability insurance, and very low profit margins makes running a gun store a challenge. Most people avoid that industry, or, after trying it, close up and move on to an industry where they can earn a larger profit.

In any event, it's not gouging; it's equilibrium.

I'd think that the opportunity to get 2 people into your store might get you some other business that day and cultivate return customers for the future.

Not necessarily. If you're operating at break-even or at a loss, it doesn't matter how many customer come in your shop. Amtrak runs on the principle you propose. They lose $x (I forget the number) for every passenger who buys a ticket. The more passengers, the more they lose. (They only stay afloat through government subsidies.) If your LGS owner isn't making enough on transfers to cover his operating costs, he faces the law of diminishing returns. This especially true if he is sitting on a large inventory of guns that no one is buying because he has to pay property tax on that inventory at the end of the year. The LGS owner has to make money on either the sale of a gun, or the transfer fee for an outside gun. If not, he's headed toward bankruptcy.

E-commerce is a fact of life. The brick and mortar guys better find a way to co-exist or go extinct. Reasonable transfer fees might be a good business model.

They have found a way to coexist-earning profit on every e-commerce gun sale that comes through their store and through their bound book. But you don't seem to like that.

 

[Tinker-S]

How do you figure? And what is gouging? How many FFLs are providing gun transfer services in the area? 2? 5? 20? How many are willing to do it for $5? If there are 20 LGS in a 10 mile radius, you'll likely see lower transfer fees. If there are only two...you can either spend $30 in gas driving 100 miles to the next LGS to only pay a $25 fee. (More realistically, if there is only 1 LGS within 100 miles, that transfer fee is going to be huge.) If $30 was gouging, then no one would pay it, and the price would come down.

It's all about supply and demand. There is obviously not enough LGS to meet the demand for gun transfers. Why don't more people open their own LGS? Because the regulation, liability insurance, and very low profit margins makes running a gun store a challenge. Most people avoid that industry, or, after trying it, close up and move on to an industry where they can earn a larger profit.

In any event, it's not gouging; it's equilibrium.




Not necessarily. If you're operating at break-even or at a loss, it doesn't matter how many customer come in your shop. Amtrak runs on the principle you propose. They lose $x (I forget the number) for every passenger who buys a ticket. The more passengers, the more they lose. (They only stay afloat through government subsidies.) If your LGS owner isn't making enough on transfers to cover his operating costs, he faces the law of diminishing returns. This especially true if he is sitting on a large inventory of guns that no one is buying because he has to pay property tax on that inventory at the end of the year. The LGS owner has to make money on either the sale of a gun, or the transfer fee for an outside gun. If not, he's headed toward bankruptcy.





They have found a way to coexist-earning profit on every e-commerce gun sale that comes through their store and through their bound book. But you don't seem to like that.

Thank you for the explanation. It makes sense to me, even if I am uneducated on how to run/start a business.