What firearm ignorance have you encountered lately?

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Before the first Obamascare when ammo was always around, I went into Walmart and asked the female clerk for a bix of .357Sig in the case. I pointed it out to her but she grabbed a box of .357 Magnum instead. When I said I wanted the .357Sig she said no, I wanted the .357 magnum, not Sig. She said a lot of people make that mistake. When I mentioned I knew the difference and wanted the Sig she said "all right but when you try to exchange it, we have a no refund or exchange policy on ammo."

I didn't mind asking if I was sure but to be told I was wrong is what I found to be "ignorant".
 
Firearm Ignorance

I try to look for the positive, and not the negative.

On some things, I'm still looking for the positive, after many years...still looking.... still looking....?

Like : " Which end of the barrel do you put the bullets "?

" It feels more comfortable holding it in front of me, looking down this hole thing ".

" Can you shoot this with your toes, like you do with your fingers "?

" Why do they call it a handgun ? You've got two hands. Shouldn't it be called a handsgun "?

" Are you sure it's a "shot" gun ? It looks like it is working to me ".

Well, still looking .:)
 
I can't help it.
In a thread containing didactic, segue has to be spelled correctly, Ret Chief. :)
Not segway.
Otherwise, carry on. :)
Denis
 
I actually see the worst cases on gun forums where some people post bad advice which unsuspecting readers may actually follow.
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I agree with this. I expect to see ignorance in the world where not everyone likes guns (yeah I'm shocked too). But it's the people who show up on forums and give really, really bad advice while acting like experts that really get me. Some are on vendettas against a gun maker or even a particular gun because they had bad luck with it. I've seen guys post bad stuff about certain guns for months. They talked about nothing else and they were so totally and completely wrong it was amazing. But they managed to build a large following of people who believed their stupidity.

Specifically it was a couple of guys who set out to destroy the Remington 870 Express that really showed me how much people can lead others astray. They insisted that those shotguns would rust in no time for no reason. The thing is both of them put their shotguns in foam cases and left them there for months. One was left under a floorboard under the house. But they had hundreds of people buying their bull because they had posted it so often it looked like everyone believed it especially when all the newbies picked up their line of bull and repeated it. I saw newbies enter that group and ask totally newbie questions and within a week they were arguing with me that they knew better about the Express than I did. No amount of me telling them that I owned one that had never rusted would even phase them.

The Express has a problem or two. A couple of parts should be upgraded because they are made of soft metal. The upper tier 870 parts fit right in and they cost maybe $30 for the entire upgrade needed. But the guns won't rust if you treat them right. They need lots of oil at first because they have essentially a version of a Parkerized finish and they require oil to be soaked into the finish to prevent rust. It's not hard to do. You just apply some oil and the finish soaks it up. I bet some people will argue with me about this but I have had great success with this method. I've never had a speck of rust on my 870 Express. And it's more than a few years old.

Those "experts" drove all kinds of people away from a fine shotgun which makes a great HD weapon. There are other choices of course but still it's not good that someone with a vendetta drives an opinion like that. I've seen it with other guns too and with companies. We need to counter the baloney some spread IMO. Newbies count on these boards to get good advice and sometimes the stakes are higher than rust issues. If someone is telling you that a bad gun is a good gun they can get you killed.
 
can't help it.
In a thread containing didactic, segue has to be spelled correctly, Ret Chief.
Not segway.
Otherwise, carry on.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right! It is most important to spell words like segue correctly otherwise folks will think you're talking about two-wheeled personal runabout type vehicles.


... Speaking of those, I wonder if they make a good platform for carrying guns and whether it would they be better suited to USPSA type shooting or maybe some sort of futuristic SASS discipline?
 
Acadamy Sports here in Houston. Guy asked the clerk to help him find a box of .270 Weatherby he had borrowed the rifle to go on a company salesman style hunt. Clerk hands him a box of .270 Winchester. Neither one knew the actual caliber of the rifle. I advised of the potential for a bad ju-ju screw-up with the wrong caliber ammo choice. Several years later I was at the same counter and two guys were buying a Remington 870 in riot barrel length. The guy said he was going quail hunting that night than he bought five boxes of slugs. They then walked him to the service desk to fill out the paperwork. He had prison ink all up and down his arms and a county jail plastic bracelet still on they used to use to id and inventory prisoners. I told the other clerk about what I'd observed and quail were out of season etc...He called up to the service desk and they came up with an excuse of alcohol on his breath not to sell him the gun. I happened to be walking out and these two were getting into a car backed into the handicapped spot by the front door. They sped out but not before throwing a beer can at me. The one guy that had partially filled out the paperwork later turned out to be a wanted felon and the other guy with the bracelet and tats apparently caught with the paperwork guy was a multiple violent felon. That said...I have found some gun counter clerks at Academy very knowledgeable even though I haven't been in one in many years.
 
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Slugs on quail. Hmmm... I never did like getting all that birdshot in my teeth. :rolleyes:
 
They do sorta go together but I ate plenty of 'em as a kid. My teeth still hurt just thinking about it. :)
 
I don't expect knowledgeable department store clerks.
Even if a gun store salesman knows his stuff, he will be motivated to sell what he has in stock.

The Internet Generation is hard for me to get on with. As I have posted before, it is hard to learn this stuff one question at a time on the net.
 
Sam1911 said:
... Speaking of those, I wonder if they make a good platform for carrying guns and whether it would they be better suited to USPSA type shooting or maybe some sort of futuristic SASS discipline?
Click to expand...

This idea needs some serious consideration.
 
... Speaking of those, I wonder if they make a good platform for carrying guns and whether it would they be better suited to USPSA type shooting or maybe some sort of futuristic SASS discipline?
Click to expand...

There is actually a special forces troops in some country that use them. It really is a funny sight.
 
"I was WISHING someone at the LGS would have helped me out."
Aw, c'mon, you would've just discounted his opinion because it didn't jive with what you thought you wanted
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Eh, you may have a point...just maybe.
 
alfon99 said:
I heard people say that the whole cartidge WITH the case comes out of the barrel. Not just the bullet.
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I've seen animations of that on the History show the same thing. On a gun show, none-the-less. I don't remember which show it was, but I think it was the same one that showed the image of a Walker Colt labeled as "Colt SAA (Peacemaker)". It's a friggin' gun show. Surely someone on staff knows better.
 
Here's one I hear regularly on the internet: Colt doesn't work on Python's anymore.
 
Similar to Larryh1108, I went in to Cabelas several years ago (before I had started reloading) to see if they had any PPU 7x57. I couldn't find any so I went to the service desk to see if they had any in stock. They listed 4 boxes in stock and told me to go to the service desk between guns and camping stuff and they should be able to find it for me.

I asked the guy there if he could help me find the 7mm Mauser since it listed it as being in stock, but it wasn't on the shelf. He "corrected" me and told me that I should have asked for 7mm Magnum. I told him, again, that I knew what I was looking for and it would be listed under 7mm Mauser and that the front service desk had looked it up for me already. He said that they don't know anything about guns and he would be saving me grief. "'Mauser' is Spanish for 'Magnum'" is what he told me.

I told him that Peter Paul Mauser was the name of the German firearm designer and it was very different from any of the 7mm magnums. He then asked for the gun department manager to come "educate" me because I was going to blow myself up. When the manager showed up and he got the story from the man at the counter, I was upset because I didn't have video running. The manager covered his face with one of his hands and called the guy an "idiot" in front of me and several other customers. The manager got on the computer and pulled up the ammunition I was looking for. He told me that the he'd have someone find it and bring it out to me but to wait by the gun counter for it. The original "helper" was walked through one of the employee-only doors at the back and I haven't seen him again on any of my subsequent visits.

The manager met me at the gun desk about 20 minutes later and gave me the 2 boxes I was looking for and apologized profusely.

Matt
 
Paul,
That one's partially correct. :)
They are more limited in what they can do with them nowdays.
Denis
 
"You can fire 5.56mm out of an AK74. The Soviets designed it that way so they could use our ammo"
 
Yep...expecting a teen-age skirt chaser to know everything about firearms and etc. at big box retailer is kinda like expecting to get a duck blind in a refuge on opening day.
 
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morcey2 said:
I've seen animations of that on the History show the same thing. On a gun show, none-the-less. I don't remember which show it was, but I think it was the same one that showed the image of a Walker Colt labeled as "Colt SAA (Peacemaker)". It's a friggin' gun show. Surely someone on staff knows better.
Click to expand...
Yep...one of the guys on the NRA (Midway's show) makes some rather egregious misstatements every once in a while. Don't watch it on a regular basis but the several times I have he's made some "urban gun legend" statements
 
I was standing at the sporting goods counter in a local Walmart when I heard the clerk behind the counter tell a customer that "when our stock of handgun ammo is gone, there wont be any more. They have quit making it." I asked where she got that info and she replied "From the store manager."
 
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