Academy vs. Gander Mountain for guns (rant)

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  • 40Arpent

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    Jul 16, 2008
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    :banghead:Apologies, I gotta vent. I know there have been previous discussions about buying guns from some of the "box" stores, so I figured I'd relay a little pricing discrepancy I discovered last night that makes absolutely no sense to me...and pisses me off. I'm buying my son a 4" S&W 686+ for Christmas. Gander Mountain wanted $100 more than Academy for it. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS MORE?!?! These two stores are basically directly across the freeway from each other. And Carter's Country has the same revolver for roughly the same price as Gander, i.e., $100 more than Academy.

    Okay, I feel better now. Thanks. ;)
    Guns International
     

    Texan2

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    Academy and Walmart dont rally make anything on gun sales. They hope to make it up on the accessories, and they sell enough of that other stuff to make it possible. They also buy in such quanity from their suppliers that they get a great price. S&W probably sells a 686 cheaper if you buy 10,000 of them than if you buy 100. Honestly I dont know how some of the smaller places compete...
    There are numerous tales of Walmart actually telling manufacturers what they will pay for a product! Their philosophy is if you wont sell it to us for what we want to pay, we wont stock it! Manufacturer always caves...
     

    juwaba98

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    May 9, 2008
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    Here's a good Academy complaint for you.............

    About 3 weeks ago I go to town to buy my wife a new rifle. We're pretty certain she wants the Rossi youth .243 so we go check them out at Academy where they have them combined with a scope and case for $199. Sounds good right? Well they only have the display left in black but plenty of OD green in boxes. Ok so we decide on the display. Academy policy dictates that display guns have trigger locks on them to be removed when sold (remember this it comes into play later). So we get it boxed up and paperwork completed then have to go find a manager to "log it out" before I can pay for it. We then have to wait in the longest line at the customer service register for some reason (maybe policy strikes again, who knows) to get it out the door. So we load it up and go visit the in-laws for a bit while we are in town and head for the house. This is nearly an 80 mile round trip for us. We get home and get to looking at it and see a trigger lock, no big deal, the guy said the keys were under the padding for the gun lock. Well indeed the keys were there for the INTERNAL lock but nothing in sight for the trigger lock. So back to Academy it goes the next day. Thankfully my Dad took it in for me so I didn't rip someones throat out in my blind rage. So after work we get it out and go to sight it in. Factory boresight my @$$. The scope was off by 5 1/2 feet and took 3 shots to find paper. Then we get to tweaking and realize for every 3" or so of adjustment we get roughly 1/2" of actual correction. HMM!? Well we run out of daylight and figure try again tomorrow and if we have to we'll chunk the scope and mount one of the ones laying around the house on it no biggie. Well we shoot some more the next day and decide yep, gotta lose the scope so we go to the house to swap them out, grab the allen wrenches and the Sight-N-Clean and get to work. Yep you guessed it, scope rings are loose, not noticeably but enough that the scope was juping around and not maintaining the settings. Nice huh? So tighten it down and try again. Yeah it's still sitting in the safe untouched. My wife is hunting with my 30-06 with managed recoil loads from Remington. I might sight that dadgum thing in for next season. I'm still pissed at them sumbeaches at Academy.

    All that said I'm planning on going down there to see them about a revolver this evening. I guess we'll see if they can eff that one up too.

    But yeah they have way better prices than the Ganders and such.

    ok I feel a little better.

    Sorry for the:sign0101:
     

    iratollah

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    May 25, 2008
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    I don't understand how Gander Mountain stays in business. Their gun and accessory prices are the highest around. No real bargains on anything else in the store unless you find it on super duper double final clearance.
     

    JKTex

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    Mar 11, 2008
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    I don't even think about big box stores for gun buys. But pricing is what it is.

    We could ask our new leadership to work on fixing prices so that everyone sells everything for the same price?
     

    chevydeerhunter

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    Feb 23, 2008
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    Gander is way overpriced. The last and only thing I ever bought there was ammo and that was because I had a $20 coupon I got in the mail. The only advantage they have is their gun selection. Other than that, you may as well go to a gun shop to buy your arms.
     

    CJS3

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    Nov 30, 2008
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    I don't understand how Gander Mountain stays in business. Their gun and accessory prices are the highest around. No real bargains on anything else in the store unless you find it on super duper double final clearance.



    Gander Mtn has lay-a-way, Academy does not. I've never been in a Gander Mtn, in the firearms section, where at least two customers aren't filling out the forms for lay-a-way. If you can spread the pain, the higher prices don't hurt as bad.

     

    308nato

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    Between Tomball & Waller
    I boght a Mosin m44 carbine from Gander when they had them on sale
    for 99.00. I fugured by the time I payed for shipping from an on line
    dealer and then a ffl transfer the price I payed was worth it cause I
    did the paperwork, payed and took it home. I was also able to see what I was buying and had them unbox about 5 of them before I found the one I wanted.
     

    baboon

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    Out here by the lake!
    Knowing that Academy gave a wad of money to Hillary has not set well with me since reading it. I guess they figure she was les evil then Jugears. If you really know what you want find a guy with a FFL who will do the deal @ cost plus $20.00. Geez buying guns at retail unless they are getting out of it is just stupid.
     

    40Arpent

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    It's the free market system at work. You saved $100 by shopping around, kudos to you.



    To finish the story...The only one that Academy had was a display, and I don't care to buy guns that may have been handled much (especially now with those internal locks, and the morons behind the counter). I found out that Gander has a price-matching policy, so I printed the Academy info from their website, took it to Gander, done deal.
     

    willnorvell

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    Oct 28, 2008
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    Gander prices are pretty lame. I was in a Gander store the other day looking at a pistol, and told the sales kid that the price was too high. His response was "I know, it's WAY too high!".
     

    navyguy

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    Oct 22, 2008
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    You saved a $100 because you knew what you wanted knew about what it should cost and didn't buy on impulse. Places like Gander with higher prices depend on the uninformed comiing it. (which really pissis me off)
     

    brickboy240

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    May 19, 2008
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    The only reason places like Gander Mtn stay around, is because many gun owners are lazy or impulse buyers and will just walk in and pay their high prices and never shop around one bit.

    It is never my M.O. to just go into any store and blindly pay their price on anything of value...but apparently people like me are in the minority. This also explains the economic mess the country is in and why we have the mortgage and credit crunch we have today.

    As long as people buy guns and accessories at their crazy prices...these scalpers will stay in biz. Ditto for the crazy prices you're seeing on ARs and AKs these days - as long as some pinheads pay 800 bucks for a ratty AK...we will see them priced this high.

    As a rule...I don't buy from places like Gander and other smaller Houston shops that have crazy prices (and God knows...there are many).

    Theres always some place cheaper than many local shops. Yes, its a bit more hassle to order online or transfer...but when you're saving 100 bucks or more...hey...I think its worth it.

    Being an impulsive gun buyer is not good unless your last name is Gates or Rockefeller.

    Don't complain about the high prices...they're not ripping you off unless you BUY from them. Gander can price their 9mm ammo at 50 bucks a box of 50 all day long if they want....I won't buy it!

    - brickboy240
     

    TxPhantom

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    Academy usually does have the best prices on firearms, the trick is, do they actually have the gun you are looking for? Their selection is pretty limited and you can bet, if you go back six months from now, they will have approximately the same selection. Variety is not their spice of life and they will not order a gun for you. We have bought several guns from them at decent prices to include a S & W 442, a S & W 642, a Sigma SW9VE, a Bresa Thunder 380, a Marlin, Model 60, 22 rifle (for my son), a Taurus PT22 (still don't know why we bought it, maybe as a BUBUG?), and a 9mm Baby Desert Eagle.
    I have gotten pretty competitively priced gun purchases at The Bullet Trap in Plano, even when they had to order it. I bought my MP 9c ($499.00 right after they came on the market), a nickel CZ 75B (they had to order it, for about $450.00), a S.A. Micro Compact 1911 (on sale for around $850.00). I like The Bullet Trap and the people that run it.
     
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