Got on GI looking at 99s yesterday and found a nice 300 savage referred to as a 99F no. 100557367..I was mildly interested and the price seemed fair enough..looked at the pictures and this 1950s gun had a schnable forend as opposed to to the correct blunt forend. So I email "bil" at Cabellas in MOntana and so advised him...

Reply was take a look at the second picture that says 99F...well that's the right side of the rifle and not where the designation should be, so looked at pics no. 4 where it should be and as far as I can tell it only stated 99 or the left side receiver ring..but suggested to them that if it states 99F that's fine but the forend is not correct..So I didn't buy the gun.

Bottom line is why not hire salesmen that know what they are selling..I see this a lot in gun stores these days, salesman that act like experts and tell you whatever comes to mind. Don't know how many times I have been told so and so doesn't make scope mounts for such and such gun when I know they do, been told to shoot 220 gr. bullet in the 30-06 to give me more range, that the 30-30 is a poor deer killer, and I needed a 300 RUM. I wish Id kept track of the things Ive been told..Maybe the stores don't pay enough, who knows

Anyway, misrepresentation of a gun is over the top especially when you have been advised and all you have to do is look it up in the book.

What say you? some of these events are always worth a laugh.

Maybe it's analogous with Henry Ford and casting the V8 motor: better to have someone selling the guns you want to push who does not know if they are crap, whereby he can't accidentally show distain.

Yup, every now and again I see guns on websites and in stores that aren't what they are advertised to be. This can sometimes work in your favor though. Nothing better then having some gunshop "expert" tell me that I don't want that piece of crap when in reality he doesn't even know what he has.

Ray, the fact the guy was a Cabelas gun department employee speaks volumes.

It has been written here many times. Cabelas gun salesmen are worthless. Many times I can go to a Cabelas pick up a used gun on the rack and walk over to the new guns and find the exact same gun for 10-14% less.

I was at the Cabelas near Fort Lewis, Washington. I saw a gun I wanted, asked the salesmen if they would take half, and he got pissy walked into the back and came out (was even more pissy) and said they would. I was told later by someone that used to work there they will usually sell a rifle if they made a certain profit. A guess to us the consumers on what that number is.

They do not like to keep inventory hanging out on the shelves.

Think about this, there is right now a Cabelas gun guy looking at his buddy saying, "this joker on the phone is so full of crap", "He'strying to tell me what type of forearm our rifle should have". "Why won't these people just learn to ask a question and quit arguing with us".

Cabelas in Anchorage told me vintage English doubles have little value and there is no interest in them.

I've never been a fan of Cabelas. Yes, the two brothers lived the American dream but in doing so they put thousands of Americans out of work while putting to work countless thousands of Chinese. If they removed everything in their catalog that was "imported" they could print the new catalog on a dinner napkin.
Cal

Really expect a salesman of today to know about small details, any detail for that matter on 1950's stuff?

quote:

Originally posted by carpetman1:
Really expect a salesman of today to know about small details, any detail for that matter on 1950's stuff?

I do not. I do expect them (the fine gun room bubbas) to have at least some what of a clue on a variety of things.

Things I have heard there:

1. These Husqvarna M46 imported rifles are really rare, that is why we think this one in a caliber the salesman had never heard of was $850 (it was an 8mm mauser).

2. I'll give you $300 for your m700, but I'll give you $850 for the scope on it. It was a 700 ADL which is fair, but the scope was a Vari-X 1. It was very new looking.

The best was a Purdey or some other English bolt rifle that was built on a push feed m70. I was making fun of the rifle for being built on such a shit action. It was a 375. The "fine" gun room idiot told me I didn't know anything. The bluing had gone purple, and had a set of non-color match Talleys on it. True shit for the princely sum of $15,000.

In all fairness to Cabelas, the stand behind their merchandise and treat the customer very well indeed..Returns come without question..

Apparantly its hard to hire informed folks in the Sporting goods, especially in the gun dept. as I have noticed that Sportsmans Whse, Bass Pro shop, is no better in the gun dept...What comes to mind every time I walk in one of these stores is "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". May be the pay scale wherein hiring knowledged salesmen is too expensive??...but in some cases you can find one guy that knows his business so get him located and don't deal with the kooks..

Years ago I applied for a job in a sporting goods store gun dept.I didn't get it , they wanted someone with sales experience. Some time later I went there and observed the new man - who couldn't explain the da/sa handgun mechanism to a potential customer !!
Sales Experience Only !

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:I've never been a fan of Cabelas. Yes, the two brothers lived the American dream but in doing so they put thousands of Americans out of work while putting to work countless thousands of Chinese. If they removed everything in their catalog that was "imported" they could print the new catalog on a dinner napkin.
Cal

That is not the fault of the brothers Cabela. That is the fault of our government who has systematically legislated our business sector out from being a manufacturing one to a service based one as we are now.

A prime example of this is an interview I saw with the CEO of Intel some years ago. They had just opened a semi-conductor factory in India. The interviewer asked him why they didn't open one in the U.S. The CEO replied, "Because it would cost us one billion dollars a year more to operate in the U.S. than it does in India. Only 10% of that billion dollars is due to the higher cost of American labor. The rest is to comply with all the regulations."

Back to the topic of retail sales people, I don't expect them to have intimate knowledge of products. I used to work at a retail store called Shopko when I was in high school. I tried my best to help the customers but there is no way I could be familiar with all the products.

NO, but if your going to work in the "Gun Dept." you should have a good basic background of hunting, self defense, and shooting in general,including hand loading..and if you don't know the answer to a customers question refer them to a salesman that does. and therein lies the problem.

quote:

If they removed everything in their catalog that was "imported" they could print the new catalog on a dinner napkin.Cal

Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Macys, HP, Dell, Apple, yada, yada, yada .... would all be in the same boat.

If you're a schlock merchant, you're a Chi-Com outlet store.

well the issue is that they pay what? 8-9 bucks an hour?

we could go work there and be a big help in their knowledge base.
or we could stay where we are and make $80,000 a year.

I'd have to do some research on the F designation of the rifle in question.
but I could go into detail about the progressive burn characteristics of RL-17 for about 20 minutes.

or describe in detail how antimony in a lead alloy affects the malleability when it is air cooled with no tin in the alloy, versus one that contains .25% tin, or one that contains 1% tin.
then start the whole diatribe over again discussing the details of different soak temperatures before quench cooling that same alloy and it's affects on bhn.
and how long that will take before the final hardness is reached.
that should only take a good 45 minutes.

I could also go on for at least another 15 minutes about how that same alloy affects the bullet inside a game animal or how the jacket has a progressively thicker area, and the anneal [or composition of the jacket material itself] affects terminal performance versus the amount of lead exposed at the tip affecting expansion speed.
how many questions a day do you think the average cabelas store clerk gets about that?

or I could just point to the nosler/win/rem/tula ammo and say "it's over there".
and go back to putting shotgun shells on the shelf.

Lamar,

Very much the reason I only shop at one gun shop in CT anymore. Can't stand going to the gun counter at a big box (Cabelas or Bass Pro), or even some of our larger gun only shops (Hoffmans) and talking to someone who thinks you need a Mossberg 590 with a 9 round magazine in order to shoot trap or upland. Need to gear up like a mall ninja for Black Friday, they gotcha covered. Want a hunting rifle in anything other than 270 or 30-06, you're SOL.

I'd much rather spend a little more for the same product from a smaller shop with KNOWLEDGEABLE staff.

What is GI?

Guns ?

I searched for no. 100557367 and found nothing.

How to search??

Guns International.

This thread makes me think about going into a parts store and getting parts for my car.
The salespeople seem to have just walked in off the street. They know very little about cars.
Leo

Must be a thing with big box stores. A year or so ago, when I was looking for a 7mm-08, I visited a local sporting good store (won't mention which one) and asked to look at one. The young sales guy said they had one in stock and promptly brought me a 7mm Rem Mag. I immediately handed it back to him and said it is a 7mm Rem Mag. and not a '08. He said they were the same. Not wanting to argue with him, I asked him to bring me a box of 7mm-08 and 7mm Rem Mag ammo which he happily did. I pulled one bullet out of each box and said, "not the same" and thanked him for his help.

I think most retailers have all the data on the computer so all the person has to do is look in the right spot and it will all be spelled out for them. That way they can hire any fool that walks in. One problem though, fools are too ingenious .

Americans are getting everything we deserve! It started with the garment industry, went to the auto and electronics industry, then spread very rapidly to just about everything else. Here is how it got started....Joe was tied of paying 12.00 for a high quality dress shirt, so George the merchandiser looked for options to keep Joe as a regular customer. He found that option by ordering his dress shirts from Sam, an import distributor who saw an opportunity to drum up addition business so he in turn found a garment manufacturer in Taiwan. Now George can sell Joe a new dress shirt for 8.00 and both are happy...even though Joe is getting a substandard shirt that instead of lasting two years now only lasts 6 months. George and Sam are just as happy because George gets to keep his customer and Sam expanded his import business to now include clothing. Over time, the American garment worker lose their jobs, Taiwan and China have more jobs, the American store owners make more profit and the importer looks at "what else" he can HELP the Americans out of...and that is where we are today. SO, where did it all start? It started with the American consumer wanting to pay less for goods and NOW all we have in America ARE services....and even those are recently being "off-shored" for exactly the same reasons. Now you want the sales person(remember..they are now SERVICE providers)who is making less than 10.00/hr to be a subject matter expert? Really? So you see folks..we as Americans are getting exactly what we wanted and deserve. BTW, my lady happened to be one of those 2 million garment workers making decent wages for the times that were replaced by cheap labor and even cheaper materials that you all wanted. Maybe you should drop a note off in the complaint box so the janitor can respond. Good Luck people...you are going to need it!

Believe me..it is not the 20 or 25 year old salesperson that is the dumbass. They inherited the bad decisions their previous generation is leaving them.

Seriously? One expects a 25 year old minimum wage employee to know as much as guys who grew up with all these myriad variations of guns? Won't ever happen. Whenever a gun store employee asks me if I have any questions, I ask back, "No, do you?"
It is up to the buyer to beware, and know, in this era of consumerism. Walk into a computer store and the roles are quickly reversed.
The answer is, yes, you expect it, but you will never get it.

True, but one has the expectation to hope if the salesman is void of the subject that he would admit it and refer you to another sales person as opposed to telling you they don't have what your looking for in stock, when your looking right at it and when you say so, the guy disputes it and you have to walk around the store awhile then comeback and buy it from another salesman..Just seems like one should be at least basically qualified to his job...

But what the hell, didn't think this post was going to go this far!! I guess I should have added, I got over it!

I was a technical salesperson for more than 30 years. To be successful, you have to be totally involved in the product. That means interfacing with factory people, reading and understanding all available technical information, and using the product to build familiarity with it.

You also have to understand the customer and his requirements. That means that sales is often times more listening than it is talking. Simply put, people only interested in pushing product don't take the time to listen to the customer.

A real gun loony would last about a week working for Cabelas particularly if working behind the counter.

quote:

Originally posted by 44magLeo:
This thread makes me think about going into a parts store and getting parts for my car.
The salespeople seem to have just walked in off the street. They know very little about cars.
Leo

I heard that!!! I used to have a 67 Riviera with the 465 wildcat engine... every time I needed a part, the guy in the parts stores would give me parts for the 455 which didn't fit, and argue with me that i didn't know what i was talking about.. I used to bring in the air cleaner cover with me that had the engine designation on it to avoid the B/S arguments.

If I'm not mistaken and I probably am , I think the engine you describe was actually a 425 with the torque rating of 465 that was illustrated on the air cleaner cover.

Well Ray, you're not alone.
Here, in Australia, we have the exact same issue, but, to add insult to injury, the customer is ALWAYS wrong, even when the facts are proven to be correct.
A certain distributor of Blaser rifles here, tells every customer that the straight pull design of the bolt is FASTER to operate than a lever rifle.
I got the spiel one day while looking for a particular calibre, the only rifle available was a $15,000 Blaser.
After I patiently listened to their sales waffle, I asked "How is a straight pull bolt faster than a lever when with a lever, the hand doesn't require moving from the trigger guard and only a swift down and up motion is required?"
I said, "isn't it true that with the Blaser you need to remove your hand from the pistol grip, grab the bolt handle and pull rearward and then forward to achieve a locked and loaded gun?"
His response was yes, but, it could be done FASTER than the lever with PRACTICE.
Absolute HORSE SHIT.
Salesman here will blatantly lie to your face, just to get you to buy the high end gear, and it's not only gunshops, it's everywhere.

Cheers.

I think a book about dumb gunshop salesman stories would be longer than dumb blond jokes.

I could write a chapter myself, but one of the best was when I found a pristine pre-64 M-70 Winchester sitting in a gun rack full of well used M-70's. It was wearing an equally like new Lyman American scope and priced at $300, while the beat up ones started at over $1000.
I asked why it was so much cheaper and was told that "the newer models aren't as in demand so don't bring as much"
So I made him a lower offer and took it off his hands.

quote:

Originally posted by 458Win:
I think a book about dumb gunshop salesman stories would be longer than dumb blond jokes.

I could write a chapter myself, but one of the best was when I found a pristine pre-64 M-70 Winchester sitting in a gun rack full of well used M-70's. It was wearing an equally like new Lyman American scope and priced at $300, while the beat up ones started at over $1000.
I asked why it was so much cheaper and was told that "the newer models aren't as in demand so don't bring as much"
So I made him a lower offer and took it off his hands.

Good story.....

That must make your .458 Mauser REALLY valuable!

We grew up with the salesmen in the gunshops generally gun nuts themselves. People had options and the gunshop was usually a choice, not an act of employment desparation.

These days the salespeople are just chasing a sales target. They would probably sell TVs or anything else for that matter.

The largest dealer here is a dominant force and has hurt some mom and pop and owner operated stores. They have acquired agencies which other sellers had due to their size and initial industry stocking orders but have offered no service or advice worth hearing to market the product. Aside from a handful of staff members nationally who are possibly the best in their fields the remainder are pretty clueless.

Sales are everything. I recently purchased a rifle and the salesman, who was pleasant and helpful, announced proudly that he too would purchase a firearm of his own soon. I felt sorry for him. It's frightening that he is advising some people yet it is clear that he has limited knowledge and poor if any training. He is nou doubt being poorly paid and has unrealistic sales targets foisted on him.

It's sad as our industry lost a lot of talent on the sales counters. In a hunting country like ours with a longstanding and proud tradition of firearm ownership we have descended to salespeople who probably learnt more about shooting from a computer game or paintball marker than a firearm... Fortunately they can also learn from the internet!

It is not just the young guys I had guy in his 50s talk down a 470 double I was looking at.

Because he thought it wasn't what I was looking for.

it doesn't seem possible to hire anyone today that knows what they are doing and wants to work, unless you need somebody to talk on their cellphone, knows 10,000 computer games, and works 2 hrs a day

Another thought on why salesmen might not put you straight, even if they know the answer:

Have you ever asked an antique dealer what period some piece of stock is? I have found a reluctance by these guys to be too prescriptive, as well. Maybe some don't know the answer but I suspect more think the customer should be allowed to think it is whatever he wants it to be, increasing the chance of a sale.

No experts at minimum wage.
Years ago I was in a gun store in TX. A gentleman walked in to sell a Dakota Model 10. Salesman asked if it was a Ruger No. 1. I ended up with that Dakota. The gentleman was John Wooters.