Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What does your LGS look like right now?

Stopped into a tiny local shop last night to buy a few boxes of 20 ga. sabot slugs for my wife's Rem. 870. After phone calls to the other local shops and a lengthy internet search, this shop seems to be the last place on the planet with 20 ga. slugs!
Shop was only allowing four customers in at a time, with a long line waiting outside. Handgun case was sparse, but a new shipment was waiting to be unpacked. Adequate supply of long guns in the racks. Big sign in the window, "No 9mm".

Most of what people wanted while I was there was ammo.
Federal 115 gr - $45/box of 50. .380 was more. Guess it's harder to find.

A young professionally dressed girl/lady came in to pick up a handgun. But, she didn't realize there was a 5 day wait, since she didn't have her ccw permit.

Young black guy came in to pick up an AR lower, but his background check had bombed.

The one where I worked since '08 until a self destructive new owner took over a year ago had about a dozen mixed handguns (No Glocks, our big seller), a few Kimbers (master dealer) and a half dozen long guns, mostly reproduction muzzle loaders, a bubba'd Krag, an 1873 Trapdoor, and a used 870 way overpriced at $600. No components, maybe fifteen boxes of ammo and not much desire to do much of anything. Sad to see what the original owners worked so hard to build fall victim to the pandemic, Illinois bureaucracy and a n uninterested new owner. Two other shops closed thanks to Illinois' new double dealer licensing and regulatory laws.

Bbassi: I was in mine twice yesterday and it was literally WIPED OUT! The reason I went twice was because I got a brain storm midday went back and bought the VarmintSon a complete 9m/m pistol cleaning kit.
No black guns only 6 semi-auto pistols on the glass shelves where there traditionally has been 60 to 70 of them!
A few guns on consignment and the many ammunition shelves are wiped virtually clean!
Earlier this week the owner told me he had not had an ammunition shipment in over 3 months!
Normally he gets one to two a week.
Seems some of his disgruntled customers accost him - I told him to tell those fools they should have learned from past shortages and to be MORE careful who they allow to be voted into political office!
I don't see 'this" ending any time soon.
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Unfortunately my dunhams IS the local gunshop in town. Thankfully there are "real" gunships a half hour away.

Wiped out and jacked up prices at those places. Dunhams left prices alone but that doesn't matter if i can't get enough stuff in to sell.

Mjbgalt: That is commendable and good news that the Dunhams shop was not "gouging".
I smiled at your reference to the other shops being "30 minutes" away though!
I have to cross the continental divide and drive 70 miles north to the next nearest gunshop outside my tiny hometown here in SW Montana!
Then I often travel 3 hours going over four mountain passes and crossing the continental divide west of me to visit the gunshops in that area.
Travelling east I can get to one of my favorite gunshops in only 75 miles and one mountain pass (two hours in GOOD weather).
On rare occasion I head south 155 miles south crossing the continental divide and entering Idaho heading for the gunshops in Idaho Falls 2 1/2 hours (in good weather - the Monida Pass into Idaho is on occasion closed in winter!) but the liberals in Idaho invoked a sales tax so I only rarely buy from retail outlets there opting to frequent the gunshows there (tax free sales!).
A few key factors in chasin guns and ammo in remote SW Montana are having a HIGH mileage car, patience and good weather!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Just like it has forever. Rack full of Ruger American, and Savage Axis rifles. Full retail plus about 50 percent. Blue box ammo in every popular chambering for $35 a box. They do take a lot of consignment reloading supplies and components on consignment though. Prices are good on that. Bought 200 pieces of “once fired” 22-250 brass for $20.

I don't know... I refuse to wait in a freaking line here in So Cal...

Big box stores empty. Small mom and pop shops still have stuff on the shelves.

Empty!

The one in town here is closed due to lack of anything left to sell. He will still take calls to do transfers by appointment.

It looks like the toilet paper aisle at the Walmart.