Stopped by our new Academy Sports store for its grand opening and made my way to the hunting section. One row held all of the factory ammo, scope mounting hardware,and gun cleaning supplies. The fact that they only stocked std Leupold bases, see-thru rings, and Millet's did not bode well. Standing in that row and listening to folk's conversations for 10 minutes was about all I could handle. It wasn't the people who didn't know what they were looking at, it was the people who thought they knew what they were looking at. I did tell one nice older lady that was looking for "core-somethings in a 7mm Magnum" that the 7mm Mauser loads in her hand would not work. Her husband put them back on the shelf and grabbed a box of 7mm-08. The two thirty-something year old guys who were trying to outfit themselves to go duck-hunting were even worse. They knew that they needed extended Full choke tubes to really kill the ducks, but they didn't even stop to check what gun they fit. One of those guys wanted to shoot 2 3/4" shells instead of 3" because he could fit five in his automatic.
I felt sorry for those poor guys working in that department, but oddly enough, very few people were asking them questions. Who's to say that they could steer them in the right direction anyway? (grin)
I felt sorry for those poor guys working in that department, but oddly enough, very few people were asking them questions. Who's to say that they could steer them in the right direction anyway? (grin)