Guess y'all can tell where I'm from...
Sportsman's Warehouse: Lots of boxes of odd-ball ammo sizes as of Friday. Not much left in common calibers. Some containers of really really cheap stuff, but even that was selling. Stuff I wouldn't put through my guns without a thorough cleaning and feeling dirty afterward. Haha.
WalMart: Wiped out last Thursday other than some .40 and 22 Mag and some of the more expensive home defense rounds. Haven't really restocked. Just wiped out. Different one other than mine profiled a buddy's 22 year old kid who wanted his first Remington 870 and was trying to talk him out of it when my Wyoming-raised friend walked up from elsewhere in the store and gave the clerk a little "chat" and explained his kid as been shooting most of his life, holds a number of trophies, and about how ridiculous she's making herself out to be. His kid is too modest to say any of it.
LGS: A zoo on weekends. 20-30 people milling about, gun counter, every salesperson on deck. Never less than five or six in the store even late at night.
Range time booked at least three to five days out by members (non-members can only book a day in advance) weekends booked for two weeks out. There's openings but its a chore and you'd better look a week before you want to shoot and schedule.
They went from fully loaded gun display cases to half full ones, then rebounded and have managed to somehow keep up on handguns. Long guns, the ARs and anything that held a magazine was gone in a week. Only long guns left on the wall are shotguns and a few 22LRs. The shotguns that are left are of the higher end variety, price-wise.
The usual hard to find handguns are still hard to find, but common guns are there. Downside is, everything is MSRP, or close, but they've always been like that. They do seem to be getting daily shipments, and what's in them is hit or miss. (I walked in a couple nights ago and they'd received two Springfield XDS in which was on my "interested" personal list to buy, so I filled out paperwork and prepared to wait, chuckling with the counter guys about the insanity. More on paperwork below.)
Their stock of ammo went fast in common handgun loads and .223 is gone, but they've managed to restock at least cheap handgun stuff. UMC in 45 Auto, some Federal, and American Eagle stuff plus the overpriced home defense rounds (they've always had high prices on that stuff). Was a new pile four feet high of 9mm tonight. I forget the brand, wasn't anything to write home about. They'll also sell their cheap white box stuff that they require be used in the rental guns, which is fairly dirty and I've had four FTFs in GLOCKs with it. Not exactly reliable stuff. But if you NEEDED ammo, you can find it. Not great prices but not drop pants and bend over prices either.
Paperwork: Tuesday pre-Christmas I sauntered into Sportsman's Warehouse on a whim to pick up a cheapie 22LR rifle. I haven't shot one in years and my wife has a new interest in shooting so it was time to reintroduce a 22LR rifle to the house. I hadn't seen the hysteria or nut-house stuff in person yet at that point. Just there to pick up a little Marlin Model 60, I watched the madness, five wide and three deep at the gun counter.
Paperwork in, I was told Instacheck was backed up an unknown amount of time, likely days, and there were approximately 4000 ahead of me. No problem at all, I'll just wait for the phone call and stop in once it's done. Phone call came Friday mid-day, and a quick chat with the girl who called -- she shared that Instacheck was worse now, and they'd put her in the back room full-time to handle notification calls as soon as the printer kicked out a new one. Wow.
Picking up the rifle, I watched a guy point at a "tactical looking" .22LR semi-auto of unknown make and say, "I want that. Don't care the price tag. I also want this drum magazine for a shotgun in the case here and I don't even care what shotgun it's for." Yep. Full-scale nut-house at this point. Sales guy shares a knowing look and smiles carefully at an eye roll from me... as he hands me the Marlin and rings up some other items. He shares Instacheck is now at 9600 backlog and climbing. Other sales guy tells Mr. "I want everything tactical or that holds a bunch of rounds he's looking at a four to five day wait. He says, fine.
Then this week I just happen to run into that little XDS at the LGS so I ask them how Instacheck is going. They give me a look of sorrow as if bad news is coming, but I cut them off quickly and tell them I know, and laugh a bit. The guy shared that there is a "estimated wait" counter on Colorado's web-based system that had been pegged at 99 hours for three days. The software wasn't designed to go higher. Backlog count (remember they're plowing through tons a day as this number is going up, and a friend says they've pulled staff from all over the place), close to 11,000.
Tonight was at LGS for a different reason (someone else I know was buying a pistol) and the backlog was still amazingly below 11,000, but new software was installed and number of days is now included in the time estimate. 5 days, 6 hours. Actually it was 6.2 and that made the counter folks laugh... and me...
Software showing ".2" of an hour in an estimate when you're measuring in days is silly.
We chatted a bit about what the traveling gun show folks will do this coming weekend... And what a complete mad-house that thing will probably be. No way they can do Instacheck. LGS has piles and piles of guns in cases with paperwork sitting on top of them, awaiting approvals. Not sure how the gun show folks will deal with that.
We also both agreed we don't want to be anywhere near the place. Going to be a lot of people paying a lot of money, that's for sure.
So... That's the news from here. LGSs seem to be restocking popular handguns, long guns are wiped out, ammo is hit or miss, and better at LGS than Wally World or Sportsman's. Haven't been to Cabela's, can't comment on them.
