Wal Mart Guns

[Chaney101]

I hear that Wally World guns are massed produced to keep cost down and the quality is not that of a dealer. Does anyone have any input or experiance in this matter.

By the way guys I am looking at a model 70 270 WSM vs. Browning A bolt Medalion 270 WSM. Any input here would be great. Thanks.

[Hawkeye6]

Think about it.

[Nulle]

Don't know about that ? I would think Remington - Savage - ect are just what is marked on the gun and doubt if there is a seperate little factory putting out junk guns and having name brands on them.
Volume is the key in the lower prices if there is one.

[RUMLUVER]

Wal-Mart keeps cost down by purchasing in enormous volume. I don't think any firearms manufactures are producing guns any faster or chearper just for Wal-Mart. Point being I think most major manufactures have gone as fast and cheap as they can with most models I shudder to think they would go any lower.

[skeet]

Not hardly. The guns that Wally World sells are in many cases the lower priced models from the major manufacturers. They don't HAVE to make them any cheaper..they are already cheaply made anyway. In the past some companies such as Sears and Montgomery Wards had guns made especially for them to their specs. They WERE made a little cheaper!

[M.T. Pockets]

I have absolutely no idea that Walmart has any type of agreement with any firearms manufacturer. I agree with the statement that the lower end guns are already made as cheap as possible and there is no room to make them any cheaper.

That said, I visited with a fishing tackle rep. who told me that Walmart did strike a deal with the company he worked for (a major tackle manufacturer). They cut a few corners to make their tackle a bit cheaper, e.g. one coat of paint on a jig head instead of two. These were made and sold specifically for Walmart. This is second hand so take it for what it is worth. I have learned that often times things are cheaper for a reason.

[skeet]

To give y'all an idea about the way one company is working their sales... A major manufacturer fired one of their VP's because he wasn't following the company line. They had decided that they were going to cozy up to the marts in the country to sell most of their products. He was the VP that was in charge of wholesale distributor sales to gun shops distributors in the normal gun trade and also gun club sales. So now their big push is to Wally World K mart and places like Dick's Sporting Goods and Cabela's. They even did away with most of their product Reps(who sold most of the stuff to Distributors etc). In fact..the Company no longer sells clay targets to gun clubs or distributors...but you can find their product at Cabela's and Bass Pro..among others. Sigh..I guess it is the way of the world....but it makes for higher prices...and less profit for the company itself. BUt they are owned by a holding company anyway...Just a way to bankrupt a company and make it look legitimate.

[tooldummy]

I don't know. A friend of mine bought a new gun the other day and the guy he bought it from is also a gunsmith and swears there is a big difference between a dealer gun and a Wal-Mart gun. Another forum I visit had this same post on it and they swear they are the same guns. Either way, I just don't like buying guns from Wal-Mart. I don't like being treated like a criminal for wanting to do business with them.

[skeet]

Hey Tooldummy,
Been doing this for a lot of years. Now think...in who's best interests is the gunsmith thinking. Most smiths sell guns ..or have close ties with gun shops so of course the dealer guns are "better made". Not! The way Walmart works their acquisition of stock, is in the business world, draconian..but sometimes they are the only game in town when you need to make a profit on inventory that may be languishing in the warehouses. The way WW works is they buy a large amount of goods at a set price...then in the contract there is a clause that states if they don't sell a very large percentage of the goods in a set period of time they will receive percentages back in the form of cash discounts..That is how they keep lowering prices on so many articles...to the loss of the manufacturer...not them. Good business sense for them...bad for the supplier for certain! But they have a very large order base. More than one company has gone out of business because of dealing with retailers like this.

[tooldummy]

Oh no, don't get me wrong Skeet. When my friend was telling me this, that's the same thing I told him. I don't think that's true at all. But he offered to do a side by side comparrison of a Remington 870 for him. I'm going to go up and look his shop over, and I think I will just let him show me. I've in the past bought guns from Wal-Mart and dealers and couldn't tell any difference, and truthfully don't think there is.
I just don't like buying guns at Wal-Mart, or K-mart, or any other Mart. I don't like the way K-Mart buckled to the anti-gunners a few years back with handguns and handgun ammo. My feeling is they are driving the small gun shops out of business and then, when they buckle to the anti-gun crowd and stop selling guns, where are gun customers going to go then? I also don't like being escorted not only from the store, but completely out through the parking lot to my vehicle. I know it's only for safety, blah blah blah, but I don't like it.
I understand their buying in volume discounts and all that. I had a small engine repair shop. Wal-Mart sells mowers cheaper than I could buy engines.

[wrenchman]

it is seen a lot in in many industrys its called a bulk purchase when you buy truck loads of guns even if they are bottom line like a express 870 you could get them cheeper

[fabsroman]

I think you will find that the guns are the same in quality as long as you are comparing the exact same model of gun. Now, if you want a quality gun, I wouldn't look at Wal-Mart too hard because they just do not carry the quality merchandise (i.e., the carry the entry level stuff). Personally, I wouldn't buy a gun from Wal-Mart of K-Mart, but if those stores help a couple of people get into the hunting/shooting sports each year, then I am all for it.

As far as escorting you out of the store, I think that is completely stupid. If you really wanted to rob the store or kill somebody in it, what would prevent you from going out to the car, loading the gun, and walking right back in? NOTHING. Most people are smart enough to know that a 12 ga. shotgun will take 12 ga. shells, so they could stop at K-Mart on their way to Wal-Mart, pick up a couple of boxes of buckshot, buy a Remington 870 at Wal-Mart, go out to the car, load the gun up, and blast away in Wal-Mart. If they don't get caught, they could stop back at K-Mart on the way home and start blasting there too. Being escorted out of the place would irritate me, but I can understand if they escort you to the register because that gun is a high ticket item in those stores. Kind of like when I buy computer memory at Best Buy and they escort me from the sales floor to the cash register and hand the memory to the cashier. The couple of shop lifters out there make it bad for the rest of us.

[denny]

Several manufacturers do make products exclusively for sale at WalMart: Winchester makes a version of the synthetic-stocked M70; Remington laminated M700 ADLs; Weatherby Vanguards, are just a few that come to mind.

A Rem. M700BDL at WalMart is the same rifle you can buy anywhere else, same for most other popular rifles. Your local gunshop buys their rifles from a wholesale distributor. WalMart, KMart and most of the other chains buy theirs in great quantities, so they're getting theirs at a lower unit cost than the local guy that has to deal with a middleman.

Not hard to figure out, really. The big chains buy tens of thousands of a particular model per year. Your local shop buys a fraction of that, as does his distributor. WalMart often sells things like the Mossberg 500 for less than the local dealer has to pay wholesale for them. Such is the nature of marketing.

[skeet]

Quoting denny...Such is the nature of marketing.... It really is a terrible way for a company to stay in business. At one time the price of guns was very well controlled by the manufacturer. Brownig guns were sold almost exclusively at retail. Remington and Wichester may have been discounted but not much. Those days are gone though. After being in the gun business for a whole lot of years..I learned how to compete with the Marts. I sold the guns they sold so few of. I got out of the entry level gun sales and got into the better grades. In fact I even got into high grade and collectibles. Still sold some of the entry guns...but mostly to people who wanted the expertise of the gun trade. Not the guy in the Mart who says he really doesn't know about the gun. The small gun shop is going the way of the buffalo but not because of a lack of demand. Go to Cabela's...You have to take a number to look at a gun there. so the demand is there. A real shame. Hate to see the small shop going away

[fabsroman]

What makes it really tough for the small shop is the cost of inventory. If they are going to carve out a niche market (i.e., collector and high end guns) to compete with Wal-Mart and K-Mart, they have to invest a ton of money in inventory to have something for the customer to look at. I know I would want to look at a gun before I dropped 10K on it, or for that matter, 20K. If the small shop were to have 20 guns that cost them 5K a piece, that would be $100K in inventory. Financing $100K in inventory would cost them several thousands of dollars a year, and that is only if they stocked 20 guns. Imagine if they stock a bunch of guns and some of the real high end guns. Of course, I am assuming that the wholesalers aren't letting them have the guns without paying for them up front.

When I am in Wal-Mart, about the only thing I look for is gun cleaning supplies and ear plugs. I have looked at the gun racks every once in a while just to see what they are carrying, but I doubt they would ever carry anything I am interested in other than a Ruger 10/22. Then again, if you go to Wal-Mart's website, I seem to remember that you can order some of the nicer guns on its website.

Just checked out Wal-Mart's special order gun portion of its website and it appears that you can order almost every semi auto shotgun from Browning, Remington, Mossberg, and Winchester. They also have o/u's on the site from Winchester and Remington and I believe Charles Daily. They have bolt action rifles on the site from Browning and Remington, including the Browning A-Bolt and the Remington 700 BDL. From the looks of it, they had plenty of rifles for sale in the special order department. For some reason, I remember talking about this before on this chatboard.