TargetTalk

Christopher Miceli wrote:

ChipEck wrote:One quick example. At Perry last year my Pardini acted. Up. Took it to PardiniUSA which was on vendor row. They fixed it overnight. No charge because I had bought it from them.

Chip

I would hope they would of worked on it even if you got it used, unless they were there only for sales and not to support shooters using their gear.

Not for free.

I see what you're getting at. No, we're not talking about free warranty services for people who purchase a firearm from that location. That's a perfectly reasonable incentive to offer (maybe not $500-$600 more, but in concept certainly reasonable).

My serious issue (I can't speak for others) was with the concept of a repairman who maintains two price lists: one for customers that purchase his guns and a secret, more expensive one for people who do not. In a real world scenario, these two lists would lead to conflicts between servicing a pistol properly and running a business, and would sure as hell not make me comfortable with that repair shop if I knew about it.

I'm a small business owner. I would never begrudge an owner earned profits. I would be quite angry with places that attempt to screw me with tactics like this. While that's never happened to me in the pistol world, people have attempted this type of crap on me plenty of times in local service shops (I look nice, so they think I'm a soft target. They learn different real quick!).

ChipEck wrote:Not for free.

Has anybody asked anyone to do anything for free?

On the flipside, if I as a Canadian go down to the US with a Pardini, will PardiniUSA fix a pistol that was bought from Pardini Canada?

What kind of support would we expect from Pardini international if we were to go to an international competition?

For the sake of the brand, issues of who sells to whom and how the factory covers the costs associated with warranty work are all issues that should be worked out between the factory and the distributors.

At worst, a customer should be treated fairly and politely. Not given a ridiculous estimate and told to piss off if they don't like it.

All I can tell you is after he fixed it I asked how much and he said you already paid me by purchasing the pistol from him. On the two Pardini's I have it has their name and the year engraved on each one.

Chip

Chip, you bought a gun that had the seller's name engraved on it? I have never heard a vendor doing that. I would certainly never buy something like that.

"Chip, you bought a gun that had the seller's name engraved on it? I have never heard a vendor doing that. I would certainly never buy something like that."

Don Nygord's name is engraved on my Pardini K2S, and I am very proud of that fact, and "Larry's Guns" is engraved on my Pardini K22, and I have no problem with that, either.

gwsb wrote:Chip, you bought a gun that had the seller's name engraved on it? I have never heard a vendor doing that. I would certainly never buy something like that.

Not sure how you could get around that. I also have an AW-93 and it has Champion's Choice engraved in it. I also had one that I THINK had Larry's Guns (but I do not have that one anymore--it might have had a different importer's name on it).

Chip

gwsb wrote:Chip, you bought a gun that had the seller's name engraved on it? I have never heard a vendor doing that. I would certainly never buy something like that.

In the U.S., federal law requires an importer to put his name on imported guns. Nygord used to import Pardinis. Now Pardini USA does. Hammerlis probably have Larrys Guns on them somewhere.

True, but that doesn't apply to air guns since they are not classed as firearms under the Gun Control Act. That's why it's so easy to get one overseas. Or was...I'm not sure what today's executive action did to that. Discussions for another time.

I think they are engraved with the importers name which was nygard,Larry, and then pardiniusa,and I guess champschoice. Not sure if pardini USA is a distributor or if each seller is manufacture direct

All imported firearms to the U.S. must have the importers name stamped into the firearm somewhere.

It could say " Joe's Pizza Shop, town, state".
It is what it is :)
Some are in plain sight and some are inconspicuous.
But it has to be there by law.

Clarence

Chia wrote:True, but that doesn't apply to air guns since they are not classed as firearms under the Gun Control Act. That's why it's so easy to get one overseas. Or was...I'm not sure what today's executive action did to that. Discussions for another time.

I agree, I was speaking only of firearms. FWIW, my Steyr LP1 does not have Pilkington Equipment engraved on it anywhere. Maybe some importers just got in the habit of doing it even for their air guns.

My airguns are generally purchased barely used in the US for well under the price of a new gun from Europe. I buy my accessories, pellets, etc from US companies including Pilkington, Champions Choice and Champion Shooter Supply.

I have bought two new MAR177 uppers from Pilkington to use for Highpower Air rifle practice. A big part of that decision was that he designed the prototypes.

On the other hand if I were at a Match in Europe and could get and bring back a new air gun at a good price I probably would. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

First thanks to those who have defended our business.

Next are random thoughts not necessarily in any particular order.

What kind of upbringing does a person have to come on a bulletinboard paid for by me, and encourage people to buy from a cheaper source?

Krale, yep I’m familiar with them . In the spring of 2015, We cut air pistol prices by $100 in response to their influence. That was before the Euro famously dropped. In fact, I want to say that it rose significantly after that scaring me that I would have to raise the price above what it originally had been before it starting dropping again. Back into the normal range. And then last summer time, it started dropping again. **

WE currently are selling the EVO for the same price as that 2015 LP10 price even though the price from the factory is about 5% more than the LP10 was. That’s due to the Euro being lower.

I’ve honestly thought about buying from Krale direct, for some guns, because the reality is their out the door costs is about the same as my landed cost here per individual gun. Why is that you say? Basically they are buying in quantitys to qualify for the lowest possible price, and apparently they live in a geographic island of postal regulations that permit unrestricted shipment of airguns. Not sure how that is, as elsewhere in the EU, certainly Germany and Austria, the postal mailing of even “ weapon parts” to include O-rings from the factories is prohibited. Has an employees’ wife on occasion mailed us some cookies or cake that maybe included a few o-rings? Maybe…. It's a zoo of regulations over there. I am currently on my third modified Form 6, and over two years of waiting to bring some used Walther guns out of Germany because the German export authorities keep asking for different changes. I'm also in a similar process for a FWB 2700 bolt for a repair.

Selling to other countries to increase my volume? We used to sell 10-15 guns a year outside the US. No more. Current mail prohibitions in most countries now require guns, of all sorts, to go air freight….. so you are looking at $400-600 worth of shipping charges plus a hell of a lot of paperwork for each country. It’s not worth it, even if the foreign customer is paying all the charges.

If you think that the buying and selling model for gasoline and air pistols is remotely alike, you probably are in the “mentally deficient” category that is not permitted to buy firearms. On the one hand you have a product than an independent seller can call multiple sources and have it delivered within hours. And also a buying public 99.9% of who will ask you zero questions about the product, often not interacting with a human at all in the direct selling of it and installation of your vehicle. Compare that to a product, that requires months of waiting to for an order to process, that requires numerous small inventory adjustments, grips sizes, cylinder sizes, cylinder colors, sights, etc. And when customer calls to buy it often spends an hour or more on the phone discussing all these various options because he/she doesn’t want to make a “bad” choice. AND…. Dare I say it, how often does some one spend an hour on the phone with us, picking our brains about all these options and pro/con benefits and then tell us they’ll think about it and then go buy from a gray market source because they are cheaper. Was the original poster one of those? ? ?

Warranty repairs….. traditionally we have fixed them regardless of where purchased to keep up the good name of Steyr. That may have to stop. For the record, Neal Stepp also is selling grey market Steyrs, and has been for longer than I have been in the business. 19 years now. I

Lets talk about the realities of my business. The overwhelming majority of my business is airgun related. My annual gross for the 2 or 3 years prior to the 2007 economy crash was more than double what it was after 2008 for many years. In fact it was 4 years later before we got above the 50% mark, mostly due to the government spending on the various wounded warrior programs in the 2011-12 time frame. All those record gun sales of the Obama years? They hurt us, not helped us, as people were spending money on black guns and the ammo to feed them, not expensive target pistols. Even to this day we are still only at around 60 percent of our pre-2008 gross. With significantly higher costs for various reasons. *

Why support me? I support youth shooting in all it’s various formats, USAS, 4H, CMP, Boy Scouts, American Legion etc, , often to my detriment, I know. I see so often coaches who are spending money out of their pocket to help kids in their program with equipment needs or travel expenses. And I can’t help but give them the best possible deal that I can when those coaches come to me….. which according to my profit and loss statement, I can’t really afford to give. Just sayin’

Why else support me? We try to get to as many matches as we can, often on a break even basis. We provide this forum. We answer your questions on the phone. And we swap what things you need to get your purchase right. We know how to fix your guns with factory training. Not having a World Cup here in the US for the last couple of years where the factory gunsmiths come to us, I decided to send Buck to the Munich World Cup last year so he could get the latest training from all the major factories.

Nobody is getting rich here. Of my two part time and two fulltime employees, they have chosen to pay the penalty rather purchase health insurance. I wish I could pay it for them. Myself, I chose an ACA plan three years ago because of an immediately pending health issue. Quite frankly that has been a mysteriously curious financial bouncing ball of premium costs, but this forum is not the place to discuss that, so let’s have no further discussion on health care. But prior to 2007 I was doing fairly well in this business… since then, not so much.

*And since I am here, I’ll throw this out. If you are an individual (or know of) with significant resources that would like to help out someone who has done much to help youth shooting in this country, I would sure like to talk to you. For various reasons the investments I made over the last the 9 years have not been what they should be and I could honestly use some help. While I don’t care to discuss all the whys and wherefors in a public forum I certainly would be willing to explain where I am and why to the right individual(s). And I am not asking necessarily for a handout, I can do some quite extraordinary engraving work as payment in kind as some of you might now. http://learn2engrave.com/scottshistory.shtml


** if you want to see some interesting zig zags in the Euro, look at it’s rise and fall on election night, as the various states were called for Trump or Hillary.

"Has an employees’ wife on occasion mailed us some cookies or cake that maybe included a few o-rings?"

I hope from Steyr, not Walther FWB or Morini. The Austrian bakers really are in a class by themselves!

oh, and directly related to this, the US importer of Steyr Field Target airguns , chose to quit doing so last year because of Krale. Which in turn has created more problems for me, since those FT shooters are now coming to us for repairs and questions, and that is not a business I want to be in.

In support of local vendors, please consider the following: For several decades I have been routinely involved in the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, including weapons, per year. What I can tell you is not all vendors are created equal. Local vendors have a vested interest in providing quality service to local customers. They want to protect their good name, they want repeat business, and they often have a philanthropic view toward their business. Out of the area/region/state/country vendors, who offer cut rates way below that of the local vendors prices, are often 'fly by night' companies. They exist to get one's initial money, only, and quickly disappear when help is needed after delivery of the product. I have seen this with major firearms companies, and other suppliers, time and again.

If one does not have the resources/ability (read- to file a high dollar lawsuit or criminal charges) to go after a long distance, unknown/new, or criminal vendor who fails to deliver a product/service then paying the up front costs for a local vendor to provide the same thing. who also stands behind that product, is priceless.

We choose to support US vendors over those from other countries, whenever possible. Thanks, PILK!

Pilk are you going to Perry this year ? Interested in an airpistol

Christopher Miceli wrote:Pilk are you going to Perry this year ? Interested in an airpistol

If Scott is at Perry you can learn a ton from him. As I remember they are in the very first building in Vendor's Row. I am trying to find out if the air range will be open during Nationals. Right now it seems like NRA and CMP are not getting along and each is lashing out at the other:-(

Chip