rotor wrote:I have only purchased two guns by mail, one was a shotgun for my wife that the local dealer couldn't get but he accepted it as my FFL dealer. The other was an AK from Kvar. Everything else I buy from brick and mortar. But, you go into Academy and they have a trigger lock on so you can feel the gun but you can't really feel it. You can't feel the trigger. My local store never has what I want and I have to drive from North Texas to Fort Worth and hope I can find what I want. And they too have a trigger lock on. Might as well buy by mail and save money. Are there stores that let you really test trigger pull, etc?
If they have a trigger lock on the gun, have you asked them to take it off so that you can try the trigger?
Most of the gun stores I peruse (Cabelas, a few local FW or Decatur shops) don't have trigger locks on the merchandise - they're under glass, usually, or behind the counter. But none of them seem to have a problem with you fondling....errr.. handling the gun and pulling a couple of dry fire trigger actions. A couple will even give you some snap caps to use, if they're worried about the firing pin hitting something.
I personally see no problem with shopping a local store (assuming that the store has the model gun I've been looking for - too often, they don't), and giving them an opportunity to price match - I'll easily pay the state sales tax penalty for buying locally, if the total price is pretty close to what the total mail-order or internet-order price would wind up being. A local shop that is consistently 20-30% over the online cost is not a shop that's wanting to stay in business, anyway, unless they offer something that's worth that price differential (could be a range attached to the gunshop as one local shop has - wanna try out that gun? Or maybe a good gunsmith on premises, whatever).
And for those that are so adamant about not shopping online - I suppose you won't purchase at a gun show, either?