Well, it's not a rumor anymore. Found myself down in the valley, so schlepped over there and checked it out for myself.
Some of you guys back there where the population is a bit denser might already be familiar with the Sportsman's Warehouse. This is the first time I've ever been in one. I was like a babe in toyland. Two acres of everything from trolling motors to muzzleloaders.
And while it is true that this is not a shop dedicated to muzzleloaders they do in fact have dern near everything you need to shoot one. There is about 40' of wall space catering to front-stuffers, plus a few feet in the gun rack behind the counter. That is a drop in the bucket in a store this size, but more than I've seen anywhere else around here. What they did not have were:
- flints
- real BP
- 1/8" thick pre-lubed felt wads in 20 ga (they DID have them in 12 ga and all the pistol cals)
...but they had everything else. Round balls in every caliber from 36 to 58; patches (pre-lubed and dry) for same in thicknesses of 0.010, 0.015, and 0.020; nitro cards & overshot cards; caps & cappers; measures; lubes & solvents; felt wads for cap & ball pistols; #4 buckshot as well as the "aught" varieties; and 25 lbs bag of shot. They even had guns, and some of them (about a dozen) had the locks on the side... some Traditions, some Lyman... and at least two of them were for lefties.
I took the "sold out" condition on the 20 ga wads as a good sign... means someone had been there before me. I made sure to ask the department manager when he would be getting more. Store has only been open since September so they are probably still trying to get a feel for how much of what they need to stock.
I was already pretty impressed with the place, then they topped it off by giving me a discount when I used my retired military ID card to verify the signature on my credit card.
