What was your most memorable encounter with a numbskull at your gun shop, or at a gun show?

While at Army & Navy gun shop a man came in to purchase a home defense gun. This guy was very “ghetto” so the clerk just kinda rolled his eyes at this “gangster” The guy wanted to buy a 50 cal rifle so he checked the prices and decided to buy the cheapest gun in the store. The gun the man bought was a muzzle loader, the guy left the store happy as a clam, even though the clerk said this is a muzzleloader and not a repeating rifle and does not use rounds.

After a few minutes the man returned to the store to purchase some ammo. The guy asked for “bullets” and the clerk handed him a bag of lead pumpkin balls. The man looked at them and said he doest think that these are right and that he needs the full rounds, and ask how he is supposed to load these. The clerk gave him some patches and power. The man looked confused and said no I need ammo rounds. The clerk said this is the ammo for the gun that you bought. The man said that he had to return the gun because he could not load a muzzle loader. The clerk said that once the gun leaves the store he can not refunded the full amount because the gun comes back as used. This upset the man and after a few minutes he brought the gun back “paid about $120.00” and resold it back to them for $ 75.00 dollars.

Ooo... Al, I have had plenty of those. Actually, this took place in the little machine shop I work at.

Anyways, we at K&S (very small obscure shop) do a lot of OEM spec, and some custom work. We take whatever work we can, and we're not afraid to work on firearms.

Anyhoo, this rather amicable fella comes in with his Tokarev. For some reason, the trailing end of the one of the slide channels (I forgot left or right) peened and the damn thing locked up. Anyway, the guy is explaining the problem to the boss and I... unknowingly there was a shell in the chamber.

He pops the trigger and I swear to god the largest *BOOM* ever ensues (confined shop) and a bullet ricochets off of an old south bend lathe sitting around waiting for a new set of bushings for the headstock (still haven't gotten that fixed!).

Dan (the rather friendly boss who was not very friendly at that moment) told the man in a rather stern manner to leave immediately. We didn't call the cops, because... well, it was an accident. Shouldn't have happened, but it did anyway. Quite frankly, I'm surprised the cops didn't show up just because of the noise, but then again that little shop is soundproofed very well and has no windows.

Now, we don't do guns unless they're brought in a case, the bolt is back and we can clearly see that it is indeed unloaded.

That was NOT *fun* at all... phew. That was like six or so years ago too!

Haha, Just the other day there was this guy at the gun shop talking to the shop owner about how he had his home modified for a SHTF scenario.

He went into about how he had triple pane bulletproof glass in every window and had 1" steel plates bolted to the outside and inside of his hollow tile concrete walls. He said that his front and back door are the same type used in bank safes and how he had an air scrubber system integrated into his central air.

He said that he has 2 years of emergency rations stored in his house.

The $hi+ was getting so deep that I walked to the other side of the store to laugh.

Well, about a week later, I see the same guy going into his apartment, across the street from my buddies house. The guy lives in a dinky little apartment with no central air and jalousie windows. A far cry from the "triple pane BPG" that he was claiming. My buddy told me that the guy had lived there for at least a couple of years.

It always cracks me up when some joker talks a bunch of smack about what he has or has done and I know that he is full of shnit.

Al, as a former Armorer and a gunsmith I can relate to you. I've had some very "interesting" moments too. I think one of the best was a "gentleman" who came into my shop years ago and said I have a shotgun that won't shoot. He proceeded to tell me how he put a shell into it, closed it, cocked the hammer and when he pulled the trigger it didn't go off. I'm thinking of a couple of different things and tell the fellow well bring it in and lets take a look at it. This guy reaches behind himself and pulls out an old single shot sears 12 gage that has the stock cut off right at the comb making it a pistol grip and the barrel was about 7 inches long. I'm thinking uh-oh this guy is going to try and rob me. He then proceeds to open the sawed off and out rolls a 20 gage bird shot round that had 4 rubber bands wrapped on it so it "would fit" in the shotgun. I tell tell the guy well its going to take me a couple of days to shrink the barrel so it will hold the rounds he bought for it.

Numb-nuts leaves the shop, I get his license plate and call the local sheriff. Turns out the guy wanted a shotgun to shoot snakes around his farm and someone told him about snake charmers so he decided to make his own. You know the more I think about that guy the more I'm convinced that the life guard wasn't on duty at the gene pool that day.

I visited the Prince Georges County Trap & Skeet Range outside of Washington DC to do some clay target shooting. I'd been there many times before, but on this visit, when I went inside the clubhouse it seemed strange - as if there was a light blue haze or fog inside the clubhouse. After standing around for a couple of minutes, I heard the people behind the counter commenting, "Wow, that was something else." "Yeah, I bet we won't see that guy back here in awhile." I asked what happened and they showed me a spot on the tile floor where the tile was missing and bare concrete showed beneath. Then they explained, "Some old guy came in here after shooting on the range. Then, BOOM! He had an accidental discharge right there!" Fortunately, no one was hurt.

While not a real DS story, but this always brought a smile to my face.

I had gorwn up in SE Alaska, but my parent had split when I was about 10. I still used to go back to Alaska in the summers to visit my father. Naturally, I hunted and fished.

I used to frequent a gun store in my teenage years in Madison, WI (my Dad was a shooter and had a friend who was an FFL holder. We would buy firearms for cheaper in WI and have them shipped to AK).

I was browsing around the used gun rack when the owner asked me to come on over (he knew me fairly well and knew where I came from). He was talking with an older (this is relative...he was maybe 40), kind of pudgy guy who was in no danger of winning any athletic competitions anytime soon. The owner told me that the guy was going on a Grizzly bear hunt near where I grew up and was buying a rifle for it. I looked and saw this monster of a rifle. The guy was trying to buy a Grizzly 50 Big Boar (think I got the name right, that was the first and last time I saw a 50 BMG in person). The thing had to be at least 30 pounds when I tried to lift it.

I tried to explain to the guy about the concept of mountains, underbrush that made the woods of WI look like an interstate, how SE AK was filled with mossy swamp areas, and I doubted if he would get a shot much more than 100 yards much less than a shot long enough to require a 50 caliber rifle. In short, as a fit teenager, I thought hunting was tough going in the area where he was going.

The guy was worried about a bear charge. Again, I tried to explain the hours and miles I put on in the mountains and fishing the streams and wasn't even armed. To top it off, I told the guy that when he was young, my Dad used to use a 250 Savage for hunting big bears. The gun store owner agreed with me when I started talking of 300, 338, and 375 Magnums.

I guess the advice of a teenager didn't impress the guy and he dropped a ton of money on this rifle. I always wondered how his hunt turned out trying to carry that thing through the underbrush.

I have to tell a story on myself that happened back in the 70's. I was the numb-skull. Being a big tough former Marine and rookie police officer I bought myself a S&W model 36 for off duty purposes. Well one day I was cleaning it, when I became curious. I wondered how long it would take me to disassemble the weapon and put it back together. I needed to learn about revolvers, so what better way.

After all it said "small arms technician" on my DD214, for related civilian trade (this is what they put for grunts, because nothing else fits). I took my little screwdriver and took every little spring (I may have hunted for one in the carpet for an hour) and part out of that critter. Then began the fun part. At first I was convinced that the people at S&W were a bunch of dumb sh!ts for putting extra parts in that pistol. This went on for some time until I realized who the real DS was. Long story short, I was the joke of the day as I walked into my favorite gun shop with my model 36, frame and small parts, in a zip lock bag. The guy who owned the gun shop is an older fert than me, but still talks about this when he sees me.

well aside from when I ask Wal-mart clerks if they have any buck shot and they say just number 8 and I explain the difference between bird shot and buckshot only when I ask a few weeks later i get the same reply as always.

one of the top ones was when I was at a my local mom and pop gun store a guy came in wanting a "assault rifle" I explained well this isn't a class III dealer before you buy one you need to be 21 and send a form to the ATF with your finger prints a current picture, the sheriff's signature, and a 200 dollar check. after four months you clear if your record is good and you get the joy of paying 20,000 thousand for a assault rifle. by this time his mouth was just about at his knees. he said what about those are they just for show? I said "oh, those are aren't assault rifles. there tactical rifles. you just buy like any other rifle"

or

this one isn't a really as sad as the other one but I was sitting having coffee with a few old timers when a different guy walked in and a wanted a pistol. a clerk put a nice .38 S&W in his hands as soon as the clerk said .38 special he snapped the cylinder shut and handed it back rolled his eyes and said "can I see something that isn't in a girl caliber". funny tough because this was his first handgun and he said he never shot one before.

My encounter occurred at the gun shop's outdoor range. I was checking my .25-06 before a hunt and had shot a few rounds with another guy. We were chatting and waiting for each other to get ready to walk down to the backstops like normal shooters usually will when some younger guys came out with pistols and who knows what. Well, before they got to firing we yelled to them that we were going down-range and started heading for our targets. While we checked out our targets the youngsters began shooting at the close range backstops with us downrange! Having been shot before, I immediately hit the dirt as did my new buddy. We started yelling at the twenty-somethings and of course they couldn't hear us because of the ringing in their unprotected ears. We could hear ricochets and flyers everywhere as if we were in some nightmare war flick. I grabbed my cell phone and called the store that we were only a hundred and fifty yards from and the owner came out and kicked the guys out. He apologized profusely and told us they would never be back again. I told him neither would I and the other gentleman agreed. We knew it wasn't his fault, but the rangemaster was sitting there eating a sandwich watching it all. He said he "forgot" we were downrange. I am a coach and teacher and I know he heard me yell "downrange".

I went into a pawn shop about 2 weeks after Hurricane Katrina and saw a man who was from New Orleans who was heading back. He bought a tricked out SKS and a tactical shotgun. He paid cash and proceeded to call someone on his cell phone saying how he was ready for action as the clerk was running his verification. I proceeded to turn around, and walk out of the store and leave as fast as I could!