Sportsman’s Guide Sucks: Muzzle-Loaders.com Does Not
BY Herschel Smith4 years ago
A brief user experience for those who care.
I had intended to go black powder deer hunting in my home state when season opens, and ordered a muzzle loader from Sportsman’s Guide.
It occurred to me that it hadn’t arrived after about three weeks of waiting, and I had not looked at shipping information. I called and could never reach anyone live.
My wife called and finally reached someone who helped to track down the fact that the gun was in a warehouse awaiting shipment.
The lady talked to another “manager” who incorrectly thought that it was supposed to ship as powder and that it had to be sent to another warehouse.
When that fiasco got fixed, they decided that it could ship by a couple of weeks from the date of the call, but not before. For whatever reason.
We cancelled the order and I contacted Muzzle-Loaders.com. They were quick, their web site was effective, I talked to someone live, and they handled my order immediately. The best part is that it arrived when they said it would.
If you need a muzzle loaders, I recommend them. Not Sportsman’s Guide. To Sportsman’s Guide you’re a number. To Muzzle-Loaders.com, you’re a person.
On October 27, 2020 at 11:12 pm, BRVTVS said:
I’ve had good experiences dealing with Dixie Gunworks.
On October 28, 2020 at 12:16 am, Aaron Yetter said:
What did you get? Traditional or inline.
On October 28, 2020 at 12:22 am, Matth said:
Sportsman’s Guide or Warehouse? You name two different companies.
On October 28, 2020 at 5:52 am, Carl "Bear" Bussjaeger said:
What Matth said. Two different companies. I’ve never done business with Sportsman’s WAREHOUSE, but Sportsman’s GUIDE has always done well by me.
On October 28, 2020 at 6:40 am, Herschel Smith said:
Aaron, Inline.
Matth, thanks for pointing that out. Corrected in the post.
On October 28, 2020 at 8:55 am, Bill Buppert said:
Sportsman’s Guide is a consistently awful enterprise like Cheaper Than Dirt.
On October 28, 2020 at 11:35 am, Ned said:
Optics Planet also seriously sucks. BTW, it seems like “Covid 19” is now the universal excuse for shitty customer service.
On October 28, 2020 at 1:57 pm, Scott said:
When the founder Gary Olen was running the company,
They were the best. Even when Redcats bought them
around 2006, they kept Gary on to run the business.
In 2012 Northern Tool bought them, out went Gary and
down hill they went. They arent even a shadow of what
they once were.
And as for Cheaper than Dirt, you have to be dumb as
dirt to deal with those guys anymore.
On October 28, 2020 at 2:00 pm, John said:
I was a member of the SG until they just raised their membership fee to 50 bucks.
The few problems I had over several years were reasonably corrected except for
a single 15 dollar misdescribed item. They aren’t bad and sometimes have a really
great sale on free shipping items. It sounds like they hired a few losers who managed
to compound the problem on the order.
On October 28, 2020 at 3:32 pm, Chad C. Mulligan said:
HAH!!! You’re just now finding this out? With the sole exception of some milsurp 7.5×55 I bought over ten years ago, their service sucked and the (mostly Chinese) product they shipped was uniformly awful. Started throwing their junk mail away without a second glance sometime around 2012.
On October 28, 2020 at 5:33 pm, X said:
If you are shooting inline with a sabot and using a black powder substitute instead of the “real stuff,” you absolutely MUST use Blackhorn 209. You can shoot all day without swabbing. It won’t corrode the bore. You can use Hoppe’s instead of boiling water to clean it. It won’t seize the breechplug with corrosion.
Blackhorn 209 is unrivaled as an inline propellant.
On October 28, 2020 at 7:19 pm, Gun Trash said:
I’ve used SG since early 90s. Never had a bad experience or poor customer service with them… UNTIL they were bought out by Northern Tool a few years back. I noticed the difference & don’t shop with them as much as I used to.
On October 28, 2020 at 7:31 pm, T said:
I ordered a pair of holo sights in mid-august and they said they’d ship in late sept. Later I realized my credit card expired that week and called them to let them know. The new card arrives, I email them to tell them the account number was the same but wanted to pass the 3-digit code to a human operator. That was August. The ship date has changed three times and is now Nov 1st. I was given a number to call to talk to someone. Same result. high volume of calls, can’t help you, disconnected. WTF. If they haven’t figured out how to deal with this covid shit after 8 months, they probably aren’t. I emailed them earlier and told them I had put all the effort that I was going to to resolve this and if the sight shipped fine, if not, bfd.
On October 28, 2020 at 9:59 pm, John said:
I did not know Northern Tool bought SG. I once bought some relatively expensive items
a few times from NT and twice they substituted items of less value not matching photos.
Not junk, but not as shown or advertised.
I never bought from them again and that was 20 years ago.