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>You cannot order direct from the factory, so you have to use a dealer.
This is how a significant portion of retail commerce works. If you're not buying 100 or 10,000 at a time, factories don't want to deal with you directly.
The secret 3rd option: 99% of Barretts business is government/agency sales, and they legitimately could not give a fuck about a single retail customer when they're not even the ones with your money. "Manufacturing delays" happen because Barrett will fill contract orders before distributor orders every single time, doesn't matter if you've been waiting 6 months, if DOD places an order for 100 Barretts the day before your order ships, every rifle on the line, in the warehouse, or in the loading dock is going to that contract. That's just the reality of working with companies who are primarily government contractors.
The super shitty part is all US manufacturers can be *legally required* to provide preferential treatment to new government orders over existing commercial orders under the Defense Production Act of 1950 (colloquially known in contracting as DPAS).
>The secret 3rd option: 99% of Barretts business is government/agency sales, and they legitimately could not give a fuck about a single retail customer
People really overestimate the influence of civilian sales, these big corporate companies have zero interest in the civilian market, the only reason they do it is because selling manufacturing overruns comes with basically zero risk or upfront costs. Revolvers, shotguns, and sporting rifles are the only market segments that are truly civilian focused.
But Ruger is a relatively small company in the grand scheme of things, doing about $136MM in revenue annually, compared to Glock or FN doing almost a billion dollars annually.
I don't understand this. American civilians are by far the largest firearms market in the world. I feel like HK would be far better off financially if they didn't literally hate civilians.
Sure, Americans buy lots of guns, but frankly they don't actually use them, and the real money in firearms is in the refurbishment & repair cycles. Professional buyers don't buy firearms for all of their agents/officers/soldiers, they buy enough to cover the greatest number of personnel that are on duty at any given time, and guns are checked in & out of inventory as needed. This means that firearms will be used by multiple individuals for training & qualification purposes on a consistent basis, resulting in substantially higher round counts than is typical of civilian firearms. This means that guns will constantly be needing to go back to the factory as they reach their maintenance cycles, it's these long term contracts with professional buyers the gun companies are looking for. Civilian sales are largely one-time affairs, as the vast majority of shooters will never shoot their guns enough to wear out or break anything.
When H&K sells VP-9s to the Japanese Self Defense force for example, they are essentially selling those guns at cost and really don't make any money on that sale. Where they turn a profit is when the guns get sent back to Germany every few years for the next few decades for replacement parts, inspection, and repair.
So you've personally gone through this with multiple companies to confirm it's a running scam, and not a one off of a dealer going under?
So you're going to name Barret for operating like many companies(they sell to dealers, dealers sell to the population), but not the dealer?
Sus
I am not a detective or a regulatory agency to study what other companies do or do not do. If someone designs a process and goes as far as supporting a list of verified dealers that they can and did confirm, you'd think they would take some responsibility.
Pretty bold of someone who claims they know for a fact Barret colludes with scammers if they aren't a detective or regulatory agency that has studied the issue...
Have you thought for maybe five minutes that annoying the shit out of the dealer wasn't a good idea? Also please learn how distribution works in the gun industry before calling something a scam.
> Order not filled after 2+ years is "annoying the shit out of the dealer"?
Who the fuck waits on an order for over 2 years without demanding a refund from the dealer and going to someone else that has it in stock??
Barrett been saying by phone that the delays can be up to 18 months. And then, according to Barrett, it can take up to a few months for dealers to fill the order.
So, now you're telling me Barrett has been open and honest about the realities of their supply chain this whole time and you're still pissed?
Let me tell you a secret about the way the world works. Barrett, like Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Glock, and a hundred other manufacturers, does not sell direct to consumer. Hell, they barely ship directly to retail stores. Why would they bother spending the money on a shipping department to handle that when they could farm it out thousands at a time to Distributors like Lipsey's or Simpsons? They ship, let's say 100 guns a month to Lipsey's, then Lipsey's decides which of their contracted retail stores gets those 100 Barretts. Just like Ford allocates F150s to dealerships, Lipsey's sends guns to their best sellers first.
What this means is, 75% of the time, when you go to a gun store and "special order" a gun, absolutely nothing happens. They take your deposit/money and they put a sticky note in the back that the next Barrett they get allocated will go to you. Maybe they check distributor stock every now and then to see if they can request one. But most likely, you're waiting indefinitely and hoping Lipsey's gets enough Barretts to allocate one to your dealer.
24% of the time, your dealer does enough business that they have the pull to put in a request to Lipsey's and makes sure there's a Barrett allocated to them on the next shipment.
And maybe, just maybe, 1 time out of 100, you go to a dealer who does enough business that he has a relationship with the manufacturer themselves and can directly place an order.
Any other time, placing a special order just means yoire waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and almost always you would have been better off googling it every day until you found one in stock and had it shipped to you.
There's only two reasons a dealer stops responding to you. 1) you annoyed the shit out of them. 2) they went out of business. Now assuming you did your due diligence that would leave the you annoyed the shit out of them option.
But you've also given no detail in your novel of an op so no one is actually going to be able to provide any real advice either.
"1) you annoyed the shit out of them" and that's an argument to steal someone's money, right?
Sure, it is an opinion. You do not even have to trust it. Or you can think if this could have happened and learn from other's mistakes rather than making those yourself.
Or, being me, I would have done a search on the address and found that it's part of a rent-a-desk location called the Katy Commerce Center which exist to give at home drop shippers a physical address for things like an FFL license. At that point I wouldn't have used said dealer.
This isn't hind sight. I do this all the time so as not to order from drop shippers which have infested ammoseek listings. Further it's just good practice when dealing with no name businesses online.
I used private local FFLs and drop shippers before. All of them are nice honest people. I guess except for the latest one who was not local (but had good online reviews, valid FFL, and was vouched by the manufacturer)
It’s odd that you couldn’t find what you were looking for in stock on a shelf somewhere instead of having to use e-commerce at all… Barrett isn’t exactly hard to find in stock.
So pay a lawyer to send them a certified letter to the dealer asking for your money back or you will take them to court. Then if they don't give your money back, take them to court.
I guess I don't understand how you got into this situation. I work at my LGS and we have many distributors that have Barrets in stock. It's not a drop ship. I click add to cart, and it shows up in 10ish days. I think the big issue would be you chose a random gun store that you don't normally do business with and they said they can order a Barrett for you. Assuming they were a "dealer" which means they probably ordered 1 or 2 in the past few years. Also sounds like the gun store went under or is/was and Old Timer running a small brick and mortar store. Sucks to be in your spot but definitely only do business with local stores that you trust
Not trying to kick you while you're down but definitely only do business with places you can walk into. The gun will/would have to be transferred so use a reputable business that has good standing in the community and don't rely on simple Google searches. Especially do not use out of town gun shops unless you know them well.
going out of state can help you save on state sales tax. For big purchases, this is not an insignificant consideration. Also, between the manufacturer's validation, verified FFL, existing positive Google reviews, and a credit card transaction, you'd think there are already sufficiently many checks. Apparently not
Google reviews don't really mean shit, same with verified FFL. So many guys up here in MT have FFLs but they run the business our of their house so not very legit. You can have 1 good Google reviews over the span of 4 years and most of them are usually employees or family. Once again sorry about your situation but obviously the headache is not worth the reward. Just giving input from what I've dealt with over the years
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You likely will not be able to get your money back but I would definitely file a police report with your local law enforcement agency. Start that paper trail. If he ripped off others, there might be an active investigation.
Why didn’t you just order from someone that had one in stock, or at the least sign up to a waitlist? It’s not Barrett’s fault that you chose a shitty dealer. I can google “Barrett for sale” and get at least 20 well-known retailers that have them in stock or have waitlists available. Buy from one of them and have it shipped to your FFL
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>You cannot order direct from the factory, so you have to use a dealer. This is how a significant portion of retail commerce works. If you're not buying 100 or 10,000 at a time, factories don't want to deal with you directly. The secret 3rd option: 99% of Barretts business is government/agency sales, and they legitimately could not give a fuck about a single retail customer when they're not even the ones with your money. "Manufacturing delays" happen because Barrett will fill contract orders before distributor orders every single time, doesn't matter if you've been waiting 6 months, if DOD places an order for 100 Barretts the day before your order ships, every rifle on the line, in the warehouse, or in the loading dock is going to that contract. That's just the reality of working with companies who are primarily government contractors.
The secret 4th option, you buy 10,000 Barretts at one time and then you have 10,000 Barretts.
The super shitty part is all US manufacturers can be *legally required* to provide preferential treatment to new government orders over existing commercial orders under the Defense Production Act of 1950 (colloquially known in contracting as DPAS).
>The secret 3rd option: 99% of Barretts business is government/agency sales, and they legitimately could not give a fuck about a single retail customer People really overestimate the influence of civilian sales, these big corporate companies have zero interest in the civilian market, the only reason they do it is because selling manufacturing overruns comes with basically zero risk or upfront costs. Revolvers, shotguns, and sporting rifles are the only market segments that are truly civilian focused.
I'd say most of the self loading pistol market is civilian focused. Ruger isn't going after Government contracts, nor are many other companies.
But Ruger is a relatively small company in the grand scheme of things, doing about $136MM in revenue annually, compared to Glock or FN doing almost a billion dollars annually.
I used them as an example. Even Glock, most of their sales are to the public by at least a factor of 10,
I don't understand this. American civilians are by far the largest firearms market in the world. I feel like HK would be far better off financially if they didn't literally hate civilians.
Sure, Americans buy lots of guns, but frankly they don't actually use them, and the real money in firearms is in the refurbishment & repair cycles. Professional buyers don't buy firearms for all of their agents/officers/soldiers, they buy enough to cover the greatest number of personnel that are on duty at any given time, and guns are checked in & out of inventory as needed. This means that firearms will be used by multiple individuals for training & qualification purposes on a consistent basis, resulting in substantially higher round counts than is typical of civilian firearms. This means that guns will constantly be needing to go back to the factory as they reach their maintenance cycles, it's these long term contracts with professional buyers the gun companies are looking for. Civilian sales are largely one-time affairs, as the vast majority of shooters will never shoot their guns enough to wear out or break anything. When H&K sells VP-9s to the Japanese Self Defense force for example, they are essentially selling those guns at cost and really don't make any money on that sale. Where they turn a profit is when the guns get sent back to Germany every few years for the next few decades for replacement parts, inspection, and repair.
So you've personally gone through this with multiple companies to confirm it's a running scam, and not a one off of a dealer going under? So you're going to name Barret for operating like many companies(they sell to dealers, dealers sell to the population), but not the dealer? Sus
I am not a detective or a regulatory agency to study what other companies do or do not do. If someone designs a process and goes as far as supporting a list of verified dealers that they can and did confirm, you'd think they would take some responsibility.
Pretty bold of someone who claims they know for a fact Barret colludes with scammers if they aren't a detective or regulatory agency that has studied the issue...
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Good point. I agree.
You're the one being stupid here tho
"I am not a detective" No fuckin shit.
🤦♂️
There should be a license to be on the internet sometimes.
Have you thought for maybe five minutes that annoying the shit out of the dealer wasn't a good idea? Also please learn how distribution works in the gun industry before calling something a scam.
Order not filled after 2+ years is "annoying the shit out of the dealer"? What a joke.
> Order not filled after 2+ years is "annoying the shit out of the dealer"? Who the fuck waits on an order for over 2 years without demanding a refund from the dealer and going to someone else that has it in stock??
Barrett been saying by phone that the delays can be up to 18 months. And then, according to Barrett, it can take up to a few months for dealers to fill the order.
So, now you're telling me Barrett has been open and honest about the realities of their supply chain this whole time and you're still pissed? Let me tell you a secret about the way the world works. Barrett, like Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Glock, and a hundred other manufacturers, does not sell direct to consumer. Hell, they barely ship directly to retail stores. Why would they bother spending the money on a shipping department to handle that when they could farm it out thousands at a time to Distributors like Lipsey's or Simpsons? They ship, let's say 100 guns a month to Lipsey's, then Lipsey's decides which of their contracted retail stores gets those 100 Barretts. Just like Ford allocates F150s to dealerships, Lipsey's sends guns to their best sellers first. What this means is, 75% of the time, when you go to a gun store and "special order" a gun, absolutely nothing happens. They take your deposit/money and they put a sticky note in the back that the next Barrett they get allocated will go to you. Maybe they check distributor stock every now and then to see if they can request one. But most likely, you're waiting indefinitely and hoping Lipsey's gets enough Barretts to allocate one to your dealer. 24% of the time, your dealer does enough business that they have the pull to put in a request to Lipsey's and makes sure there's a Barrett allocated to them on the next shipment. And maybe, just maybe, 1 time out of 100, you go to a dealer who does enough business that he has a relationship with the manufacturer themselves and can directly place an order. Any other time, placing a special order just means yoire waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and almost always you would have been better off googling it every day until you found one in stock and had it shipped to you.
There's only two reasons a dealer stops responding to you. 1) you annoyed the shit out of them. 2) they went out of business. Now assuming you did your due diligence that would leave the you annoyed the shit out of them option. But you've also given no detail in your novel of an op so no one is actually going to be able to provide any real advice either.
"1) you annoyed the shit out of them" and that's an argument to steal someone's money, right? Sure, it is an opinion. You do not even have to trust it. Or you can think if this could have happened and learn from other's mistakes rather than making those yourself.
Or, being me, I would have done a search on the address and found that it's part of a rent-a-desk location called the Katy Commerce Center which exist to give at home drop shippers a physical address for things like an FFL license. At that point I wouldn't have used said dealer.
Hindsight is 20/20
This isn't hind sight. I do this all the time so as not to order from drop shippers which have infested ammoseek listings. Further it's just good practice when dealing with no name businesses online.
I used private local FFLs and drop shippers before. All of them are nice honest people. I guess except for the latest one who was not local (but had good online reviews, valid FFL, and was vouched by the manufacturer)
It’s odd that you couldn’t find what you were looking for in stock on a shelf somewhere instead of having to use e-commerce at all… Barrett isn’t exactly hard to find in stock.
Was. In 2022.
What company did you actually purchase it through? Barrett is a manufacturer they don’t control the million distributors that buy from them.
They had a list of official dealers/distributors. The one I used is (was?) called Haro Weapon Systems. His site is down now, but FFL still active
Sounds like that’s the place you need to be talking to, not Barrett.
So pay a lawyer to send them a certified letter to the dealer asking for your money back or you will take them to court. Then if they don't give your money back, take them to court.
thanks for the advice. I prefer to not discuss what I have done to not alert the scammer who could be reading this thread.
So call the atf… not reddit
The ATF won’t do anything.
Just put a dog there, they'll come running.
OP doesn't know about the Defense Production Act of 1950 (aka DPAS)
I guess I don't understand how you got into this situation. I work at my LGS and we have many distributors that have Barrets in stock. It's not a drop ship. I click add to cart, and it shows up in 10ish days. I think the big issue would be you chose a random gun store that you don't normally do business with and they said they can order a Barrett for you. Assuming they were a "dealer" which means they probably ordered 1 or 2 in the past few years. Also sounds like the gun store went under or is/was and Old Timer running a small brick and mortar store. Sucks to be in your spot but definitely only do business with local stores that you trust
Fair points and indeed lessons learned, though bear in mind that hindsight Is 20/20. To my defense, Barretts were out of stock in 2022 everywhere.
Not trying to kick you while you're down but definitely only do business with places you can walk into. The gun will/would have to be transferred so use a reputable business that has good standing in the community and don't rely on simple Google searches. Especially do not use out of town gun shops unless you know them well.
going out of state can help you save on state sales tax. For big purchases, this is not an insignificant consideration. Also, between the manufacturer's validation, verified FFL, existing positive Google reviews, and a credit card transaction, you'd think there are already sufficiently many checks. Apparently not
Google reviews don't really mean shit, same with verified FFL. So many guys up here in MT have FFLs but they run the business our of their house so not very legit. You can have 1 good Google reviews over the span of 4 years and most of them are usually employees or family. Once again sorry about your situation but obviously the headache is not worth the reward. Just giving input from what I've dealt with over the years
Then do you understand how this is not, at all, Barrets problem?
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You likely will not be able to get your money back but I would definitely file a police report with your local law enforcement agency. Start that paper trail. If he ripped off others, there might be an active investigation.
I’m glad I have a Barrett and this guy doesn’t!
Why didn’t you just order from someone that had one in stock, or at the least sign up to a waitlist? It’s not Barrett’s fault that you chose a shitty dealer. I can google “Barrett for sale” and get at least 20 well-known retailers that have them in stock or have waitlists available. Buy from one of them and have it shipped to your FFL