Big Bob called me up yesterday and said that Dunhams was having a big sale and he wanted to go out and look at pistols and such. I didn’t have much else to do, so I tagged along.  Dunhams is new to the Greater Cincinnati market. Where Field & Stream was big on decor– kind of a BassPro Lite– Dunhams looked more like a bare-bones version of Dicks.  It was funny too:  just like every Dicks I’ve been in, Dunhams had guns and hunting in the back left corner with fishing and camping up the left wall and boots across the back.  Somebody is trying to be very Dick-like.

If you remember, I wrote a brief review of my trip to Field & Stream last spring. My chief complaint at the time were prices. Maybe I have passed the point of being a respectable curmudgeon and have fallen off the cliff into crankdom. In F&S’s case, I have been back twice since my initial visit and walked out empty handed.  When you compare prices to what can be had online, it makes it not worth the gas.  Save a very few sale items, I found the prices at F&S were remarkably high.

The same goes for Dunhams.  A Bushnell scope I know well was stacked on the counter marked at roughly twice what I paid for it last winter.  .223 ammo was around twice the price I was expecting. I ended up buying a box of 12 GA #6 squirrel loads.  They were on sale for $7.

Unlike Field & Stream, Dunhams had a fairly decent assortment of oddball rifle ammo.  They had 35 Whelen and 45-70 and even 204 Ruger.  The prices however, were exactly equal to the every day price of my favorite family gun store, Hibberd’s in Cleves.    I know.  Bob and I went there immediately after leaving Dunhams in Harrison, and I felt I needed a reality check.

Credit where due:  The counter staff at Dunhams was more knowledgeable and evolved than the average counter monkey.  Bob and I both got serviced immediately, and they did not try to impress us with their knowledge.

One other thing, and this matches my impressions of F&S:  The place was packed, but  the check out counter staff were bored.  There were two clerks.  One did not have her register open and we still breezed through.

This post has already been read 521 times!

Views: 3