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Author
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skwashdem
TGO Senior Member
Registered: February 2007
Location: Johnson City, TN
Posts: 593
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Review Date: Tue April 17, 2007
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 7
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Pros:
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Selection, Class III, Cash discount, Larger showroom
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Cons:
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Prices, certain staff members
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Crowder's is the local Class III dealer that just finished remodeling their store so that the gun store takes up the entire front of the building. Which means they've got more room for inventory, and they've spread stuff out more so you aren't quite so bunched up when more than six or seven people are shopping at once.
Tim Crowder runs the place, and he loves cash. Let me reiterate, he loves cash. If you go in to buy accessories, bring cash, odds are, when you go up to the counter to pay, and he's seen you before, you probably won't pay sales tax. He makes it up in firearms prices anyway. Odds are, he's $50-70 more expensive than anyone else in town, but he's also the only Class III in the Johnson City area, so you can go drool over $20,000 MP5's at his shop. Just don't expect to get to touch.
Holster selection, magazine selection, and other accessory selection is quite good. Crowder's is probably the best place in town to shop for holsters, as he keeps a large variety and supply in stock. Same for magazines, he usually has high capacity, and extra high capacity magazines for the popular guns, pricey, but he has them most of the time. Ammo selection is fair, he mostly stocks defense type loads.
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Marswolf
TGO Senior Member
Registered: January 2007
Location: Tri-Cities
Posts: 5895
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Review Date: Wed April 18, 2007
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Selection
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Cons:
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Questionable financial and advertising practices
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I've bought a few guns from Tim over the years. As mentioned, if you have cash and he has the gun you want in stock, you can do business with him.
But Tim has a justified reputation for taking deposits on guns or doing lay-aways and then not keeping or ordering the gun. He then lets you apply the money paid to another gun, but won't give a refund. So the rule has to be that you pay the cash and take the gun that day.
Part of this seems to stem from financial problems from what I have been told. That's hearsay though. I have been in the shop when he asked his financial advisor if he could order five Glocks. That's not hearsay.
He is famous for repeatedly advertizing a going out of business sale and then putting on his marquee that he doing a going out for business sale. I guess the newspaper keeps making the same mistake in their ads.
In all, the guy is pretty slimy but will give you a good deal on a gun.
Just be careful.
Oh yeah, Top Notch Guns, between Kingsport and Bristol does Class 3 transfers.
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"Tolerance is the virtue of a man with no convictions” —G.K. Chesterton
"Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You cannot do more than your duty; you never wish to do less." - Robert E. Lee
Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, level, herd, a loathing which fills my soul.... -Gustave Flaubert
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TnAndy
TGO Freshman
Registered: September 2008
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Fri September 5, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 0
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Crowder can be a real PITA to deal with depending on the day you walk in...for example, I was shopping gun safes one day a few years back and was looking at the ones in his store. He and another guy were wheeling one out on a dolly about that time....he opens the front door, and hollers back in the shop "WHO HAS THIS NISSAN PICKUP PARKED RIGHT IN THE WAY HERE ??" kinda mad like.
I didn't say anything.....walked out the door, got in my Nissan pickup, which was parked in a lined off parking spot MARKED FOR PARKING, not loading, not handicapped, not stripped to indicate NO PARKING, and I just happened to park there....and drove on up the street to Widener's and bought a gun safe.
Other times I've been in there, bought a gun or accessory, and done just fine.
Wish I'd seen the note about his shenanigans with deposits, as I put a $100 deposit on a Glock the other day, and now that has me wondering. He even groused about that amount ( on a 500 buck pistol ) wanting half down......"we have to pay for them upfront"......I told him this was a spur of the moment purchase ( I was wanting a 26 for ankle carry ) and I only had 100 bucks on me.....then I asked how much deposit he got on all the guns he had on display.....how much were THEY costing him to sit there looking pretty ?? Heck, if I NEVER come back, it isn't like he won't sell that pistol to somebody else, just like the ones he has on display, AND MAKE AN EXTRA HUNDRED ON THE DEAL !
I know dealing with the public can be a trying experience....but honestly, it's like the guy is out to run business off.
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We are a band of brothers,
Native to the soil
Fighting for the property
We gained by honest toil.
And when our rights were threatened,
The cry rose near and far;
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
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TnAndy
TGO Freshman
Registered: September 2008
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Fri September 12, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 0
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Well, so far, it's been a week and a half ( ordered on a Tues, this is the Friday of the following week ) and no gun, despite having been told it would take "2-3 days".....I went in and spoke with a young lady first thing this morning as she opened the doors, and she couldn't even find where it had been ordered.....so she called a place (Ellet Bros....I got the name this time ) and put one on order and said "Tuesday".
Apparently, they take your deposit, and if they order it, fine, and if not, fine.
Dadgum sloppy way to do business.
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We are a band of brothers,
Native to the soil
Fighting for the property
We gained by honest toil.
And when our rights were threatened,
The cry rose near and far;
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a single star!
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cjr
TGO Member
Registered: November 2008
Location: Gray,TN.
Posts: 476
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Review Date: Fri November 14, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? No |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 0
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Pros:
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nice inventory
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Cons:
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poor service
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I paid for 2 colt pistols in March,they have not been delivered to me yet.
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Tennessee Gun Owners
