powder at canadian tire?!?

loknife

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was at canadian tire the other day and was talking to the saleman who says that location is getting about 100 lbs of powder in next week. he didnt share the price but gave me a list of what was expected. wondering if anyone else has seen powder at canadian tire or if the guy was pulling my leg? i know they have it listed online but have never heard of any actually in stock.
 
Our local store up the hill is gearing up for shooters too.
Not sure what is coming in, but the floor space area is big 'nuff to
be a koncern.

Dang, jest when I had meself committed to disliking CTS.
 
Canadian Tire stores are individually owned so it depends on the owner if they stock firearm related stuff. I have been in CT stores all over the country and most will have a small amount (one cabinet) of ammo and that is about it. I have never seen any reloading components in any CT store in Edmonton in a long time, since the late 70's or early 80's.
 
There is a CT in vancouver area that has a very pro gun owner. to the tune he was bringing in "tactical" firearms like tavours... until he got his pee pee slapped over it. But even with that hes getting in as much as he can.

Its like the laduc CT south of edmonton.... and entire aisle (both sides) full of guns including a 50. cal bolt action.... they have a better inventory then most guns stores i've been in.
 
The (firearms) department manager of the CTC in Owen Sound refuses to stock any reloading supplies because "nobody reloads anymore" (READ: "I'm too lazy to research customers' needs and order products")
 
The explanation I was given was that pretty much all newer Canadian Tire stores (newer meaning pretty much 2000 and on) are corporate stores, not franchise stores. They wont stock firearms or reloading supplies because corporate stores don't do that. Some of the franchise stores (usually only older stores) stock firearms, greatly expanded ammo cabinets, reloading supplies, and much more hunting and fishing gear than corporate stores.
The online store shows everything the corporate stores carry and a few items only carried in the franchise stores. The Kemptville store (between Ottawa and Kingston) has a full hunting, firearm, and reloading section as well as a much larger ammo section than average.
There was a Canadian Tire in Sudbury (where I grew up) that had almost an entire aisle of rifle/shotgun cabinets until around 2005. I believe the franchise owner died or something like that and it converted to a corporate store and they got rid of the firearms sales.
 
One of ours carries some reloading supplies, the other carries a fair bit of S&B handgun ammo. Prices are a little high, but not gouging
 
The explanation I was given was that pretty much all newer Canadian Tire stores (newer meaning pretty much 2000 and on) are corporate stores, not franchise stores. They wont stock firearms or reloading supplies because corporate stores don't do that. Some of the franchise stores (usually only older stores) stock firearms, greatly expanded ammo cabinets, reloading supplies, and much more hunting and fishing gear than corporate stores.
The online store shows everything the corporate stores carry and a few items only carried in the franchise stores. The Kemptville store (between Ottawa and Kingston) has a full hunting, firearm, and reloading section as well as a much larger ammo section than average.
There was a Canadian Tire in Sudbury (where I grew up) that had almost an entire aisle of rifle/shotgun cabinets until around 2005. I believe the franchise owner died or something like that and it converted to a corporate store and they got rid of the firearms sales.

The store here is just a few years old and is continuously expanding the firearms section. I have asked about certain firearms and receive pricing, but corporate won't let the store sell them to me (scary black rifles). The owner of this store seems very pro gun and is only limited by corporate policies.
 
A passionate manager in a corporate store might have more leeway (sounds like it). All the stores I go to have totally indifferent managers who don't care what department they're in so long as they get paid at a managers level.
 
I stopped in at the Canadian Tire in Port Alberni BC last year on holidays. It had everything you needed to reload. Primers, powder, bullets, cases, presses, scales etc. They also had a good ammo stock with lots of pistol ammo.
 
Someone fed someone a line about stores being corporately owned. The only time the corp would own any store and it would be on a very limited time basis, was if the "dealer" (kinda like a franchisee but different) died or went bankrupt or some situation like that.

There are 475 store and they are all currently independently owned.

When it comes to firearms, ammunition, reloading supplies etc the corp takes a "hands off" approach for the most part. Since all of these items/components MAY require different licencing requirements, not only on a province by province but sometimes county by county basis, they leave it to the dealer of any given store to decide if they will carry some, all or none of what is potentially available.

If a store chooses to carry then the corp does assist in the application process for whatever licences are needed and they have negotiated with many suppliers/wholesalers who are "pre-approved" to deal with at the individual store level.

If an individual store wants to deal with a supplier "outside" of the "approved list" then there is a rigorous process that can take weeks or months to get corporate approval and then that approval only lasts for a year period.

Because of that, even though there may be rounds available directly from Hornady or powder from ABC powder company, because "neither" is on the "approved list", us at the individual store can not go out and buy from them (unless we go through the process to get them "locally approved" for the one year period).

So while I have had both smokeless powder and black powder subs "on order" for almost a year now, the corporate supplier has been unable to fill the order and they sit there on "back order". My market for such is currently not large enough to jump through all the hoops required to get approval to buy from another source - some other stores may have taken that route.

And I do see why some stores are reluctant to get into the firearms business. The licence to sell process takes about a year, you require the "approved" fixtures to display the rifles/shotguns to meet the safe storage in a retail establishment requirements (which run nearly 1K for each dozen rifles that you want to display, plus a dedicated lock-up in the warehouse for firearms/ammunition only) and then you have to ensure you have enough staff with, minimally, PAL's, to handle, receive and sell the product. If you don't already have hunters and/or gun owners on staff then there is the process of getting them on the course, and paying for their PALs (a minimum wage employee is not expected to chuck 150 bucks for a course and the cost of a PAL, so the store eats that cost as well).

So if owner Bob at Canadian Tire in Butt Nowhere decided "today" that he would like to carry guns, perhaps by the fall of 2016 he would be able to sell the first rifle. Many don't look that far out on the horizon.

It took three of us four years to convince our owner that firearms were worth carrying and we had to do all the leg work to make it happen.
 
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