All posts tagged tactical stores

What is a Tactical Store?

We often get asked if we are a Uniform Store, from EMS, to Fire, Police and Military.  The truth of the matter is that there are a lot of variables with what “is” a uniform.  There are primarily Class A and Class B uniforms.  I often tell people we are closer to a Class B Uniform Store because we do not do tailoring, but it really depends on what you are doing for a living.  We do have a Federal Firearms License for doing firearms transfers and many of the products we sell like Streamlight Flashlights and Surefire Flashlights have a very broad customer base.   We like to market ourselves as a Tactical Store because we are not a Gun Shop or a Class A Uniform store.   We like to sell ourselves as more of a modern Army Navy Store and we also get a lot of National Guard and Military Personnel for backpacks and hydration.

There is another market we like to cater to and that is the Emergency Services and Survival.  There are many cross overs for rescue gear, First Aid, Camping, GoRuck and Hiking.  Some of the backpacks we sell can be sold to Emergency Rescue Teams that may be deployed looking for convicted felons or even lost children.  You need hydration for several days of hiking and what you want to do in that time period is survive.  There is a stigma against words like “survivalist” but it’s really a Boy Scout mentality that is very common with responsible people and prevalent with First Responders.   We tend to change up our product line with the seasons and the weather, emergency blankets, thermal gear in the winter and hydration and long term food storage in the Summer and Fall.   There are not a lot of stores  like ours, probable 1 for every 500 gun shops in the Country but get the word out that there’s a Tactical Store here in Pennsylvania.

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Beware of buying tactical gear at gun stores

Surefire flashlightsUnless you are lucky to have a really good gun shop that moves a lot of tactical clothing, flashlights and modern gun accessories,  you might end up with products that are out dated and not up to modern standards.   We pay attention to the recalls on firearms every year and on why certain accessories fail.    We’ve seen several Generations of Magpul magazines and accessories and not all of them have been launched with initial success.   We have cleared out lots of Magpul Gen 3 magazines in recent months and put a hold on some of their magazines until we are confident they  have the manufacturing in order.   Some of our distributors have had floods of Pmags coming in but didn’t weed out the faulty production that nobody seems to want to admit to.

In the past 3 months we had to do our own inventory monitoring on Pelican, Streamlight , Surefire and many more products.   We’ve seen product flaws with Trijicon optics that were sent back as well as some completely out dated Surefire flashlights as well as Streamlight flashlights.  Flashlight technology has grown from 85%-90% with some brands and if you buy a flashlight that has been collecting dust in a gun store that doesn’t move inventory, you might be getting a flashlight that is 2 or 3 generations out dated without knowing it.  Not all product codes change from manufacturers when they do the updates to it’s really a good idea to keep an eye on all of the modern specs and get the most out of your money.

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Mounting optics is as important as the durability of the optic

Trijicon ACOGS for saleThere have been a great many times that I have picked up a rifle scope and I felt like I had a shoe off.   It’s happened in gun stores and it’s happened at friends homes.  It seems so many people are just incapable and unaware of the proper way to mount a rifle scope.   Anyone that shoots beyond 200yds is going to learn this trade real fast because any variations in the windage or even the way the scope rings are tightened down will affect your ability to hit targets at varying distances.  People don’t realize that even up close you can have accuracy problems and a customer in our store failed a training class to qualify with  his carbine because his sights were not setup correctly.   Shooting at 7yrs with a carbine vs. 50yds meant a 2 foot variation in his point of impact.

The best thing about being in this business is you really see the technological improvements.   If you pick up a Trijicon SRS sight or many of the Trijicon ACOGS for sale you have the option of the colt style mount or a quick detach mount.   You won’t have any issues with these optics from a mounting perspective.  The reticles for the ACOGS all have technical ballistic details that you will really want to use proficiently on a firing line.   Something like the chevron reticle on the TA31F-G is a favorite because it gives you clear view of your target at close range as well as the ability to quickly engage targets at medium ranges without obscuring  your targets like red dots and triangle optics do.

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