Canadian Airgun Forum

Is there a reason why nobody sells BSA or Weihrauch east of Alberta? Are there no dealers in Ontario or Quebec?

It would be nice to see one in person before making a purchase.

Saskatchewan is east of Alberta...I think! Well, it should be. Illingworth is a big HW dealer there.

Yes, I have never heard of an HW dealer further east in Canada. If I was setting up such a business, it would be price-advantageous to not having it in ON or QC, because that would mean the majority of Canadians could save 7-8% PST, not insignificant to the overall cost. Many very successful mostly mail-order businesses set up in PEI for such reasons.

Whatever HW you want, you can get all the info you want here. The catalog is admittedly way short on lots of useful info though, but people here know. Hard to go wrong with the brand, just have to pick the model for the job and your physical stature.

I know nothing about BSA, haven't even noticed them for sale at the sites I look at...

Oops. I forgot about Illingsworth.

OK, let me rephrase.....East of the prairies.

Or is this just the airgun crowd getting back at Central Canada for all the political injustice?

Anyways, the forum is great, but there is no substitute for a hands-on experience.

D&L sells BSA but I think they are the only one....again in BC.

Sometimes you have to have faith. Interpret what people say, adjust to yourself. It has worked for me so far, but yes, I have bemoaned not being able to handle HW's before buying many times here.

Though I go to D&L's site often, I never even noticed they have BSA's. I don't mean to step on any toes, but after having lived in England and owned the products etc., I'll take the German airguns, thanks. That's just me, they seem to value some of the same things I do in an airgun product (cough..reliability and durability..cough). There are always exceptions, I own one... Good luck in general getting parts and service on British airguns, even in Britain, not generally a pleasant or easy experience, they seem to readily say F U in their attitude and it may take a few tries to get it done right, at your expense of course...

I have wondered why a large eastern airgun retailer like LeBaron doesn't carry HW. You'd think they'd get into that field, we'd surely all benefit, though a smaller outfit like Illingworth offers lots of benefits too.

It boils down to quality airguns are not something you find around every corner, like most other quality goods. But for mail-order sales, see what I said before, it is a big deal about where places locate to be price-competitive, part of the business strategy. A straight-thinking person would expect it would be advantageous to establish a European gun dealer in the Maritimes, no? Certainly out west is the absolutely worst place, as far as cost to end-user. I have heard that shipping to the dealer from HW, for instance, is very expensive so they prefer to do bulk orders. You pay for that, then again when they ship (back the way it came from) to you out east. I'm sure you've noticed that shipping within Canada by any method is expensive. From what I've also heard from dealers of other stuff, PEI would be the ticket for an importer location, some of the other Maritime provs are a little greedy.

I only know of four HW dealers in Canada ... Illingworth Imports, D&L Airgun, Specialty Shooting Sports, and Granlund Firearms. Yep, three of them are in BC. This might be coincidence. I doubt these dealers moved to BC just to do mailorder airguns. Illingworth started it as a side business in the NWT and things grew from there. He ended up moving to Sask.

With a larger number of HW dealers we might be able to come up with a pattern but 4 dealers in all of Canada are not many to make a pattern from. Unfortunately we don't all have a well stocked HW dealer in each of our cities but mailorder makes all 4 dealers accessable to everyone. Shipping fees don't increase much when going from province to province.

Ontario has quite a few decent airgun dealers that don't sell HW. The airgun business is not huge in Canada so it might be wise for businesses to try other brands for variety for consumers. So far I think we have the following brands available. The list is looking good.

Baikal
Diana
Weihrauch
BSA
Aeron
Drulov
Slavia.
Webley (Xocet, Tomahawk, & the pistols)
BAM-Xisico
Crosman/Benjamin
Daisy
Hatsan
Gamo
Umarex (numerous models)
Twinmaster
Air Force
Norica
Beeman (some)
Marksman
Air Arms (possibly still at Specialty Shooting Sports)
Matchguns SRL
FAS/Domino
Aeron
Steyr
Anschutz
FWB
Morini
Walther
Hammarli
Pardini
TAU

Cheers,
Todd

You're right, I *did* make it sound as though the current dealers purposely located to where they are to sell airguns. Actually, I meant that an airgun dealer could possibly offer better prices overall to a larger proportion of the population if they were not located in ON or QC...especially noticeable on expensive guns. But that still doesn't answer WHY the better-known dealers seem to be out west (from an easterner's perspective). I guess it doesn't matter, except for PST which is always nice to skip, even if just on "principle".

By reading what people say here carefully, and not succumbing to the rah-rah type of hype that you might get from some owners, you should do OK. Ask specifically about what your concerns about a particular model are. Everything has pros and cons. I haven't had a problem, everything I've got has been exactly what I expected, based on forum info. Read twice, buy once.

Airgunsonly.com will get you to the Saskatchewan dealer as well he does the warranty work for Weihrauch but only if you have purchased the gun from him.

Dale