I have thought long and hard about posting this review. I truly am a huge supporter of any local…read morebusiness, but the end result was too disappointing. I have to leave this review.
I try to support small local businesses whenever I can, especially ones in my own neighborhood. In early January I stopped into Addax Tactical while I was out riding my e-bike with my dog. The staff were friendly, they were cool about my dog being there, and they even let me bring my bike inside. My first impression was positive.
A little later I went back to order a rifle. I wanted a Henry Big Boy .357 Lever Action Rifle. They didn't have it in stock, and I was told it would take about two to three weeks to arrive because the SHOT Show convention was coming up.
While doing the paperwork, I also decided to purchase a Ruger 10/22 so I could complete both purchases with a single background check. I left a deposit of about $1,200 toward roughly $2,000 total for the two rifles.
Both rifles are very standard models that most gun stores typically have available or can obtain quickly. I could have easily purchased them elsewhere, but I made a deliberate choice to support a smaller shop in my neighborhood and was willing to wait the extra couple of weeks.
Based on the timeline I was given, I expected the rifles to arrive by late January and to have them in my possession by mid-February after the required 10-day waiting period.
That didn't happen.
After three weeks I called to check on the order. Nothing had arrived yet. I waited another week and called again. Still nothing. The responses were always very casual, with little explanation other than that the rifles had been ordered.
Around six weeks into the process, I was told the Ruger had arrived but they hadn't called because they assumed I wanted to pick up both rifles at the same time. I went in immediately and started the paperwork to take possession of the Ruger.
During that visit I learned something that had never been mentioned before: the Henry rifle had not actually shipped yet, and the shop generally places firearm orders in batches rather than ordering individual rifles. This was the first time I had heard that, even though the original estimate had been two to three weeks.
At that point I agreed to upgrade to the octagonal-barrel version of the Henry since I had always wanted that model anyway, and I was told the change would not affect the delivery timeline.
After the 10-day waiting period I picked up the Ruger and again asked about the Henry. The answer was still that it had not arrived yet. By this point we were about eight weeks into the process, with no clear timeline.
About a week later I called again and received the same answer. At that point I decided to cancel the Henry order and request a refund.
I was told the refund would come from accounting and that I should expect a check in two to three weeks. After two weeks I called again and was told it could take up to 30 days.
I eventually went to the shop in person to check on the refund. This time I was told I could not bring my bike or dog inside, even though I had been there several times before with both and it had never been an issue.
Eventually I received a call saying the refund check had arrived. For the sake of transparency, I'm writing this from memory without the receipts directly in front of me, so the dollar amounts may be off by a few dollars either way, but the numbers below are very close to what was paid and refunded.
When I picked up the check, the amount returned was about $370 out of the roughly $1,200 deposit I had paid.
That means that after roughly 12 weeks, the final outcome of this transaction is that I effectively ended up with a $830 Ruger 10/22 -- a rifle that typically sells for a few hundred dollars at most gun shops.
Even assuming some type of restocking fee, it's difficult to understand how that result makes sense, particularly for a rifle that, according to the shop, had not even shipped yet when I cancelled the order.
I went into this purchase specifically because I wanted to support a small neighborhood business like Addax Tactical and was willing to wait longer than usual to do so. Unfortunately, after the delays, the lack of clear communication about how orders were handled, and the final refund outcome, the entire experience ended up being extremely frustrating.
If you're considering ordering a firearm here, my advice would simply be to make sure you clearly understand the ordering process, timeline expectations, and refund policies before leaving a deposit.
Posting this simply to document my experience so other customers know what to expect when placing a special order here.
