I had posted something mostly humourous and it got flagged for trolling.
I was just trying to keep it classy so fine, here is my straight negative feedback of AoA and their EBR match with no positive suggestions to fix it and no humor and I am naming them. Seriously that is shameful. They should have been allowed to take their licks anonymously and be giving the chance to be better because they are a great company with the best people, they just tie their shoe laces together from time to time.
1) AoA heavily mentioned the presence of vendors that would be there to talk about their products, that it would be a match but also have an expo feel to it.
This was flattly untrue and everyone knew it going in.
1.5 ) This is not the only, for all realistic intent and purposes, untrue thing that AoA says. AoA has hold music that says we can try out the airgun of our dreams before we buy.
I've been in there a lot. I've bought a couple top shelf guns there, 2 of them exactly, one was top shelf 12 years ago when I got it and the other was in May of '24. I've spent several thousand dollars in accessories that directly alter the way my gun will shoot, purchased perhaps 10s of thousands of pellets and shooting has never been offered to me and I have never heard of it being offered to anyone and have I never seen someone try out a rifle before they bought it. These are tied legitimately tied together because they are two examples of AoA being fine with bending the truth.
2) In this same industry feedback thread below, there is a "Congrats to the EBR champs" with ZERO reactions. That is a good clue that people were unhappy.
3) There was a woman who was unkind to me and my friend. She said exactly this: that we weren't making her look good because we were not buying enough raffle tickets from her. This is so off putting. I asked her a question thinking she could answer about one of the raffle items. She was unhappy that I tried to do that and said "I don't know anything about it but I do take debit and credit for raffle tickets! Not ok. You are asking me to spend a lot of money, knowing I am unlikely to get anything for it and there was no mention of a charity benefit of any kind anywhere. That is not ok with me.
3) There was nowhere to sit.
4) There was one place to eat, a food truck that if you ordered a #1 it was chopped up fillet minon for $50.
With a side and drink you would never get out of there under $30.
4.1) it was absolutely classless to have a food truck list that they sell alcohol at a shooting range. (Even if they really didn't on that day.)
5) There was nothing to purchase, no sticker, no overpriced competition T-shirts, nowhere to congregate, nobody knew what shooter was at which stage or how shooters were doing on specific stages. Who had already shot a given stage, etc.
6) The most entertaining stage was broken and unfairly recorded. Therefore the match won and lost the competitors, not the other way around.
7) My friend drove for just under an hour to get to my house then I car pooled us just under another hour to get to the match. We couldn't find a reason to stay and not be bored for more than 30 min. That's about 5 total man hours of other stuff we could do with our Saturdays around the house, that always needs doing, yard work, honey-dos, or go shooting ourselves for fun that we didn't get to do. We brought ALL our kit and there was nowhere for a non-competitors to shoot our oulwn air rifles let alone try out others.
8) I want to shoot that match next year. I'll just bring my own food and drinks and have big headphones and sunglasses that nobody can see through. You don't want to be my friend? Well, fine. I'll just be a customer. You'll know it's me too because I will wear oversized red rubber shoes and have an attitude that goes with it if it isn't better or if I see that they spouted a bunch of nonsense that they didn't actually plan on doing when I get there.
9) I still think AoA is the best Airgun company in the world and I trust them. When I hand my air rifle over the counter they treat it like they know I can't replace it and I appreciate that they ALWAYS do more than they say and often charge less than they could for things. They just irritated the heck out of me on this instance and genuinely thoroughly earned a negative review.
I was just trying to keep it classy so fine, here is my straight negative feedback of AoA and their EBR match with no positive suggestions to fix it and no humor and I am naming them. Seriously that is shameful. They should have been allowed to take their licks anonymously and be giving the chance to be better because they are a great company with the best people, they just tie their shoe laces together from time to time.
1) AoA heavily mentioned the presence of vendors that would be there to talk about their products, that it would be a match but also have an expo feel to it.
This was flattly untrue and everyone knew it going in.
1.5 ) This is not the only, for all realistic intent and purposes, untrue thing that AoA says. AoA has hold music that says we can try out the airgun of our dreams before we buy.
I've been in there a lot. I've bought a couple top shelf guns there, 2 of them exactly, one was top shelf 12 years ago when I got it and the other was in May of '24. I've spent several thousand dollars in accessories that directly alter the way my gun will shoot, purchased perhaps 10s of thousands of pellets and shooting has never been offered to me and I have never heard of it being offered to anyone and have I never seen someone try out a rifle before they bought it. These are tied legitimately tied together because they are two examples of AoA being fine with bending the truth.
2) In this same industry feedback thread below, there is a "Congrats to the EBR champs" with ZERO reactions. That is a good clue that people were unhappy.
3) There was a woman who was unkind to me and my friend. She said exactly this: that we weren't making her look good because we were not buying enough raffle tickets from her. This is so off putting. I asked her a question thinking she could answer about one of the raffle items. She was unhappy that I tried to do that and said "I don't know anything about it but I do take debit and credit for raffle tickets! Not ok. You are asking me to spend a lot of money, knowing I am unlikely to get anything for it and there was no mention of a charity benefit of any kind anywhere. That is not ok with me.
3) There was nowhere to sit.
4) There was one place to eat, a food truck that if you ordered a #1 it was chopped up fillet minon for $50.
With a side and drink you would never get out of there under $30.
4.1) it was absolutely classless to have a food truck list that they sell alcohol at a shooting range. (Even if they really didn't on that day.)
5) There was nothing to purchase, no sticker, no overpriced competition T-shirts, nowhere to congregate, nobody knew what shooter was at which stage or how shooters were doing on specific stages. Who had already shot a given stage, etc.
6) The most entertaining stage was broken and unfairly recorded. Therefore the match won and lost the competitors, not the other way around.
7) My friend drove for just under an hour to get to my house then I car pooled us just under another hour to get to the match. We couldn't find a reason to stay and not be bored for more than 30 min. That's about 5 total man hours of other stuff we could do with our Saturdays around the house, that always needs doing, yard work, honey-dos, or go shooting ourselves for fun that we didn't get to do. We brought ALL our kit and there was nowhere for a non-competitors to shoot our oulwn air rifles let alone try out others.
8) I want to shoot that match next year. I'll just bring my own food and drinks and have big headphones and sunglasses that nobody can see through. You don't want to be my friend? Well, fine. I'll just be a customer. You'll know it's me too because I will wear oversized red rubber shoes and have an attitude that goes with it if it isn't better or if I see that they spouted a bunch of nonsense that they didn't actually plan on doing when I get there.
9) I still think AoA is the best Airgun company in the world and I trust them. When I hand my air rifle over the counter they treat it like they know I can't replace it and I appreciate that they ALWAYS do more than they say and often charge less than they could for things. They just irritated the heck out of me on this instance and genuinely thoroughly earned a negative review.
