Gotta love Midway USA

[CrustyFN]

I have always had a good experience with Midway but also with Graf's and Powder Valley. The problem I have with Midway is I buy with a C&R license and they only give a 10 cent discount where most others give 10% to 15% and Midway is higher to begin with. Midway also charges quite a bit more for shipping than the others.
Rusty

[aerod1]

They have always been great to deal with. I am a happy Midway customer.

[Sam06]

Midway is a good organization. I used to love their free shipping back in the 90's. They have a well organized and user friendly website too. Brownells should look at it and take some hints. Midsouth and Grafs are a little cheaper. I used to like Lock stock and barrel too. Kitterys trading post is anothe good online store.

[Kendo]

Potterfield is the man!! Used em for years never a problem.

[sig2009]

Outrageous shipping costs. They refuse to ship Priority Mail Flat Rate and want to charge you an extra fee if your order is under $30. Not a good way to do business!!

[Bike Effects]

I am an internet merchant myself so I look closely at the dealings of the companies I deal with. Midway is tops in my book. I use them far too much (personal problem) and have never been sorry. Things I really like:

1. My order always ships the same day if items are in stock.
2. Emails keep me up to date
3. Many, MANY products! What an inventory!
4. Search engine can use manufacturers part numbers. How cool is that!
5. Prices are fair. What else can you ask.

Then there is the shipping question. I have had people complain about my shipping rates as well. Big secret here, but Midway nor myself own the shipping companies. In my case, people complain and I'm still upside down in shipping every month.

Have I mentioned I like Midway?

[Xwrench3]

midway usa has always been good to me! i have had a few problems over the years, and everytime, they have always steped up to the plate and made it right. that is why they have such a large following. the only thing that bugs me about midway, is the website. for the last 4 or 5 months, it has been horrificly slow. it makes it really hard to shop.

[Dragon55]

Use Midway at least every other week for a year now. Have had zero problems.

Website manipulation is very poor. They need to spend some money on it.

[DWARREN123]

I have done some buying from them am happy with them. I like MidSouth Shooters Supply better since they are just down the road and I can do a telephone order and pick up few hours later, no HAZMAT fees.

[Sport45]

They stalled my gunsmith for three weeks on a trigger return spring for my Browning BDA.

Your gunsmith should have better sources than MidwayUSA. Introduce him/her to Brownell's as an alternative.

[Smogdude]

I've spent a fair amount with them and for the most part they haven't done me wrong on anything other than shipping/packaging. I ordered 1k .40 cal bullets and one was loose in the box.. I didn't bother to count the whole lot 'cause it'd take way more time than I have to count a thousand bullets... and with as heavy as the box was.. I believe most all of them are there.

I did order a cheap bsa holographic sight for my AR15 and it was defective. I was a little ticked they didn't send me a return shipping label and made me pay the freight for the defective item, but as they said they would they did reimburse me. I can understand company policies. They made right with the credit for the defective sight plus shipping. So my gripe is very minor.

[sixglocks]

I use to do a lot more business with Midway. Not so much now. Mostly because of the following.

1. Internet is always very slow.

2. Outrageous shipping costs.

3. Many items are either out of stock or back ordered for weeks. You must pay shipping for EACH item when it arrives. Example: If your (let's say 4) back ordered items arrive three days apart, you pay shipping 4 times, once for each item when it is shipped. There is no way you can have them "bundle" the shipment when the all come in.

4 If a monthly sale item is out of stock until the following month, you don't receive the sale price.

[Sevens]

I've gotten involved with Midway commentary threads a number of times here on TFL. It's really pretty funny because depending on WHEN and WHO and some other outside factors, the general temperature of the thread can vary quite a bit.

This particular thread is really positive and much more so than some threads in the past. Some times, with the perfect storm of posts, it gets to be a huge **** & moan fest. Some folks have one bad experience and rather than simply moving on, it becomes a personal crusade with only that one experience carrying any weight. Hey, I've been guilty of the same thing in other areas... don't ever ask me about a '98 Chevrolet Malibu or a visit to the Biltmore Estate or I will rape your ears over it.

I have written LONG posts in the past about all the reasons Midway deserves my business and why I recommend them. I think I need to find my best previous post and link it to my sig line, and I don't feel like doing that right now.

Instead, I will post the biggest reason I support and recommend them: Simply put, there's no other company, retailer, manufacturer or gun maker than I am aware of that has done and continues to do as much to support the NRA-ILA and the fight for 2nd Amendment rights in the US as much as Larry Potterfield and Midway USA and the customers of Midway USA has done. Between his money and organizing his customers to donate and "round up" and pioneering the program and idea of the "round up" and his commercial backing of gun & shooting relating programming on TV, there's nobody even close when it comes to giving back to the sport and hobby in the form of monetary support to the cause.

Are there some things I'd like to see done a little differently with Midway? Yup. But I've been shopping there since '92 and I don't see that changing any time soon. And there's a lot more reasons than the one I listed, but none of them are as important, IMO.

I shop at many different places, but I've got a real respect for Larry and his operation. So it's always the first place I recommend.

[Unclenick]

I look at Midway the way I do my most usual electronics component source, Digi-key. Do they have the best prices when you figure in shipping? No. But they have more stock than anybody else? Yes (not counting current reloading component shortages, which are why, I suspect, Midway's Internet connections are slower than they used to be; thousands of people making multiple daily checks for newly arrived primer inventory). Will they get an item out fast so it arrives when they say it will? Yes. Since my time is worth something to me, that matters. Stocking a large inventory has very large tax and opportunity costs, so I don't begrudge them charging a little more for them These kinds of retailers are useful mainly for speed of rather than economy, but sometimes they do both. If you sign up for a Midway customer account and find you are not in a hurry for something, put it on your account Wish List, and they will e-mail you when it goes on sale. I've bought a half dozen things that way, and it goes a long way toward making up for the shipping costs. I also use their birthday month discount each year. I bulk purchased several thousand 150 grain .308 Hornady FMJ's for Garand loads that way in 2006. Worked out to be good timing, since they were then under ten cents each buying that way, even after shipping.

I have been disappointed by Midway's search engine often drawing blanks on things it should find. Try using their keyword search for Auto-prime, or even Lee Auto-prime, for example; an item they currently have in stock but that draws blanks from the search engine. But overall, the web site organization still seems to be better than most others, and they have an 800 number if you can't find something.

Overall I give Midway pretty high marks, as long as I don't try to shoehorn them into a category they don't belong in. They are not the Dollar General of mail order shooting-related accessories and consumable supplies. But neither are they the Nordstrom's. If you doubt that, price bullets at Gander Mountain some time.

[ramp_tech]

Just place my first order from them, will see how it go.
Price is reasonable, not dirt cheap -- hated the website design.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I like'em myself. Prices are good, the shipping prices are a bit high as is the "small order" charge, but I just wait till I have more than $30.00 to order.

I don't have a huge amount of experience with them, but have received multiple orders. Only one had any sort of damage and that was done by UPS, not Midway. The corner was ripped out of one of the boxes and some small items had apparently slipped out, and a Lyman tumbler arrived with a chunk broken out of the shroud under the bowl. Midway shipped replacement small pieces (Lee cartridge trimmers gauges if I remember correctly) and offered to send me a new tumbler, but I negotiated $15.00 off the price as who really cares, I wasn't going to the tumbler beauty contest, but I did think I should get some money off or a new product.

[Thirdeye]

I have never had a problem with Midway. IMO they are GTG.