Tom Knapp is Awesome

…and I don’t mean his record-setting exhibition shooting abilities. No, the man’s a true gentleman. I know because I just spent a very pleasant 20 minutes on the phone with him this morning.

I’ve been wanting to update our Benelli Nova 12-gauge and 20-gauge pump shotguns. Bearing in mind Phil’s black-and-blue souvenirs from the tactical shotgun match last year, I figured it would be a good idea to take advantage of Benelli’s mercury recoil reducer kits for the 12-gauge guns.

So after a bit of web searching I found Mr. Knapp’s website (which he says is getting a much-needed facelift in about a month or so). His seems to be one of the few outfits that have the recoil reducers in stock, so I placed an online order yesterday just before I went home from the office.

I’d printed a confirmation, but it sat on my printer until I walked in this morning. Whoops! I’d accidentally purchased two of the 12-gauge Nova magazine extensions as well. That’s what I get for ordering fast without paying attention. Well, I already have a pair of the factory 12-gauge extensions, so I called up the number on the confirmation printout to straighten things out.

Tom Knapp answered the phone. At first I thought he’d sprung for one of those “intelligent” voice-recognition software packages for his store and recorded his voice for the prompts. Nope, it was the man himself. With his exhibition and TV show schedule, I think he’s crazy to do this, but he’s still running the store on the one day a week he’s home and not traveling.

Anyway, he was happy to refund my money for the extensions until I mentioned that what I really wanted was the extensions for the 20-gauge Nova. Benelli stopped importing extensions for the Novas a year or so ago, and they’re hard to find even in 12-gauge. In 20-gauge, it’s impossible. Nope, Tom has ’em. They’re not factory, but a reasonable facsimile approved by Tom himself. I’m getting the two that are sitting in his garage, and he said he’d tried one of ’em out on his Nova to be sure they worked. I pointed out that his website shows the 20-gauge extensions to be out of stock, and he thanked me — he’s going to update the website to fix that.

We got into a discussion of web design and updates, and he’s got some exciting ideas for making things better for his customers and fans. They should be reflected on the overhauled website in about a month or so.

That mellifluous rolling bass of his is not something he “turns on” for the cameras — that’s really the way he sounds. But even more enjoyable was his personality — he’s genuinely friendly and quite the conversationalist. It’s rare that a phone call makes my day, but this one did. Thanks, Tom!