Ed,

The hobby shops I have been dealing with will order anything they don't stock if requested.

They ussually order at the end or first of the week and have what you need that Friday, match the online price, and only charge sales tax, in otherwords they do not pass the shipping on to me.

I don't think it's really fair to expect a small hobby shop to stock everything, especially since they have more than one customer with specific needs.

There is one LHS near me I don't go to, because he is open by appointment only (runs it out of house part time), he uses his shop as a front to get the comercial business tax break on his cars etc., plus he gets everything he wants at dealer cost, but charges retail with no break in cost to everyone else. Claims he has too or he would loose his dealerships if they found out he wasn't charging retail. Once a month I frequent shops in the big city about 2 hours from me, they are always cheeper than him, and this is their only income, so how can that be? Not that I really care, I choose not to spend my money with him.