A bullseye incentive
In-house gunsmiths help increase store traffic and sales
In addition to selling firearms and accessories, full-service gun shops also employ full-time gunsmiths to add an extra dimension to the business.
Gene Kelly, owner of the American Gunsmithing Institute in Napa, Calif., said that offering gunsmith services can be the difference between a vibrant business versus a stagnant one.
Kelly has worked as an inhouse gunsmith, as an independent and as a third-party supplier to multiple dealers. He said that the demand for quality gunsmiths make now a fine time to be a gunsmith.
“It is a great primary or secondary career,” Kelly said. “The days when gunsmiths didn’t make good money are over. What the market will bear is significant. It’s a great retirement career.”
Kelly said that the availability of a gunsmith is often the factor that leads a customer to one store and away from a different store that can’t readily accommodate his need.
“One reason a retailer should offer gunsmithing services is because a guy has to come into his gun shop twice,” Kelly said. “Once to drop off gun and again to pick up his gun. That’s two opportunities to look at all the new guns and to look at all the used guns. To look at ammo and accessories.”
It’s also two opportunities to establish a relationship with the proprietor and staff, which can lead to future visits and future sales, and also to referrals.
“It’s an opportunity to talk to them about, ‘How do you use this gun? Who is using it? If it’s your wife’s gun, maybe you need some custom work to optimize it,’ ” Kelly said. “The bottom line is that the customer needs to come in twice. That’s the same if services are in-house or out of house.”
Most gun shops have people that install scope bases, rings and scopes. They bore-sight scopes. Actual gunsmithing requires special skills, special tools and special training to diagnose and remedy problems that are beyond the abilities of untrained sales associates. A gunsmith will get a disabled gun running again. That might require making parts, doing some fine welding, brazing or soldering. Even something as seemingly simple as bedding an action or barrel requires time and skill.
“If someone is a part swapper, they’re guessing,” Kelly said. “Other parts can be worn. They can be out of tolerance. To be a safe gunsmith, you have to understand design, function and then repair. That’s what American Gunsmithing Institute is all about at the base level. Because you understand the systems — this type of lockup, this type of feed system, if it’s hammer-fire, striker-fire or whatever — you have to be able to understand breakdowns in systems and understand the repair.”
Especially if the repair is satisfactory and prompt, a second visit to pick up a gun will probably lead a customer to a permanent relationship with that retailer.
Interestingly, many repairs begin with a simple cleaning, Kelly said. While performing a thorough cleaning, an experienced gunsmith might discover problematic issues that haven’t surfaced yet. He might also discover the source of a customer’s complaint about his gun.
“Many cleanings will turn into repair jobs,” Kelly said. “Springs are out of tolerance. A spring is broken. An extractor is broken. The customer didn’t know. He just thought the gun was dirty. Sometimes he brings in a bag of parts after he tried to clean it himself and couldn’t get it back together.”
These interactions enable a gunsmith to explain issues to the owner and discuss repair options. This establishes trust and confidence between the gun owner, the smith and the retailer.
Diagnostics is an important component in “First Tier” gunsmithing, as Kelly calls it. For example, a customer might bring in a gun for cleaning, not knowing that the gun has a non-functioning safety. An experienced gunsmith will notice the flaw and recommend its repair. A regular employee could clean the gun and return it to the owner without paying any attention to the safety.
“You send it out and the safety doesn’t work,” Kelly said. “Maybe it didn’t work when he brought it in, but who gets blamed?”
Customizing guns is another level of gunsmithing. This includes mounting scopes, sling swivels and bolt-on additions.
“You can do that fairly easy at the two level, but you still need to make it look right,” Kelly said. “You don’t want it to look amateurish. Then you get into altering parts, customizing or doing major restorations. Sometimes you would be better off jobbing it off to a gunsmith out of house if you don’t have one on staff.”
JOBBING IT OUT
Wildman Arms in Bryant has been in business since 2012. John Douglas, the store’s owner, said that outsourcing repairs to a trusted gunsmith is a better option for him than having one on staff. However, he makes it clear to a customer that the gunsmith is independent from Wildman. Any further communication about the matter is between the customer and the smith.
“What we found is that parts can be difficult to acquire. A high level of skill is required, and the time requirement versus how much you can charge the customer for the time it takes to diagnose his problem, to find parts and make the repair, the value wasn’t to customer’s behalf, and it definitely was not on our behalf,” Douglas said.
Another problem is that gunsmiths often have a backlog of work from multiple sources. Customers don’t like waiting to get their guns back.
“When we told people, yes we would work on their gun, they didn’t want to wait two or three weeks for the repair,” Douglas said. “It made us look bad on the retail end. It made us lose business in addition to the loss of profit on their time. We were the bad guys even though we tried to do good.”
CREDIBILITY EARNS POINTS
Jim McQueen, owner of On Target Guns and Gunsmithing in Kalamazoo, Mich., shared a much different experience. He says that a full-time gunsmith on staff is a tangible asset that enhances his business and his reputation. Demand is so high that he also employs a part-time gunsmith. They have been with him for more than 10 years.
“I think it builds confidence with our customers,” McQueen said. “A lot people come in. They think they know a lot about guns. I can tell a customer something until I’m blue in the face, but when a gunsmith comes out and tells him the same thing, I mean, he’s got 35 years experience. It’s hard to argue with that. A customer believes the gunsmith when he doesn’t believe me.”
Especially if aggressively marketed, offering gunsmith services can be a vital part of a firearm retailer’s reputation. A retailer’s business model and experience with his customers will determine how he will provide the service.