how much profit can you make owning a gun store

how much does it cost to start up? how hard is it getting a loan? how hard is it to turn a profit?

I've always heard that in the gun business the easiest way to end up with a million dollars is to start with two million.

Seriously, it all depends on your circumstances. What type of shop serving what clientele? Do you have a location or will you need to rent/buy? How good is your credit? What sort of competition will you have? There are loads of questions.

The money comes from things like a $5 bottle of cleaner, that you paid a $1.50 for. The margin on guns is very small and lots of capital is locked up them.

B

Becoming adept at attracting the used gun business is what will boost your profits. The margin on used guns is much greater then on new guns.

And all your friends will want shit....... at cost.
My dad has BTDT. Long ago.

It'd best be approached as a side business at first , built up slowly as you pay bills from your regular, full-time job , and then used to supplement your retirement later in life .

If you've got mouths to feed and bills to pay , and are planning on making this a primary , full time job . . . . . forget it.

I work in a shop full time.....new guns = shit for profit......used guns=better profit.....repairs and custom work= where 99% of your grocery money is made. you have to love it to keep doin it every day.

Good financing
good cheep rent
large customer base
good buisness skills to keep customers happy and manage employies
ability to manage paperwork mountain to keep federal and state folks happy

You can do all this and a bad economy or one of the "big guys" starting a store down the block can still wipe you out.

It is still a retail buisness so the hours will run your life-forget about ever shooting your guns on a regular basis or going hunting or fishing

I've peeked into that window recently. I opened a pawnshop in November and got my Type 02 FFL to go along with it. I began with my personal inventory of about 40 guns and have bought and traded for more used guns. I've bought a couple of new guns but I am not really a gun shop, in that I don't stock accessories or ammo. Still, I've seen enough of the gun business to have some opinions. (I number my 4473 forms and I'm up to 75 since January, if that gives you any idea.)

My sense is that a person would have to be a damn idiot to open a gun shop and think they're going to make a living in this economy. There is NO profit on new guns. Unless you count on selling only to clueless customers, you'll have to cut your margins if you have any hope of competing against Internet sales and Walmart. Seriously, if you make 10 percent on most new guns, you're doing good. And it doesn't really matter how much money you can make on guns, you won't sell many in this economy. Your "customers" will fingerfuck your guns, tell you how it's just what they're looking for, how great your price is and that they'll be in on Friday to get it. Friday never comes.

Of course, that's only IF you have what they want. But you won't. You're going to have to have hugely deep pockets if you expect to have any kind of inventory. Seriously, think how many options there are now for compact carry pistols. Are you going to stock all, most or many of those? Hunting rifles? Just think how many options there are for caliber, stocks, finish, barrel weights, etc. You going to stock all those? I guarantee whatever you have in stock, the customer in front of you will be looking for something else. You can not imagine what it would cost to stock a decent gun store.

Special orders? Right. Try buying ONE of something and see if you can be competitive. It's not going to happen. You'll check your distributors –– the ones that will sell to you –– and find that your customer can buy the same gun for the same price or less on Gunbroker. In most cases you'll make just as much money telling them to buy the gun themselves and offering to do the transfer.

Ammo and accessories? I haven't really looked into this much but I can't imagine that you can compete. I've never understood why a serious shooter would buy do-dads from the local gun seller when he can find much better prices and selection online. The non-serious shooter is going to Walmart. Where's the piece for the local gunshop? Just loyalty? Maybe if you've been serving the guy and his dad and granddad for years. But as a new guy you don't have much to offer.

The ONLY thing a local gun shop going for it is the FFL. Because the law requires transfers be made through a licensed dealer, gun customers have to come to dealers if they want a gun (either through a sale or transfer). If it wasn't for this pseudo monopoly, gun shops would have gone the way of every other kind of specialty shop –– eaten up by Walmart and the Internet. But since you can't make money selling new guns, that FFL doesn't offer much protection.

Open a gun shop? You bet, sounds like a great idea . . . .

Don't get me wrong. I still love dealing in guns and waiting on gun customers. But I'm realistic about it. As a pawnbroker I'm going to make my money in other areas of my store. Yes, I can make a good profit on used guns when I sell them, but those sales are gravy for the business, not the meat or the potatoes. I can't imagine trying to make it as a true gun shop.

Oh, and one more thing: My business is entirely self-funded. If you expect a bank to loan you the money to start your business and you're thinking you'll be able to support a major debt load with a gun business, think again. You should probably keep your day job.

I signed my lease last October. I've probably had a half dozen Sundays since then when I didn't do at least some work at or for the store.

As for what it costs, here's a way to think about it:

Walk into a local gun shop and look around. Look at EVERYTHING and add it up. How much does the counter cost, the cash register, the slatwall displays, the carpet, the light fixtures, the shelving, the coffee pot and the chairs. Now start counting the inventory. Just make a wild ass guess. Total it up in your head while you're standing there.

It's staggering.

Did you ever think about getting the FFL and doing homebased/internet and doing the gun show circuit to start?
Check local zoning first to see if you could do a home based FFL.
In my experience there are so many jackoff "DIP" FFL dealers out there that there is room for an honest dealer who follows up with real customers and does not hose them.

Here are two examples of dips. I had previosuly sworn off one of the only two FFL's in my area as he proved to be such a flake. I previosuly purchased 8 guns off him in a few years and used his FFL several times to transfer some guns in. He would charge $20 for the use of his FFL and only $20-25 above what he paid the distributor for the gun.
I found myself in a pickle and despite my better judgement I went back to the flake to have him transfer in an FN pistol that he could not get so I bought one at an out of state gun show. Despite the dip tellig me he would fax off his FFL to the out of state dealer he did not. He claimed he did but he did not. I try again and same deal "he"ll do it". The other FFL dealer contacts him direct, same BS. So I give up on him forever. I try another FFL in the next town and he pulls the same BS, never faxing his FFL despite saying he would do it. It literally took me 7 weeks to get the second dip to send his FFL out so I could get the gun transferred in.

So again my $.02 is if you are a square guy who does what you say and treats your customers like they should be treated then I think there is room in the market to make a few dollars. I would not however start a gun store given the economic times we are in and given the current nut in the big house.

Oh one last item I was in the need for some 22 shot shells and given I swore to myself that I would never give another dime to either one of the two dips mentioned above it was either order off the net and wait or wait until I got to a bigger town. Well I found myself in a larger town and stopped at Walmart. To my suprise they had no shotshells and had dramitcally downsized their gun area and had so little ammo. What little they had was locked up in a tiny cage. Well just by the stroke of luck I saw a gun shop in a strip mall so I went in. To my relief he had 22 shotshells but for $9 freakin dollars. I bought them but needless to say I will not be a cusotmer again given the hosing I got. So there are three dealers that will never see me as a customer again for being dips.
DON'T BE A DIP

The guy I work for sometimes is doing very well......very well indeed.

$9? . . . Really? . . . imagine that . . .

.22 shot shells at Midway USA

To the OP, let this be an example to you.

As a small gun store owner you have to charge retail to even make enough money to keep the doors open

Not understanding your point? Oh I see another person making assumptions and then posting like he knows so much.
I was not referring to 50 rounds of Winchester or Federal as you depict in your link but 20 rounds of CCI and @$9
and that is robbery in my book

To the OP let this be an example that making assumptions like Bladesswitcher will make you a DIP in the eyes of customers.

Midway charges about $7 for CCI 20 packs. Even if the local gunshop was charging 30 percent more for a package of 20/CCI, that wasn't a fair price to pay for the convenience of finding the item you wanted in stock? Do you have any idea what it cost to keep the doors open and to tie up your money in slow-selling inventory?

Walmart didn't have the item you wanted but you got mad at the local gun shop for having the item in stock. What would you have paid in shipping charges to order that cheaper package of shells from Midway? I think that tells the OP a lot about what to expect in business.

Here's another assumption for you: The local guy probably wasn't making a killing selling you that box of shells for $9. My assumption is that he priced them pretty fairly given his wholesale price and his cost of doing business. I assume he would love to be able to sell that box of shells to you at a more competitive price but he can't justify buying cases of the stuff like Midway does and his vendors don't sell him the shells as cheap as Midway buys them.

Every customer will weigh the costs/benefits of shopping at a local store. Your story provides an example of how one customer feels about paying a little extra for service/convenience. Unfortunately for anyone trying to build a business, your reaction is pretty common.

Walmart, Academy, Dicks are all big corporations that move mony from a store that does good to stores that domt do well so they can charge dirt cheap prices for the stuff thay have. what dont they have? Integrity, the willingness to do the job right, good customer service and most of all actual knowledge of the product they are selling. I have my own shop and it sucks trying to compete with online sales and the big name places.

this^ we don't make much off guns at all. which is why we don't even attempt to stock new guns. we have used ones that people come by and sell or trade in on custom work. 99% of our business is in repairs and custom work.....and that $5 bottle of cleaner that costs us a couple bucks. but to be totally honest, me and my partner aren't in it for the money, we do it because we enjoy it. it'll also be a great sideline when retirement age hits., so maybe we won't have to eat cat food.

I have been wanting to set up somthing in my area as the local police a good group to have supporting your idea would need a nice indoor range to have for qaulify when needed we have a police that have to shot at a junk yard as they qaulify mayby find a way to bring what they need and in turn earn lcal P.D. armorer contracts and such! who knows you may be able to rent guns at your indoor range and sell your brass for pure profit this is how I picture making money as a small operation an indoor range and sellling ammo for it brass only so that you can claim the shell casings and sell them as pure profit. You need to find a need that is not fullfilled locally and you wil do well. If no ranges around you allow auto weapons this may be your hook open and outdoor range cheaper than indoor and have auto shoots as well as others to bring in customers all in the hook! Good luck if you chose the venture of small based FFL It will be a fight insurance can be a bitch! check your zoneing before any purchase or lease you don't want to get in over your head!

well i am 20 and have some credit history, their about 20 store in vegas alone...

I recommend you reel in your commentary if you want to post in this forum. A strong DIP in your criticism is warranted.

Saavy?

uhhhh, what?

I used to own a bike shop, bicycles not motor. Working for yourself will never feel like working for someone else, but you'll work harder than you ever have in your life, if your new and trying to build up...I had maybe 2-3 days a year where I didn't work. Remember, you can hire someone to do your job, but that money comes out of your pocket.
I did some gun stuff on the side, here and there, not much, but I got to the point where I had to sell because of an injury to my spine. Now I've gone back to social work, which is like getting paid in the dark with confederate money, but it beats nothing...
My friends keep telling me to open something on the side now, they all tell me I know more than such and such, I've got enough crap to open a small store, I'm going to do some classifieds, maybe a show here and there, the principle is going to be exactly opposite of how I opened the bike shop. I'm not going to use any money at all, other than what I have spent to accumulate my rifles, handguns, parts, and accessories. I will only utilize profit I have on hand, no risk, build up customer base, slowly, etc.
Now my old bike shop I started with HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars, I made almost half a million gross year one.....and it's all gone. I have a friend who started his bike shop almost 15 years ago fixing bikes from his basement, he picked up a no name brand who made a good product and learned to sell it.Now he doesn't even go into work, he has a manager, and oversees the management, counts his money, and is a satisfied customer of life. He did it slowly....everyone was amazed when I opened and exploded the first year, my reps, other shops, dealers, I was grabbed by salesmen at the national show in Vegas.... then a needle in the neck for a bulging disc hits my spinal cord, and wham I'm on my ass paying a lazy manager to fuck up my buisness I built up with so much hard work.
Who knows, maybe with gun stuff I'll make a couple of hundred bucks for my new Son on the way....maybe I'll be like my friend and get to retire when I'm 65, but I'm not holding my breath...
Seriously though, TAKE CLASSES on running a buisness, read every book you can on buisness principles, you might know guns in and out, but buisness principles are what they are. Good customer service is the best form of advertising, Taking time with someone, teaching them, you build a strong base, that comes back, and they'll pay for that customer service, loyalty is gold, and you build that with charachter. If you are small, sell attention to detail, sell professionalism. GOOD LUCK!

You do not want to try to open an indoor shooting range. Been there done that.

You want LE business? Probably not going to happen. Ask yourself where are they qualifying right now? Our local academy has a 50 yard pistol range with about 20 lanes. They have pneumatic pop ups as well as metal poppers and other target arrays. They have a berm that's not going to have to be deleaded every six months. Plus agencies aren't going to want to pay you to rent your range when they can probably get it cheaper from the academy.

Oh yes you'll have to clean those traps about once every six months. So plan on doing that on a day when your range is closed. Also your AC bill will be staggering unless you don't plan on providing AC, but you'll still have to have Air Handlers to filter the contaminated air.

Now factor in the days where you sat and watched HBO in the office because no one came in at all that day. Also go ahead and put aside money for the lights, mortgage, property taxes, sales taxes, your salary and benefits even though you didn't make any money that day.

Want to rent guns, okay. Then you have deal with supplying ammo. So go ahead and buy a case for each caliber. Remember is you charge anything more than Wally world does people are going to complain that you're hosing them.

Now what type of target holders are you going to use? Figure that out and learn to repair on the fly. Oh yeah is it's motor operated go ahead and buy a spare motor. These things will be shot up repeatedly. No only do you lose that lane until repaired, at some point you have to shut down to do the repair. Unless you do it before or after closing.

Now figure for a gun range you're probably going to have a very expensive insurance policy. That is, as you pointed out, if you get passed the zoning issues. Neighbors don't like ranges. Even the indoor ranges generate a lot of noise. And the EPA is always concerned about lead contaminatioin.

Don't get me wrong I spent my early 20's working in a range and loved it. But I totally understood why the owner chose to get out when he did. Also the guys he sold it to didn't five years and never to my knowledge ever turned a profit. The were operating in the red pretty much from the start.

I love gunshops and I'm an FFL (pawnbroker), but honestly, I think gunshops would be a complete anachronism if it weren't for the requirement for the 4473 form and NICS check. As a consumer, I usually found that my local shops rarely had what I wanted so I'd order off the Internet. It wasn't price so much as it was the hassle of driving to the three shops around town and seeing that none of them had what I wanted. It was much easier to log onto a website and click. It's tempting to say that the local shops should stock more, but the gun hobby is so diverse with so many areas of specialty, it would be impossible for any store to stock it all (hell, half the time MidwayUSA is out of stock!).

If you're shopping for a gun and you know what you want, you'll probably get a better deal ordering off of gunbroker. About the only thing you NEED a local gunshop for is finding used guns and gun transfers. That's a pretty tough thing to build a successful business on.

If you live in Miami,Hialeah,Hialeah Miami Lakes or in the proximity of these suburbs here in Florida most likely you'll end up going to Lou's Gun Shop on NW 57 Ave now.He used have a small shop on Palm ave and it was kinda cozy but when he started charging 50 bucks for transfers it was time to GTFO.There's a new Gun shop called Miami Guns and their transfers are always 25 and they seem like good people hopefully they stay in business. I think they are going to open up a range and maybe do the class three stuff.

Running a large gun store would be very hard now days because there are 10 gun stores just like yours within 100 miles. Having ran a gun store for several years you make your money selling shooting related equipment. If it were me I would set up a small shop with 30-40 guns in inventory and a large assortment of shooting nick nacks, cleaning supplies, primers, mags, etc.... I would market myself as an FFL transfer friendly dealer. Pimp catalog sales as well (JSC and Ellet Bros publish catalogs). I would charge a flat 13% (including sales tax ) your margin will be low but so will overhead, what you lack in margin you will more than make up for in volume. This type of sales will take some marketing and some time to build your customer base but once started can be very effective. Also you will need something to get you foot traffic, an indoor archery range will get you alot of this, I would say an indoor pistol range but the cost are huge with starting one of those up. An archery range will be cheap to build, bring in some extra cash, and get your buisness the foot traffic you need to market your buisness.

Well I am an owner of a Gun Shop. We started out as an online store and a little over a year later started a retail location/gun shop. I would first say, keep your overhead low. Kill your customers with service, kindness and honesty. Be prolific in your community service. People will pay attention to you when you step up to the plate. To me doing this isn't about the money. I could of been a Dr. if I wanted money. Being able to start this venture with My Father, My Hunting Buddy, the one who taught me about guns. I am constantly learning everyday! To me I am richer than any man who has that $. May sound kinda pathetic, but in my eyes so true. I actually love going to work, meeting the people coming into my shop and working with My Father. Plus I get great deals on guns and ammo and go shooting any time I want. BONUS! lol

About the comment with the million and two million. That is also what they say about being a Trap Shooter lol. Thousands of dollars spent on tossing some lead in a field with broken clay discs....priceless!

Good Shooting,

Jason Lumetta
ExtremeGunCare

Good luck with that...

We have an Indoor gun range and it takes several years to get in good with LE. Started with the range and kept adding guns, have over 400 guns on hand now.

Agencies are cheap and expect everything for free. If you plan on opening an indoor range you must not go cheap. We went with a snail trap instead of the rubber trap and it was the best decision ever made. Very little cleanup, no hazmat cleaning, no chance of fire... Cost more money to start but in the long run well worth it.

We purchased the first trap, then built the rest of them ourselves and saved a lot of money. Used guns, Rental guns, and repair/custom work is where you will make your money.

We also get about 1.00 to 1.30 a pound for spent brass when turned in for scrap. The lead can be scooped out off the tray in the back of the trap and we receive about .39 a pound for that as scrap.

For you guys selling used guns, where do you find your guns? Walk ins? Estate sales?

I want to do something small in the future when I get more settled. I am currently 23 and living with roommates so its not gonna happen anytime soon.

Well, everyone else has already said it, but i'll give my 2 cents.


What you need to open a gun shop is 2 other jobs. 1 to pay your bills, and 1 to pay the gunshops bills. In about 5 years you might start breaking even... assuming you burned down all of your competition.

I live less than 20 minutes from the original (and largest) cheaper than dirt (it's also the one all the mail order stuff comes out of, and you can buy at those prices in store). If i can make it, ANYBODY can make it.

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