It’s no secret that margins are tougher to realize than ever. The best margins are almost always going to be in the accessories, not the guns themselves.
I’ve worked a gun counter. It can be tough to get a customer to invest in the accessories that go along with the gun they’re buying. It never made sense to me — the customer wanted an easy solution for their needs, but they wouldn’t always invest in the accessories that made it function as well as it could.
I noticed something else: Customers almost never asked for accessories to be taken off of display guns.
Yes, it takes a little extra time. Yes, it raises the sticker price. It also raises the value of the product.
You need to start building purpose-driven rifle bundles to increase the margin in your store. Here are three rifle bundles you need to consider building tomorrow.
The Big-Game Rifle Bundle
The ubiquitous bolt-action hunting rifle. The white-tailed deer is the most-hunted big game animal in the country, but hunters chasing bear, elk, moose, hogs or predators all have use for a quality bolt-action rifle. Knowing your area and what your customers are focusing on will allow you to build bundles that match their needs.
Building out the big-game bundle starts with the addition of an optic. Obviously, the optic should match the general designed use of the rifle, as well as be in the same ballpark relative to price point.
The boon of budget-minded bolt guns capable of great accuracy like the Gen II Ruger American, several Savage models, Mossberg Patriot, or even the new Christensen Evoke and Taurus Expedition, opens the door for the “every-hunter” type of bundle. This would pair one of these sub-$1,000 rifles with any number of optics in the $500-$750 range — something like the Vortex Diamondback 3.5-10x50, any of the Leupold VX-Freedom line, or maybe a Riton 3 Primal 3-15 Lightweight or a Bushnell Engage 2.5-10x44.
Rifles like the Christensen Ridgeline, Bergara Premier Divide, Springfield Armory Model 2020 Waypoint, or Stag Pursuit bring a different level of performance and demand an elevated optic to match. This may mean needing to step up the glass quality or adding features that make it more accustomed for longer-range hunting or crossover applications.
This is the realm of the Leupold VX-5HD lineup, Vortex Viper models, the GPO Spectra 8X 2-16x44i, Riton 5 Primal 3-18 Crossover, or the Sig Sauer Sierra6 BDX 3-18x44.
No good hunting rifle is complete without a sling. The sling is the holster for the long gun. When you consider that the rifle may be hiked miles into the backcountry, it becomes obvious that it needs to be slung. Even for those shorts jaunts to the stand, when one gets everything else they need to take with them to the field, the sling really is a must.
Quake slings have earned a stellar reputation for durability, and the tacky texture keeps them from sliding while hiking. Several models allow you to find the perfect fit to virtually any rifle configuration.
Galco, known for their fine leather holsters, offers a nylon sling designed in collaboration with popular writer Richard Mann. The RifleMann sling offers multiple sling configurations to match preferred carry style of the hunter.
Topped with a suitable piece of glass and equipped with a sling, you can take that hunting rifle and make it a ready-for-the-field setup that will have broad appeal to your customers.
The Rimfire Bundle
Rimfire rifles have been where most shooters cut their teeth. For simple varmint patrol, precision practice, long-range fun, or serious small-game hunting, the rimfire is a choose-your-own-adventure firearm. Whether first-time gun owners or serious shooters, you can build a rimfire bundle that punches above its weight.
The Ruger 10/22 has been the gold standard in rimfire rifles for a while now, and no doubt you have several on your rack right now. Break up the silhouettes by adding a couple kitted-out options in the mix. As with everything else, start with an area and budget-appropriate optic.
Many optics brands offer rimfire-specific variants that make good sense and are priced properly. If you don’t want to go for something labeled as a rimfire scope, you should look for something with a side-focus parallax adjustment, as most rimfire shots will be inside the 100-yard parallax setting of most fixed models.
Most options are going to be 2-7x affairs, and some 3-9 or 4-12 variants make good sense as well. Personally, I would save the 4-16 or 6-24 offerings for a more precision-focused rifle choice.
With the rise of the precision rimfire circuit, and more people stretching the yardages at which they shoot, higher-end rimfires have grown in popularity as well. Rifles like the Bergara B-14R present a valid trainer stand-in, or an absolute hot rod of a rimfire competition rifle. This is where those 4-16 or 6-24 options come in. Improved glass quality, Christmas-tree style reticles, and upgraded turret designs add value and bring the quality of the scope up to meet the demands of the rifle.
For these precision-focused bundles, rimfire or otherwise, you might look at including a bipod as well. Marrying a bipod to a rifle requires the same logic and attention to the rest of the package. There are a lot of times a simple Magpul bipod is a great choice, but there will also be times that customers will want something a little more like an MDT Cyke-Pod, or something in between, like an Atlas PSR.
The All-Around MSR Bundle
You can call it a modern sporting rifle, black gun, or AR — it’s the most popular shooting platform in the world right now. A significant part of the appeal is the ability to customize the modular design. A loaded-out AR rifle just looks like a fun afternoon at the range. Put that curb appeal to work for you!
Even as a primarily hunting shop, you should have a few AR models on the rack, and you can make them stand out by not letting them look like just another AR. The bonus is you have more options for bundle buildouts because of the wide variety of accessories and how easy they are to add to the rifle.
While you can get into a lot of small niche builds with ARs, a basic defensive carbine can be done affordably and fits many applications. Any 16-inch carbine will do. You can marry an affordable Primary Arms or Riton 1-8 LPVO with the rifle, or any number of red-dots. I would suggest adding a magnifier as well if you go the dot route.
A lot of the standard AR furniture is incorporating QD sling mounts, but they are easy to add if not already equipped. I’m partial to the Shield Arms Mountain Partisan sling because of the quick-adjusting loop. It makes swimming in and out of the sling easier than most others I’ve tried.
There’s a good case to be made that any long gun intended for defensive use should be equipped with a light. While you can run a handheld with a pistol easy enough, with long guns requiring both hands to manipulate, you need that light in a mounted position.
Streamlight, one of the most popular names in weapon lights, recently launched the PROTAC Rail Mount HP-X Pro. A powerful 105,000 candela beam makes for an impressive selling feature when customers ask to see that pre-built rifle. Similar offerings can be found with brands like Surefire or INFORCE, but regardless, the light aspect is a must.
To really round it out, a vertical or angled foregrip puts a finishing touch on the whole thing and presents a very buttoned-up package that a customer can look at and simply say, “I’ll take that one!”
Why Bother?
Curb appeal is real. By taking some product you likely already have, building up a useable firearm platform, and displaying it, you create a better-looking package. You also present a lot of value, if bundled properly.
By adding two or three accessories with values that can total upwards of $500 pretty easily, you give yourself some pricing flexibility to increase the size of the customer’s cart, which allows you to trade some of the margin you have on accessories and use that as incentive to get more items moving out the door.
Margin in theory isn’t nearly as valuable as margin in practice.
Will it take a little more time? Sure.
Done right, it’s more than worth it.
The Pistol Bundle
If you’re selling pistols, you shouldn’t discount the idea of building similar packages with them as well. The proliferation of pistol dots and rail-mounted lights on pistols are the perfect scene setter for similar ready-to-go packages.
When you consider that you can even include holster options for pistols, with or without weapon lights, you can see the value of building bundles the consumer doesn’t have to think about and push those sales by discounting buying them all at once.
Any customer coming in looking for a handgun for home defense should already be talked to about potentially adding a dot and light to the pistol anyway. Why not have the gun in the case already, so the customer can pick up, handle it, and make that purchase decision easier than ever?
The Importance of Optics
We largely live in a post-iron-sight world. Where most rifles used to come with iron sights, but not be drilled or tapped for a base to install scope rings, the tables have turned almost completely, and now finding iron sights on anything other than a lever gun is almost impossible. Have a quality optics selection that satisfies different budgets, shooting disciplines and preferences. The same goes for pistol optics. Not that long ago, the only pistol optics were long-eye-relief scopes used for hunting with revolvers. While many customers erroneously see red-dots as an easy-button to solve their inability to shoot a pistol with iron sights accurately, there’s no denying that red-dot optics are the hottest thing goes in pistols these days, and customers will be asking for them. Regardless of the reason, more shooters than ever are in search of optic solutions for every platform they use.
Make sure your optics selection leaves the customer no reason to shop elsewhere if you want to maximize your margins and sell-through.
