If you head southwest out of the nation’s capital toward the more rural parts of Virginia, it doesn’t take long to put the hustle and bustle of the world’s most self-important city behind you. And if you’re rolling down James Madison Highway toward Charlottesville, Virginia, you might happen across Clark Brothers Gun Shop and Shooting Range in Warrenton — a small, family-owned retail shop with a decidedly different vibe than what’s found inside the Beltway. 

Clark Brothers remains an old-school gun shop, catering to hunters, target shooters and folks who buy guns for self-defense and home protection. It took nearly five decades for the store to find its groove, but now, said Steve Clark, owner and manager, the focus is “90 percent guns.” Specializing in firearms, Clark says, has its challenges, but the shop has stayed nimble enough to evolve throughout the years. 

The original Clark Brothers were Jim (Steve’s father) and John (Steve’s uncle) who were working on the family farm that was just a few miles from where the gun shop now stands. In the late 1950s, Jim and John — both firearm aficionados — opened a small gun shop at one of the outbuildings on the farm. When the farm sold, the brothers established the spot on James Madison Highway in 1960, which was rural enough at the time for them to add a small shooting range to the gun shop.

“When they first opened, my grandmother wanted to sell antiques at the retail space,” said Clark. “And then for a bit they tried to sell souvenirs. After that we even tried fireworks. Basically, we tried whatever we could to get people to stop in and look.”

Selling hunting gear was never an important component of the business plan, said Clark, mainly because nearby sporting goods stores (and later, big-box stores) could carry a wide selection of items like boots, vests and gloves at better volumes with more competitive prices.

“The accessories we sell are everything that goes with guns,” said Clark. “We sell optics and slings and binoculars and ammo, of course. Plus, we have an experienced gunsmith on staff, and that’s a service most shops just can’t offer.” 

Customer Ken Perrotte heaps great praise on the Clark Brothers gunsmith services.

“If you’ve got a problem or need some help fixing or modifying something, the gunsmiths are great — straight shooters,” Perrotte said. “It’s like having that auto mechanic you can trust without question.”

Another attraction that brings in foot traffic: An on-site shooting range.

The Clark Brothers range is open every day of the week. It features rifle targets out to 100 yards, a pistol range, patterning boards and two clay pigeon throwers. One advantage the range has for hunters, said Clark, is that they can try different loads with different guns, whether that’s dialing in the right turkey loads for the spring season or big-game cartridges in their rifles come fall. Clark knows he is fortunate to have the range. He said he doubts many new gun shops would be able to get the required permits needed to operate a shooting range in the 21st century.

For new guns (typically there’s between 600 and 800 guns in the building at any one time) Clarks carries familiar, entrenched brands like Browning, Ruger, Colt, Smith & Wesson, Kimber and Remington. “We tried Caesar Guerini shotguns for a bit,” said Clark, “but those higher-end guns are not really for the demographic we have in this part of Virginia.” 

Rural Virginia was a hotbed for hunters when the Clark Brothers first set up shop. Deer rifles were the best seller, and even today it’s hunting calibers like the reliable .308 and .30-06 that make up a large part of Clark’s sales. Although the total number of hunters has declined over the last two decades, Virginia hunters still harvest close to 200,000 whitetails each hunting season.

“We’ve got fewer hunters coming through the door than we did 25 years ago,” said Clark, who is 62 and has worked at the shop his entire adult life. But, he said, the hunters who do come in are often looking to take advantage of the unique hunting opportunities that have sprouted up in the area recently. “Around here we’ve had a huge increase in the bear population lately,” Clark said. “Bears were unheard of around here for so long, and now we have a population with such high numbers that they are now a problem. They need people to hunt them.” Feral hog hunting, another relatively new phenomenon, has also attracted the attention of many of Clark’s customers.

Since the 2016 election, gun sales in the United States have slowed, and Clark’s has most definitely felt the aftershocks of the change in the political landscape.

“Two months after Trump was elected, sales started falling off, and they’ve been falling ever since,” Clark said. “We have 15 people on staff here now, and that’s down from what it was a few years ago.” The store did cut back hours, and lost some staff members, but the staff Clark lost was due to attrition — nobody had to be laid off or let go.

Weathering that storm and keeping people employed was important to Clark, who speaks glowingly of his employees and has a special connection to them.

“I would hate to think of opening another gun store near here and having to compete with me,” Clark said. “We’re blessed to have a number of knowledgeable clerks who’ve got a lot of experience working with guns and customers. They know their stuff, and if they don’t know it, they don’t BS. Taking care of our customers, doing whatever we can to help the person who’s walked through our doors is the guiding principle we have around here.” 

BONUS: Selling Guns in the Trump Slump

For much of the last decade, the standing joke going around the annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show) put on by the National Shooting Sport Foundation was this: President Barack Obama was the gun industry’s salesman of the year. 

According to the NSSF, between 2008 and 2016, the arms and ammunition industry saw an 81 percent increase in jobs and more than a 100 percent increase in wages for workers. Also, according to the FBI, 8 million background checks for firearm purchases were conducted in 2005. By 2017, that number had skyrocketed to 25 million. The boom in gun sales was attributed to the threat of impend- ing stricter gun-control legislation that would have been handed down by Obama. But those days are gone. 

The NSSF said in January that U.S. firearms sales tumbled 6.1 percent in 2018. It was the second straight year of decline. The 2018 gun sales were estimated at 13.1 million firearms, down from 14 million in 2017 and down 16.5 per- cent from record 2016 sales of 15.7 million. Quite simply, would-be gun buyers feel less pressured to run out and make a purchase. 

“We’ve had to tighten things up and run much smarter in the last two years,” said Steve Clark of Clark Brothers Gun Shop. “Our gun sales are way off.” Clark’s observations speak for the entire industry. 

In some ways, that’s good news for consumers. There is more available inventory for guns and ammunition, for instance. But it is bad news for gun shops. 

With sales down, shops like Clark Brothers realize they have to optimize the expertise of staff. 

“You can’t have an attitude and expect you’re going to make a sale,” Clark said. “You really have to listen to customers and figure out together how to get them the products and the service they expect.”