joelr wrote:
My own theory -- worth what you're paying for it -- is that, just as having a gunsmith on premises is a good thing for a gun shop, so would stocking a lot of holsters (expensive, I know) and having a relationship with a custom holstermaker (not expensive; just take a bit of work).
YES! I would buy guns from a place with a full-time, on-site gunsmith, ESPECIALLY if my new gun purchase came with some trivial (1 hour?) amount of free gunsmithing service.
I just had to ship my new Model 29 back to S&W because it had a small burr in one of the charge holes that made case extraction troublesome (it actually scratched the cases). S&W is a delight to deal with (they pay shipping!) and their warranty is second to none, but I had to fsck around packaging the gun, getting the return shipping info, hauling to a Fedex-staffed shipping point (no Kinkos for guns) during my work day, wait 2-3 weeks and then probably fool around driving to the Fedex location in the evening to sign for and pick up my gun (since I'm not generally home to accept the delivery). And all this is to hope they fix the problem right, since I'm not likely to get a phone call saying "Hi, I'm Gene the S&W gunsmith, I fixed the burr and noticed that blahblahblah....".
If my store had an on-site gunsmith, I could have very easily said "Gee, this is a problem" and the guy could have fixed a trivial problem like this. And I know I'm not the only one who's bought a new gun (and from any maker..) which had some trivial factory glitch. It'd totally be worth $50.
It would also make it a lot easier to upsell accessories like night sights, barrels, magwells and the like that people might be interested in but require special tools or skill to install properly. The free service coupon could perhaps be applied to longer jobs as well -- action jobs, porting, etc, thus increasing the store's service income and margin.