Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Massad Ayoob A Lady In Charge: The Next Generation W hen Denny Reichard’s daughter, power rifle as well as pistol shooting. He his daughter the job of manager at Sand Ashley, took over his gun shop, decided to open it up to the public. Burr. She was eager to get back to the she virtually tripled sales. There With the range taking more and more world of the guns and took him up on his are lessons to learn from her. of his time — and things as busy as ever offer in June 2004. Dennis Reichard opened the Sand Burr at the police department — Denny offered Ashley Reichard, 30, literally grew up Gun Ranch in Rochester, Ind., about with a gun in her hand. She began 22 years ago. A full-time detective shooting at age four with a .22 working primarily major crimes revolver. She loved receiving guns for with the Rochester police departher birthday and Christmas presents. ment, Denny always ran the shop as When she went off to college, and a part-time endeavor. It was a nicely later moved to California to run a profitable sideline to help support microbiology lab, her customized his family, and it was an extension S&W LadySmith .38 Special went of his hobby. As a former competialong with her. tive shooter at national matches Ashley grew up with gun people, from Second Chance to Bianchi and as a result, is fluent in every Cup, he had won the Indiana State dialect of the language of firearms. Championship in NRA Action Yes, she gets a lot of, “Hey, where’s Shooting four times. the manager? I want to talk to a man A few years ago, Reichard began about this.” But that dissipates buying up adjacent property and fulquickly as customers realize she filling his long-time dream of having knows her stuff. a range of his own. By 2004, the Within a matter of months, spread had grown to include rifle and Ashley Reichard proved that she long-distance pistol ranges up to 250 was more than up to the task of yards, a “square range” for training taking the helm of a male-oriented and a broad array of steel target Welcome to Sand Burr Gun Ranch. Ashley Reichard business. Today, Ashley has almost ranges, some suitable for high- became manager of her dad’s gun shop in 2004. tripled sales at Sand Burr. How She Increased Sales T he huge increase in sales under Ashley’s administration did not simply come from bringing Sand Burr Gun Ranch from a part-time operation to a full-time one. Ash, as she prefers to be called, took several bold new steps to change the way the shop did business. Broader Price-Points. Sand Burr had always been a gathering place for high-performance shooting enthusiasts like her dad, and Ash wouldn’t have it any other way. However, she noticed another large area of the market had gone somewhat ignored. “We are located in an agricultural part of the country,” she said, “and traditional farmers are still a market for traditional farm guns. On the low price-point end, I brought in a selection of good-quality, low-price single-shot rifles and shotguns, particularly the NEF (New England Firearms) line. They’ve become steady sellers. They appeal to people who normally wouldn’t have shopped here when we focused exclusively on higher-end guns, and it has made a number of them regular customers.” Meanwhile, the shop does a brisk business in $4,500 precision rifles and similar high-tech shooting tools. Youth Market. “Coordinating our gun business with Dad’s range business, we’ve started to emphasize ‘youth days’ at the range, with special parent/child discounts,” Ashley said. “We’re stocking — and selling — a broader range of rifles and shotguns with the shorter youth stocks. We also now carry — and sell — a wider range of .22s. We keep the higher-end .22s on the sales racks, like the action-target shooting versions of The number of women customers has expanded greatly since Reichard took over managing Sand Burr. the Marlin and Ruger .22 semiauto rifles. They’re natural choices for upgrade purchases.” Female Market. I’ve been visiting the Sand Burr Gun Ranch off and on during trips through the Midwest for years. I noticed that with Ashley in charge, there were many more female customers in the shop than I was accustomed to seeing. She confirmed this was true. “A lot of women get talked down to at male-oriented gun shops, and they’ll go out of their way to visit one with a woman behind the counter once they know it exists,” Ashley said. continued on page 30 SHOT SHOW EXTRA SUPER ISSUE 2008 • www.shootingindustry.com 28