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Support your local gun shop‘York Guns’The customer’s view of the retail area on entering showingone part of the clothing displays.John Smith started York Guns up around 30 yearsago as a one-man band. With a passion for, andencyclopaedic knowledge of, vintage and antiquearms, that was a large part of the shop’s originalbusiness alongside the obligatory well-used BSAMartini target rifles and Brno Model 2s. Pistolsand revolvers old and new featured heavily too.After a few years the workforce doubled in sizewith the arrival of Gary Hyde, now the company’smanaging director and grew steadily from thenon, but by the 1990s the original premises weremassively overcrowded at busier times andrestricting further opportunities. Somehow orother, a wholesale supply business was alsobeing run from a desk shoehorned into a perenniallyovercrowded storeroom upstairs. Building andrelocating to a new bespoke shop and tradewarehouse facility on the outskirts of the villageof Dunnington east of York in early 2003 was avital step in meeting John and Gary’s aspirationsfor the business. It provided a huge increase inthe amount of space and a quantum leap in thequality of the ‘retail experience’, saw further rapidexpansion in product lines, staff numbers (now 14),and wholesale activities.others. There is something for nearlyevery clay or game shooter thoughincluding a large choice of usedguns. Around 100 rifles are ondisplay, with yet more storedout of sight. Most are sportingmodels these days, althoughyou’ll find some heavy-barreltactical types and the odd targetmodel. With YGL the country’s mainsupplier of Schmidt & Benderriflescopes, a Zeiss ‘CentrePartner’ and stockist of Leica,Leupold, Nightforce, Burris, Hawkeand Steiner optics, there is plentyof choice in this field too. Nearlyevery employee is a keen and activeshooter, the workforce able to provideexpertise and direct experience in any shooting sport.Most shotguns, rifles and optical goods instock are listed on the company’s website(www.yorkguns.com) the ‘current stock’ sectionupdated weekly, over 90% of the shotguns alsohaving images attached. An online retailing facilityis a recent development.Wholesale or ‘trade sales’ is an importantactivity, all products also offered to shopcustomers too. It encompasses a varied mix ofproducts and price levels providing dealers withsome of the cheapest shotguns going, while at theother extreme, Schmidt & Bender riflescopes offerphenomenal build quality and durability, but cannotbe described as ‘budget’.Recent additions to the product stable include thepopular Muck Boots range of ‘super-wellies’, andYork Guns has just become the importer of GSG’s.22LR copies of the H&K MP5 machine-carbine,with a new GSG-47 (‘Kalashnikov AK47’) modelimminent.The shop provides a full service to the shooter,not just locally, with customers throughout thecountry and abroad. One beneficiary of theincrease in space was clothing, there never havingbeen room for it in the old shop. A big increasein the number of guns and rifles was accompaniedby a move upmarket. YGL is Beretta’s PremiumDealer for the North of England, and holdssimilar status for Browning, Caesar Guerini andYGL’s founder and chairman John Smith.Target Shooter 19