First two hurdles are cleared
 

Well I have cleared the first two hurdles in the pursuit of my new business. I have successfully applied for an FFL with the ATF and I have recieved the blessings of my local police chief and assisstant police chief to go ahead and sell firearms in town here. My initial plan is to sell out off my house until I can find a suitable place and get the firing lanes and merchandise floor completed. The chief of police is cool with me operating right out of my home until I get everything worked out.

Now I just need to get approval from the ATF and I can get accounts set up at the major wholesalers and bring in some stock of firearms. For right now I am going to bring in some handguns, probably a bunch of shot guns and turkey guns, some trap guns and such, and may get a few AR's as well. I think I will hold off on rifles for a few months, as I dont predict many sales this time of year for rifles as we dont have any seasons at all coming up that allow the use of rifles. Once my full store is up and operating, I will have a good supply of rifles as well.

Tonight I found an excellent building. Its not exactly what I would want, but it is plenty to get me started. It would have enough room to do at least 6-8 25 - 30 yard firing lanes and plenty of merchandise area as well. I really want the room for the lanes as we dont have a single indoor shooting range in the area, and even moreso because I believe I can really pull people in by allowing them to test guns before purchasing. I intend to have a supply of handguns available for customers to try out. Then make there decision to purchase.

Now I just hope the ATF hurries up, but I have been told it can take 6 to 12 weeks to get approved. So I guess I will just keep going about my business until then

Jeff

That's awesome Jeff! I may be in the market for another AR. :) Looking for something low-cost, and light weight... undecided whether I want iron sites, or a flat-top though.

Good luck Jeff. Do I get a good discount on a handgun? How would that work since I live in MI?

Very cool Jeff!

The indoor range and rental gun set up is a lot of fun for the shooter, and can help boost your handgun sales when people try a gun that they just "have to have". I've enjoyed many hours shooting at a couple of the local indoor ranges over the years.

Make sure you have the proper waivers and lots of insurance.

I'm sure you've researched things thoroughly, and this is by no means an attempt to scare you into not going forward. I just want to make sure you CYA before opening the doors to the public.

Here's a couple of links regarding some tragic local events at indoor ranges over the last 10-15 years. I do unfortunately remember each of the Seattle area stories being in the news.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/shot083.shtml

http://www.p45.net/boards/showthread.php?t=11935

If you haven't done so, I would take the time to call some of the owners of indoor ranges and ask for any insight they can offer to keep YOU safe legally and physically.

Best of luck with your new business!

Since I've been dreaming about starting the same type of business (just dreams, because I don't have the money to get it started) I've considered this too. It would be easy to protect yourself from rental gun murders & suicides in MN, but I'm not sure how you'd do it in WI. Here, you have to get a permit to purchase a pistol (free from local courthouse, takes a week to get after background check)

My answer here would be "no permit, no rental" as anyone intending to buy one would have to have the permit anyway, and then you'd know everyone who you rented a gun to would have been background checked.

I'd probably for safety reasons, start anyone you've never met and didn't bring their own pistol off with a .22 just to make sure they know how to handle it... don't let their first time ever holding a pistol be with a loaded Desert Eagle. ;)

Kind of a minor thing...

I don't know if all indoor ranges have this policy, but the couple here that I've been too also require that you ONLY fire ammo bought from the range in the rental guns. That way you don't have someone bringing in hot loads and stressing your rental pieces. Plus you get to sell more ammo. ;)