WELCOME ATMOSPHERE

Bristlecone Shooting, Training & Retail

Center aims to provide exemplary service in a friendly setting. by Jodi Stemler

When you walk through the front doors of the Bristlecone Shooting, Training & Retail Center in the western suburbs of Denver, you find a bright, open retail area with quality inventory and friendly, knowledgeable staff. The 14 indoor shooting lanes are always busy, and the many different classes fill quickly.

It’s a welcoming atmosphere, which was the key to what owners Bryan and Jacquelyn Clark were hoping to create. “We didn’t grow up around guns,” Jacquelyn says. “We got into shooting when we lived in Atlanta and had a personal crisis. We thought we heard someone in our house and found ourselves hiding behind the bed with a golf club. The next day Bryan began researching firearms and dragged me to the range.”

They both fell in love with shooting, but the first range they went to wasn’t exactly nice. After looking around, they found a more welcoming environment and began to progress as shooters. Both Clarks have extensive business and legal experience, so when they moved to Colorado and couldn’t find a range with a similar feel, they decided to start one themselves.

“It was a dinner table conversation,” she remembers. “We wanted to create something different that was unique to the market.” They made it their mission to provide an extraordinary recreational experience for shooting sports enthusiasts of all levels.

Working with range development consultant Ed Santos, and attending an NRA Range Development conference, they began to piece together their vision. The NSSF Five-Star range is 20,000 square feet, and at first the Clarks worried it would be too much space. But they soon found that rather than feeling empty, the retail space and range feel open and less cramped.

“The most important thing to us was to have an environment that was welcoming to everyone, something that was inclusive and inviting,” says Jacquelyn. “We wanted a family focus for people to walk in and feel it was comfortable and not intimidating—particularly for new shooters.”

The exterior of the store resembles a mountain timber and stone-framed lodge, providing an immediate visual connection to the Colorado outdoor aesthetic. Everything from the layout of the store to where the range is located to the colors on the walls were considered. In addition, staffing was critical as

both Clarks had experience in customer service and knew that the people working in the store would set the business apart. Bristlecone opened to the public in January 2015, and they haven’t looked back since.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

Jacquelyn says they knew they wanted to offer a wide array of training opportunities when they started the business, but decided to open with basic concealed carry and introductory classes using the NRA curriculum. After a year of experience, they branched out into a different curriculum and expanded their group of instructors. With several different training modules, they recognized they needed a more cohesive strategy and decided to develop their own.

The Bristlecone Instructor Certification and Development program is led by Cindy Coker, a professional USPSA and 3 Gun shooter with a passion for introducing people to firearms and providing proper fundamentals and firearms safety. The in-house program allows for a more standardized curriculum in the classroom, and the range’s instructors have the personal skills that enable them to teach to different levels of firearms experience.

“This process has allowed us to connect and engage with new shooters and bring them through a progression of more challenging offerings,” Jacquelyn says. “Our instruction has increased 300 percent since COVID hit, and we have been able to matriculate a lot of new shooters into other classes.”

As a result, Bristlecone has expanded the number of classes and instructors with a wide variety of basic instruction, concealed carry, tactical and law enforcement, scenario-based training, and all types of competitive shooting. Competitions are a big part of their culture as they show a pathway for a variety of recreational shooting opportunities. Bristlecone hosts USPSA-sanctioned matches twice a month.

The Clarks are excited to see how the training department continues to grow. “Every time I think we can’t come up with another class, we dream up something new—the possibilities seem endless.”

Training is a large part of Bristlecone's mission, and the range provides both classroom instruction and practice in its stateof-the art indoor range.

 Bristlecone co-owner Jacquelyn Clark in front of one of the facility's firearm counters.

The facility now has three classrooms, a shoot house for scenario-based tactical training using Simunition firearms, and a Ti Outdoor Training Simulator. In addition, they are partnering with area ranges for training they can’t provide in house. Colorado Clays is used for advanced shotgun skills, and Pawnee Sportsmen’s Center, which has a range out to 1,000 yards, is used for advanced long-range shooting instruction.

SPECIALTY CLASSES

The staff at Bristlecone also emphasizes youth and women-only classes. The youth shooting league “camps” offer a series of sessions that culminate in a fun competition. Offerings include a USPSA camp that, in addition to finetuning firearms handling, teaches about competition etiquette as well as how to use a holster and how to shoot stages. At the end of the camp, students get their competition card.

Jacquelyn acknowledges that women are an incredibly important market segment, but also offer unique challenges. The range hosts a Ladies Night every Tuesday where women shoot for free, and there are women-only classes as well as options for private lessons taught by either female or male instructors. Because women often like to try different firearms before purchasing, Bristlecone also hosts a special event where shooters can try up to 30 different pistols from the rental fleet to decide which they like the best. It then offers discounts for purchases. Although the event isn’t marketed only to women, that’s the main client base that attends.

RETAIL FOCUS

Bristlecone’s retail operation focuses on personal defense and competition. Jacquelyn acknowledges that while retail brings in the most gross receipts, the margins are tighter so it’s important to improve

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the overall sales experience. The retail space is expansive and brightly lit, the sales staff is knowledgeable and helpful. There is also a member’s lounge with lockers and a conference room that can also function as a fourth classroom. Because of the size of the facility, there is a lot of flexibility in use of space.

In addition to sales, the operation has two fullservice gunsmiths as well as an apprentice with expertise from tactical and law enforcement to shotguns and hunting rifles. Their team can help to customize any firearm, offering custom textures and finishes, stippling, and Cerakote as well as trigger work and installation of sights. Jacquelyn notes that Bristlecone’s ability to offer a full range of retail and service departments makes it a unique facility in the Denver metro area.

NEXT STEPS

Bristlecone was recently named the Best Indoor Shooting Range in the 2021 Best of Denver awards from Westword, an avant-garde publication that touts itself as Denver’s independent source of local news and culture. As such, it is targeted to young adults and reaches a very different demographic than the typical firearms publication. In their writeup for the award, Westword states: “Bristlecone offers an encouraging environment for people who want to learn more about firearms but aren’t draped in a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag (though those people would probably be welcomed, too). It’s also known as one of the most LGBTQ-friendly ranges in town. Bristlecone has instructors who are well trained, sensible and friendly, teaching classes in selfdefense as well as shotgun, rifle and pistol training, with special attention to the importance of addressing mental health issues and gun safety.”

Clearly the Clarks found a market that was primed for the business they envisioned, and they are excited about the new opportunities. Now in their seventh year of business, they are moving out of the start-up phase and are driving their business forward by evaluating what they want to do next.

“We’ve made mistakes—you can’t be afraid to make mistakes—but I never would have imagined this path from our stuffy corporate jobs,” Jacquelyn says. “We love what we do as well as the industry we work with and the people that we brought in. We started by trying to build the kind of facility that we wanted to shoot in, and clearly that vision is resonating with the people of Denver. We can’t wait to see where this goes.”

 The NSSF Five-Star range boasts 20,000 square feet of space.  The retail space is expansive and brightly lit, and the sales staff is knowledgeable and helpful. There is also a conference room that can function as a fourth classroom.

Bristlecone also hosts a special event where shooters can try different pistols from the rental fleet to decide which fits best. It then offers discounts for purchases.

(bristlecone.com)

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