At a gunsmith shop or firearms dealer, you handle the intake and paperwork for guns coming in for repair — logging the firearm, recording the customer, capturing the work order, and managing the regulatory paperwork that firearms require. The work tends to be detail-heavy, compliance-driven, and steadily customer-facing.
Your shift tends to revolve around the counter — customers bringing firearms in or picking them up — and the paperwork that follows each transaction — bound book entries, work orders, parts ordering, and the federal forms required when firearms change hands. You'll often spend time on product knowledge questions, repair status updates, and coordination with gunsmiths in the shop. ATF compliance is woven into nearly every interaction, and the records have to be precise.
The harder part is often the regulatory weight on what looks like routine work — a misfiled form, a missed entry, an incorrect transfer can create serious consequences for the dealer's license. Variance across employers is real: a small gunsmith shop may have you doing intake, parts, and front-of-house alone; a larger sporting-goods retailer with gunsmithing carries separate counter staff and compliance specialists with tighter handoffs.
People who tend to thrive here are comfortable with paperwork discipline, comfortable with firearms culture, and patient with customers ranging from first-time owners to lifelong collectors. The role rewards careful, regulated precision more than speed, and many clerks grow into gunsmith, manager, or compliance roles over time as they learn the trade.
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View all Admin & Office roles →At a gunsmith shop or firearms dealer, you handle the intake and paperwork for guns coming in for repair — logging the firearm, recording the customer, capturing the work order, and managing the regulatory paperwork that firearms require. The work tends to be detail-heavy, compliance-driven, and steadily customer-facing.
Median pay for a Gun Repair Clerk is about $43K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $33K to $60K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Speaking, Active Listening, Reading Comprehension, Time Management, and Critical Thinking.
Most people in this role hold a high school diploma.
Employment in this field is projected to decline about 7.7% through 2034, with roughly 857,630 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Order Clerk, Inventory Control Specialist, and Senior Inventory Control Specialist.
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