Guns.com reported a more than 50 percent year-over-year jump in dealer network sales heading into the fourth quarter, according to a press release issued Tuesday on GlobeNewswire. The gains arrive as the broader firearms retail market reports softness, extending a pattern in which the platform's dealer-transfer model appears to be capturing business that traditional retail channels are losing.

The Burnsville, Minnesota-based marketplace said the growth spans both firearm and suppressor sales. Suppressor demand has been a particular driver in 2026 following the federal regulatory developments that ended NFA registration requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles. With that administrative burden lifted, the buyer pool for suppressors expanded sharply in the second half of the year, and online-facilitated platforms that route purchases through local FFL dealers have been well positioned to capture that demand.

The October report builds on a consistent string of outperformance. In April, Guns.com reported a 44 percent year-over-year increase in dealer network sales for March, measured against a period in which RetailBI had logged a roughly 12 percent decline in national retail firearm sales. February had shown a 46 percent rise. The Shooting Wire covered both of those quarterly releases and noted the network was growing alongside the revenue figures. The platform now counts more than 2,000 licensed FFL dealers across the country, and dealers in the network process transfers for buyers who discover inventory online but complete the transaction at a local shop.

The structural advantage in the Guns.com model is that it does not displace the local dealer — it routes business to them, splitting the transaction between an online discovery step and a local in-store fulfillment step. That positioning has resonated at a time when independent dealers face margin pressure from large-format retailers discounting excess inventory left over from the 2020 through 2022 demand surge. Dealers that have diversified their sales channel into online discovery platforms appear to be outperforming those that have not, and the Guns.com figures are one of the clearest data points supporting that divergence.

The fourth quarter is traditionally the peak period for firearms retail. The NSSF has documented that background-check volumes spike around Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the week before Christmas, with the highest single-day NICS counts in any given year typically landing in this window. For Guns.com's dealer partners, the holiday season represents the most important selling period of the calendar year, and the platform's early Q4 indicators suggest it enters the stretch in a strong competitive position.

What to watch: The NSSF releases monthly NICS background-check data shortly after each month ends. Q4 figures, expected beginning in January 2027, will show whether Guns.com's growth rate continues to outpace the broader market through the holiday window and whether the suppressor category retains its outsized contribution to the platform's volume.