Winter 2025 | Feature

Right on Target

How Mark Fore and Strike achieved 63 years of sportsmen success.

Four generations have kept Mark Fore and Strike in Reno thriving since it opened 63 years ago. Long a staple store for local sportsmen, the secret to its success is, in fact, that it has no secrets.

“Two random hunter or fisher people may not give each other the secret spot or … the secret lure or their secret to finding animals in the mountains, but when we do it as a living, we would learn it ourselves, we would go out to the hills, we would go to the pond and figure out what caught fish, and we were the first ones to share that information with the customer — because we want to see the customer have success,” says co-owner Todd Piccinini. “There never have been secrets in our outdoor experience.”

Reno Roots
Martin Piccinini, the family patriarch, purchased the business and building on Kietzke Lane in Reno in 1965 and ran the business with his wife and son, Marty. Marty then bought MFS from his father in 1986, and the store was the apple of his eye until he passed earlier this year.

Marty’s sons, brothers Todd and David Piccinini, now keep the family legacy running with the same focus on customer service as the generations before them, such as actually counting change back to the customer, as their grandmother did. Todd fondly remembers growing up in the store with David.

“We had a place we slept, but this was our home,” he says of the store.

The two helped their grandparents and father in myriad ways, from grabbing needed tools for Dad to delivering papers to their grandmother, who ran the cash register. Today, three of the brothers’ now-grown children help their fathers run MFS and will take over the business one day, continuing the multigenerational legacy.

Mainstay merchandise includes guns, gunsmithing, and any fishing product you can think of, including rod and reel repair. Camping and backpacking gear also is available in abundance, and MFS also issues Nevada and California hunting licenses. The patriarchs even dabbled in the marine and ski industries decades ago.

Expertise at the Ready
Brothers and outdoorsmen Todd and David “do it all,” Todd says, from bird and big-game hunting to fishing, and they share their experiences and knowledge with customers. Todd is the firearms expert while David specializes in fishing. To keep their hunting and fishing expertise fresh for customers and the business flourishing, the family members have learned to pack three vacation days into one, Todd says.

Six direct family members and seven additional full-time team members that the Piccininis also consider family run MFS. Todd says that about 90 percent of their customers also are considered kin — he knows where they work, about their families, and even how to know when they’ve been working too much and may need an outdoorsy break.

This close-knit relationship with their customers keeps shoppers coming back despite big-box stores with similar offerings opening around the region.

For example, the owners are never office-bound. Todd and David still man the gun and fishing counters and are entirely available for brain-picking. The phone never goes unanswered when the store is open. While being growth focused, the Piccininis also never want this to be a mega-store. That would take away from prioritizing customer service on which they pride themselves.

“When you have a love, it’s easy to teach it,” Todd says. “It’s easy to know what works and what doesn’t work, and I think that’s always been shared over the counter to the customer.”

Mark Fore and Strike
490 Kietzke Lane, Reno
775-322-9559 · Mark-fore-and-strike.com