NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc, is bringing back hunting rifles and shotguns to about 500 U.S. Walmart stores, mostly in rural areas, to broaden product assortment as part of an attempt to make its outlets one-stop shopping destinations.

The move comes as the world’s largest retailer attempts to reverse seven straight quarters of same-store sales declines at Walmart U.S.

Walmart U.S. already carries hunting weapons in more than 1,000 of its about 3,600 namesake locations. The company WMT, +2.02% sells handguns only in Alaska, said spokesman Lorenzo Lopez.

Wal-Mart in the public eye

“We are working to deliver the broadest and most relevant assortment” to our customers, Lopez said in an interview.

Walmart had stopped selling guns at all but a third of its U.S. stores five years ago because of diminished sales, The Wall Street Journal reported, adding the retailer acknowledged that some slower-selling items were more critical to driving store traffic than it had originally thought.

The timing of its earlier decision proved to be ill-fated. Shortly before the election of President Barack Obama and continuing for months after his inauguration, there was an enormous increase in demand for firearms and ammunition, especially semiautomatic rifles. Much of that jump was fueled by the fear (later proven to be misplaced) that Obama and the then-Democratically-controlled Congress would move toward tougher gun-control laws.

That run on weaponry has abated considerably, although sales of pistols remain brisk as more people take advantage of new or looser concealed carry laws in states.

Walmart’s move helped push shares of the two U.S. based publicly-traded firearms manufacturers higher as Sturm, Ruger RGR, +0.01% jumped more than 7% and Smith & Wesson Holdings SWHC was up about 1%.

“As the firearms industry has remained robust over the past few years, it is apparent that consumers have found other retail outlets for their firearms purchases,” said Eric Wold of Merriman Capital. “However, without a doubt, we believe Wal-Mart’s decision will be incremental to the industry’s sales and potentially introduce a new set of consumers to the sport.”

Firearms manufacturers will gain from the move, he added.

“Given that Wal-Mart only sells hunting firearms, we view Sturm, Ruger as benefiting most from this decision given that company’s hunting firearm mix compared to Smith & Wesson,” Wold said.

The chain, representing about two-thirds of the $400 billion plus Bentonville, Ark.-based company, also is bringing back products such as fishing rods and fabric to its stores after an earlier decision to narrow its product assortment by about 8,000 items alienated shoppers. Walmart is also emphasizing its everyday low price after another strategy to lower prices on select products in so-called rollbacks didn’t fare as well as expected either.

With the increase in fuel prices, Chief Executive Mike Duke said on Wednesday that it’s even more important for the retailer to have broadest assortment possible and be the one-stop shop for consumers as they consolidate trips. See Wal-Mart CEO’s take on consumers.

