Man I need to hunt again. Won't be able to this year, I'm hping for next year... 'course I said that last year too.
Anyway, the store is awesome, and I mean that literally. 300,000 square feet of manly goodness if you will.
The first thing is, from th outside, the place is HUGE
The gentlman sitting in for scale is JohnOC, who happens to be 6'2" and not a tiny feller. Oh and one might not the shirt he's wearing.
The parking lot alone is as big as the parking lot for the new football stadium (which is right across the street; and which was being used for overflow parking FROM THE STORE).
Then there's the entryway
Let's jsut say they don't do anything little at this place.
Which brings us to the next beautiful sight
That's about 50 yards of guns, rifles up top, pistols under glass. Now in most places that would be it, but the store actually goes on about twice this depth, jsut as wide, and it has two stories.
Unfortunately the way it's set up I couldnt get many good photos, you'll jsut have to check the place out yourself.
Then we headed up to the cafe for lunch, where we scarfed down a really great Elk sandwhich, some not bad venison and bison bratwurst, and other random stuff. Have to head back and try the ostrich.
I DID manage to get a souple good photos from the "Gun Library" where they exhibit a collection of rare, fine, and antique firearms; alsmot all of which came from one large collection in Tennessee, and ALL of which are for sale.
Just for my good fried Kim (who has a pump action .22 fetish), I found this lovely thing
It's a Winchester 1890, case hardedned with a full octagonal barrel, in .22 w.r.f. I'd guess it was NRA 70% condition, with some real working wear marks. It's well used, but also well taken care of. Somebody loved this gun, and this picture just doesnt do it justice. It can be yours for $999 out the door (a 100% gun can sell for up to $10,000).
There were literally hundreds of amazing, beautifull, odd, rare... whatever guns there, about 1/2 of which you can see in the background here, and half of which were under glass. Unfortunately again, I couldnt get many good pics; but you can handle each of them for yourself, including the $50,000 hand made 600th anniversary Beretta Over/Under (though naturally they want a staf member there with you), and anything else under the glass.
The browning here was a commemorative for John Brownings 150th birthday
And this is an original custom pre WW1 commercial 1911, restored by Doug Turnbull , with about 40% master class engraving, and hand carved and polished ivory grip scales. The pictures just can't tell you how gorgeous this gun is. I normally don't like engraved guns, but this one is just beautiful.
Honestly folks, I feel lucky I got out of that store with a penny left to my name. Rest assured when funds allow I'll be heading back.
They had about half a dozen N.I.B pythons for half decent prices in different barrel lengths, another half dozen model 19's 17's, 25's ... some of them really may jsut need to go home with me.
