The Store:
The store itself has a huge amount of guns for sale. Their used gun section is very large and their prices are competitive. I saw used Remington 870 shotguns from $249 and up.
another aisle of used guns
And another aisle of used guns
and yet another
There were black powder guns too; a Flintlock being fired here.
Pistol Packin’ Paula, a world champion gun twirler was there and demonstrated her craft several times a day.
Yes, apparently there is a world championship for Gun twirling! Well, needless to say, she was amazing.
An original Gatling gun:
Yes…serial number 26!
This particular gun fires a .58 cal ball (they were using minie balls). There is no chamber. Instead there are cartridges which are basically steel cylinders, loaded with black powder and ignited by a percussion cap (in this case the steel cylinder was modified to use a small pistol primer). After being loaded into stick magazines, these cartridge/chambers are pushed tightly against the barrel during ignition. After firing, the reloadable steel cylinder drops out the bottom. Later Gatling guns used brass cartridges and even standard ammo like the .45/70. The very last models were even chambered for the .30/03 . The guns were declared obsolete in 1911.
Quoted from Victorian Ship ModelsIn the 1862 (First model) the steel cartridge-chambers used the same paper cartridge as used in the infantry Springfield and Enfield rifle muskets - a .58 Minie rifled bullet powered by 65 grains of gunpowder wrapped in a paper cartridge and ignited by a percussion cap that was fitted to the rear of the cartridge-chamber. With a good stock of pre-loaded cartridge-chambers, the gun could produce a high rate of fire. The fired cartridge-chambers would then be reloaded. The second model, which was used operationally by General Butler, used metallic cartridges which were easier to load into the cartridge-chamber tubes.
MG's
One of the things that I was determined to do this year was to “rock ‘n roll” with some full auto firearms. As you can see from the photos, the booth had a huge array of full-auto firearms to pick from. Unfortunately, this can get expensive, so I limited myself to just two; an AK and a Browning .30 cal MG.
As you can see there was a plethora of different FA weapons to choose from. It was hard to decide. Here you can see MG42, M249, Browning .30 cal, what looks like an RPK, etc. On the table, you can see various others.
At another booth; a Thompson
Impressions:
Browning .30 cal - Holy Cow! This version had a cut down barrel and the noise, smoke and concussion made a really unholy combination. I had earplugs on and muffs over them but I was still getting hammered by the concussion. Of course the heavy tripod helped hold the gun down when firing the .30/06 cartridges so it was relatively easy to keep the gun on target. Those of you who have fired a .30/06 firearm can imagine what it must be like to fire those cartridges at the rate of about 600 per minute. Needless to say, I was impressed.
AK – recoil is negligible. The SKS kicks quite a bit more. There was some amount of muzzle climb but it really didn’t seem to be that hard to control, if the bursts were kept short. You will notice that there is a chain keeping the gun from running away from the unwary. I tried to keep some slack in the chain so I wouldn’t be relying on the chain to keep the muzzle down. I was pleasantly surprised to see how controllable it was as I was expecting it to be a lot worse.
Some other impressions: I’ve never really been a big 1911 fan. I can take them or leave them. When I stopped at the Ruger booth, I picked up and handled Ruger’s new 1911 and man, was I impressed! It fit my hand like it was custom made for me and the trigger was really crisp and sweet. I think this one is going on my list. The Ruger SR9 had a surprisingly narrow grip ever though it is a double stack.
At the CZ booth, I played with the RAMI for a little bit and I wouldn’t mind one of those. While the grip and slide are shorter than my SIG 225, they are no slimmer.
The Ruger booth; sorry I neglected to get a photo of the 1911 but I got carried away while playing with it.
All weekend, there were thousands of people here, with firearms freely available to handle and shoot and there was a continuous background sound of gunfire and machine guns. I suppose, it must have sounded like downtown Baghdad from several years ago. However, no one got hurt, injured, maimed or killed. There were even little kids running around, <sarcasm>OMG! The horror!</sarcasm> and they didn’t get hurt either. Contrary to the myth put out by the popular media, those guns did not get up by themselves and start shooting people. It looked like everyone just had a good time.
