Indians For Guns

Last weekend, a local gun shop had a customer appreciation day on their property. Booths (about 140 different ones) from every major firearms manufacturer (and some not so major) were represented. The property is setup in such a way that almost all the booths faced the range or a berm. Consequently, one was allowed to test fire all the weapons at the booths. Many of the local gun clubs had booths there and were selling raffle tickets for drawings that had firearms in them. There were amazing trick shooting demonstrations by various people. The guy from Benelli was incredible. Civil war reenactments, mountain man type of “rendezvous” and western themed plays were featured.
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.

In 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.

Quoted from Victorian Ship Models

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.

...there was a plethora...

"plethora" is one of my favorite words, especially when it is used in association with "guns."

There were even little kids running around...

A wonderful thing! It's good for kids to see a healthy enjoyment and use of firearms. I raised all 4 of my kids around plenty of guns and they are all contributing, responsible members of society (all in their 30s, all with college degrees, all married to their first spouse, all have kids themselves). I have to say, I really reject the notion that guns are some kind of evil magic wand that only has to be waved over a kid to turn them into a criminal or psychopath. I've seen the lack of love and drug use do those things, but never guns.

That store looks mouth-watering, xl. If I ever get up that way, I will have to swing by for a visit! Thanks for sharing.

Nice pics.
& writeup.

Awesome report!
- please keep up the good work ...
this article makes very intresting reading and the supporting photographs complete the picture..

Loud Applause.

Wow .
Looks like you guys had a great time.
How often do such events take place?
With such a variety. I doubt anyone who visits the show can come out without picking up a gun.
Did you finally go for the AK?

XL,

A treat for us to watch and a treat for you to experience. I wish I could do that. Those autos must have been tremendous fun.Thank very much for the pics and sharing with us.


Best-
Vikram

Prashantsingh,
This is a once a year event and usually takes place in August. Several other gunshops in the area have similar events but not on the scale of this one. I especially enjoyed the fact that one was encouraged to handle the merchandise and even dry fire/fire it if you wanted to. Most of the shotgun booths had trap machines set up so one could actually fire the guns at targets. For example, at the Taurus booth, you could shoot the Judge with a 45 LC to knock down a silhouette which set off a popper (throwing up a clay pigeon) which you then tried to take out with the supplied .410 shotshell.
About the AK, I'm afraid I have no real use for one. It would be a perfectly adequate cartridge for whitetail deer with the appropriate softpoint/hollow point loads but I would rather settle for an AR style rifle because of the interchangeable uppers. On the other hand, I already have a decent deer rifle and my .280 Rem will significantly outperform either platform in their standard calibers.

Timmy,
If you're ever in the area, please do let me know. I would love to meet you.

Aglover,
Yes, that is a weight to keep the tripod from walking under the recoil of the MG. Notice, that there is a hook there for just such a purpose.
If you were in dirt, I suppose the points under the legs would be adequate to keep the tripod in place but if you were in sand or something similar, I'm sure it would move around quite a bit.

Vikram,
Yes it was a tremendous amount of fun. Next year, I will try and pick a different bunch of guns to shoot. I'm glad that this only happens once a year or I would be verging on bankruptcy.
My dream of shooting the M2, probably won't happen. The guy said that they had several but the backstop wasn't adequate for the .50 cal.
They also did not happen to have an FN FAL which is another weapon that I would like to shoot in full auto though it would probably be a monster to try and control.

My God. Did you guys notice the empties sprawled all over the foor in the firing section.

timmy wrote:That store looks mouth-watering, xl. If I ever get up that way, I will have to swing by for a visit! Thanks for sharing.

I'd (love to) be lost in that store for weeks together! Tell me, how does one decide which firearm one likes better as compared to the other in a store like that ?

thanks xl_target ,

best,
Rp.

You're correct, Doc, it is very difficult. I started looking at just Remington 870 shotguns and I never got through the row of them before I had to leave.
Keep in mind those rows were just for the used guns. The new guns were along the walls of the store. I was there from 9:30 am to about 5:00 pm. I never saw all the booths and I never was able to explore the entire store. Will have to make another trip there soon.

Never realized Ahlman's was that large a store. Definitely will have to stop there the next time I'm in Minnesota.

dear xltarget,

good write up. Though never a auto/semi auto fan (zero knowledge makes this easy for me), AK is one of the sweetest shooting things ever. A perfect tool. Does what its designed to do. hands beautifully even in the hands of a novice.
I can understand your reaction. I was pleasantly surprised on firing it for the first time.

A question: why is the food stand empty?

Cool. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Two Rivers,
The store itself is big but not that big, it doesn't have the floor space of a Cabela's, for instance. However, the number of guns that they have certainly beats any Cabela's that I have seen. The ceiling is low and the aisles are narrow as you can see from the photos. Their grounds are large though and they have many ranges for rifle, handgun and trap/skeet.

Shooter,
It was late in the afternoon and most people had already had lunch. Besides that, all the food is in those covered containers on the back table. They were still serving when I left. I had some Barbecued Elk for lunch from one of those food booths, topped off with a Dairy Queen Chocolate Extreme blizzard. Mmmm!

The pics say it all. Thanks xl, for sharing.

Regards