My Son and I took the ride to Simpson LTD, in Galesburg, IL...
It's in a large older commercial building, just off what looks like a trendy downtown area. We parked in a free city lot across the street, as there was a delivery truck of some sort parked in front of Simpson's. As we crossed to the store, one guy was loading a hardcase in his SUV, and another guy with a case was crossing to the same parking lot we used.
On walking in, the main room was full of floor racks loaded with long guns of all description, but heavy on the mil-surp side...
Think Mauser, SMLE, Schmidt-Rubin, Moisin-Nagant, 03 Springfield, 1917 Enfield, Arisaka, Garand, M1 Carbine, and on, and on...
Towards the left side there was a rack of mostly SxS shotguns. They were of all description and price. On the left wall were some nicer specimens, and behold, a couple of nice looking drillings.
I turned towards the double gun side of the room first, and a guy behind the counter greeted us and told us to let them know if we needed help with finding anything.
There was no trouble finding things. Trouble was that I needed more time than i had to appreciate all I was finding.
I knew from their website that they had more drillings than what I was seeing, so I asked about them. The guy who had greeted us nodded and waved us past the cash register and into the back room.
Have Mercy! What a back room! A good sized room with every wall and the entire floor filled with 2 tier racks of long guns. And the floor racks were close enough together that my ample ass had to be really careful moving...
And they had drillings. One lower tier section (8 ft?) of a floor rack was filled with drillings of all sorts. We were invited to look at anything we cared to, and the guy pointed out just a couple of interesting features of some of the drillings. Then he busied himself with other stuff nearby, and allowed us to look freely.
We were encouraged to handle the guns and look them over well..
Now, These mostly aren't pristine specimens. They all look to have been handled, shot, hunted, and handled. I'd guess that they do mostly represent well cared for, and useable hunting arms that were built by workmen at the top tier of their craft.
And yeah... There was one that woulda followed me home in a better year for money... I'm saving and ciphering...
I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the Luger Room. Upon exiting the back room, I mentioned that my son the militaria buff was cranked about all of the surplus guns. The store guy, who introduced himself as Bob Simpson, allowed that no militaria buff should leave without checking out the Luger Room. It's a medium sized office in another part of the building with hundreds of Lugers in wall racks around about half of the room.
I've got a couple of cell phone pics that I'll try and post tomorrow...
All in all, a very cool and friendly place....
