Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Old Time Gun Shops

Edinboro Outdoors are real good folks too. Not a lot of used guns though. I should also mention Gorenflos in Erie. Old time atmosphere, for sure.

Thanks, but that jacks me.
Didn't know about them.
Still miss Bob and Mickeys in Mercersburg.

Hendershots in Handcock Md.
Lots of higher end stuff. Old fashioned creeky wood floor kind of place.

This is for the 'fire, because I hate to endorse the owners.
Cove Creek in Bedford. Merkels to Savages.
If you look rich enough, they may treat you well,
If you don't, they will eventually get around to helping you, if you ask.

No chit, if I stop by after work, they only glance at me.
Out of towner walks down the steps, "Hi, anything i can help you with....ok...look around
holler if I can help you".

The Gun Shop on hwy 8 north of Lexington, NC
Very knowledgeable staff.

Back in the 70's that was the go to store to buy guns. I bought several guns there and since you could not buy out of state at that time when you purchased a gun there they would take it and meet you in Clarkston Wa. across the river at the Ace Hardware store and they would do the paperwork. I use to go up there and spend the day standing around and listening to the oldtimers talk. They had barrels of bullets on the floor and you would scoop them out into paperbags and buy them by the pound. Every now and then there would be this one guy in there visiting and people would stand around and talk to him and listen to what he had to say.Pretty nice guy. Later learned that the gentleman was Jack O'conner. At the time I did not who he was.

In La Grande Or. there is a gun shop called Trails End, Les has a good selection of hunting equipment in there and a good selection of hunting rifles and handguns. There are usually some old timers in there relaxing and drinking coffee.

Walla Walla had an outdoor store that closed in the late 80s called Drumhellers. They had hunting, fishing, camping, and what ever else you needed to be in the outdoors there. And everybody that worked there knew their stuff. It was a marvelous place to spend the day.

When I was managing a project at our Anacortes refinery I always enjoyed dropping by the now closed Kesselrings shop.

From campfire lore... one would think that if any community was familiar with the .270, it would be San Francisco.

I agree Grices is still a pretty good shop !!

I found out about the big sale the day after. That was a great shop. I lived a couple blocks from there when I first moved to town.

Trail Creek Trade Company in St.Louis still has that old school shop feel.

I used to like to swing by Les Bauska's shop in Kalispell.

The folks that own this shop also own another not far away. They are closing this shop the end of the month. %10 off arms till then.

A few year ago, I passed on to them what is a signature line for one of the members here.

"When I die, my greatest fear is my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them." The had that quote on a sign for a long time.

Yup , that's why I chimed in. I remember going there as a kid on several occasions in the 70's when we would take trips to a much nicer SF.

I didn't read all of the replies but a few come to mind here in Maine:

Kittery Trading Post
Newport Trading Post
Old Town Trading Post

Since you are familiar with the Idaho st Moon's help me out please - I remember Moon's having a diner counter in the front of the shop, am I remembering correctly?
Around 1964 I bought my first mod 70 Winchester from Moon's, it was marked down so low that I couldn't resist. The reason for it being marked down so much was because Winchester had announced that they were bring out a "new and improved" model 70. Moon was sure that no one would want the old ones so he had it marked down - we all know how that worked out.
I do recall seeing the Moon's on State st but I never stopped in there.


When I used to go to Shapel's in the 60s-70s it was just off Fairview and was located behind his house if I recall correctly. I was in Boise in the late 90's and went to Shapel's, it was in the same general area but it was in a newer larger building then the old shop. Was that when his son was running it or was someone else running it under the Shapel name?
I do recall going to a couple of gunshows and seeing someone selling a lot of his parts inventory, stored in large green military surplus looking parts cabinets, the same cabinets I remember seeing behind the counter in the old shop.

I can't remember the name of the sporting goods/gun shop that was on Main, between 8th and 9th I believe, it was an interesting place also, saw my first Swedish 6.5x55 Mauser there and also a Snyder hinged breech which was a pretty clever redesign. Any ideas on that one.


Jack First Gun Shop -in the early 60's I was in Lancaster, CA on a TDY and stopped in at his shop - wow! I had never seen anything like it at that time. Then in the mid 80's I was in Rapid City, SD and they had moved there. They had rows and rows of guns, a great many of them were very desirable collectibles but they were setting out so they could be handled. I saw one of the most desirable pre-64 mod 70s there - a model 70 factory gun chambered in 7x57.

drover

Carter's Gun Shop in Shabonna,IL. Wood beamed ceilings, ancient oak flooring. All the wonderful smells as mentioned in other posts.

This used to be the shop to go to if one wanted to check out an assortment of 99s and in the process see a Remington 141 and a number of Model 12s. It is further out in the countryside and I assume he got most of the firearms from older farmers, estate sales, etc.

Was in there last autumn and the selection had dwindled considerably and the counter man no longer there. The owner appears to keep busy gun smithing, however it was sad to see.

Dattilio's Discount Guns and Tackle located in South Burlington, Vt right off the interstate. His dad ran a gas station for many years and he and his son Jimmy converted it to a gun and tackle shop. They still pump gas but all the bays are now taken up by boxes of hunting and fishing equipment along with guns in the inner sanctum. He deals in volume and often sells boxes of equipment before they even make the shelf. He probably sells more guns than all the other bigger shops in the area combined. Lots of LEO's and military buy their personal guns there.

ALWAYS an interesting stop at Ron Peterson's..

Way Back we used to hit El Rancho on North 4th.
Canyon Gun Shop in Tijeras Canyon
And Sandia Cartridge in the canyon

Do you remember H. Cook on Central?

Yes, long counter with stools IIRC.


A block north of Fairview on Liberty,, It was still Shapels, IIRC son's name was Mark.

Not sure about sporting goods downtown on Main, but there was a couple of pawn shops there. I bought a nice Winchester 94 made the year I was born from one of them.

Spent a lot of money in there when I lived in Anacortes. They had a great used selection especially after the seasons were over. The other odd ball shop was on Whidbey was Monkey Hill Gun shop. They were the official mfg of Hawkin rifles when I was there and the folks were friendly.

Grice's is very nice. So much so that Roof and I rented a plane and flew up to Clearfield once. It's over a 3 1/2 drive for us or an hour flight. The airport manager gave his truck to run down to the shop .