Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Remember when you could buy guns at department stores like Sears & JCPenny?

my first gun was bought at a JC Penney. Their sporting goods section was in the basement.

First gun came from JC Penny's was a Savage 24 SE and in 22lr over a 410 and first rifle was a LH 788 Remington in 308 from Western Auto. Still have the Savage.

Yes i do,Sevice Merchandise, Sears,Caldors,K Mart.Up until the mid 1980's.
America was a very different country then.All this woke , liberal nonsense
will be the downfall of our once great land.

My mom bought 2 guns at Woolco for my Dad. A 20 gauge Remington 1100 that now resides in my safe, and a Remington 700 ADL .243 that my brother now owns. Remember when you could buy gun magazines at the grocery store? Kroger is our local big chain. No gun magazines to be found. Use to carry Guns and Ammo, Handloader, Combat handguns etc.

Ron

Seems like just yesterday, Service Merchandise was cutting edge in retail. I have vivid memories shopping there. Might as well have been a week ago. Google says they closed their doors in 2002.

I used to buy firearms and ammunition from Walgreen's in the 70's.

I remember getting ammo at the firearms department at K-Mart. That was back in the 1980s.

I remember Woodward's (Canadian chain) selling new Weatherbys in the early 70's!

Penn Traffic was big, and treated employees very well.
They also had restaurants, and grocery stores.
Not sure what happened, but in the early 80s they collapsed.


Hardware stores, parts stores, little country stores all sold guns into the 80s here.
FFL difficulties got more burdensome, margins slimmer.
Manny of those places still sell hunting ammo, some sell other gear.


Dad loved his Model 88, walked into Penny's and saw his first ever Finnwolf.
No card then, still not for Dad, the next week he bought it.


Remember Penny's selling performance car parts through the catalogs too.

Sure do. I bought a Browning SUPERPOSED from Sears. A SUPERPOSED, not a Citori. Boy are those days gone.

Sure do. Had a part time job in sporting goods dept at Sears while senior in high school. The full time adults had to sell the guns though. I bought my 1st gun, a Sears 6C rimfire marked down display gun for $25 or so after employee discount as I recall. Still have it.

Woolworths on south side of town had barrels of milsurps that I paid little attention to. Wish I had.

Anti gun zealots fabricated all the hysteria that changed those times to where we are now. Fuggers.

A different world back then.

my Sear's branded Winchester lever .22

My mom bought my dad a remington single shot 22 with S&H greenstamps for his birthday in the 60's.

My dad bought his 30 caliber carbine in the 60s (like he carried in Korea) from Service merchandise.
I have both of them.
I still have a box of sears Ted Williams 410 ammo.

My grandfather bought his remington nylon 22 from western auto on the 60s as well.
I can remember buying ammo at that western auto...you could buy shotguns shells individually.
Good days...

The older Sears guns had the J.C. Higgins name. That was replaced by Ted Williams. They also sold guns under their own name. I have a Sears .22 that was made by Marlin.
Western Auto used the Revelation name. My dad had one of their shotguns. Monkey Ward used the Western Field name. Penney's used Glenfield. I've seen some Glenfield guns but it's been years since then.

I ran across this list of brand names used by Sears over the years. Most I've never heard of. They probably go back to before the oldest of us here. The guns were made by about every gun maker imaginable.
T. Barker

S & R & Co

Triumph

Thomas Barker

Sam Holt

Chicago Long Range Wonder

American Bar Lock

Meriden Fire Arms Co

Norwich Arms Co

A. J. Aubrey Gun Co

New England Arms

Gladitor

Berkshire

Ranger

Eastern Arms Co

J.C. Higgins

Sears

Ted Williams

I remember it well.

Bought my first gun when I was 16 in 1968, a used Stevens 12ga double barrel at a Western Auto for $65. I had earned the cash for driving a school bus. Daddy had to fill out the forms because I was underage.

We have a Sears branded 30-06 Winchester Model 70. I think my wife's uncle bought it to try hunting and gave it to my FIL. It has a plain jane birch stock. I bedded it and set the trigger in the 3.5 lb. range. That old trigger breaks like glass. It is a decently accurate rifle.

JC Penny is gone from the area and Sears might as well be gone. Neither of the local stores ever carried much in the way of firearms. They didn't come to the area until the late 60's or early 70's, so the day of their gun departments was already on the decline.

Woolworth had a much better sporting good department, at least in the store that was local. I bought a Colt 1911 in 38 super that was stolen from Woolworths and recovered. If I remember correctly it was marked about half off because of a big dent in one of the grips. I couldn't hit a 5 gallon bucket at 10 yards with it, so it was converted to 45ACP. They seemed to always have a good selection of surplus rifles for sale. I bought a "sporterized" 1909 Argentine in 30/06. Wish I could remember what I did with it. I still like a gunshop with a lot of used firearms.

I used to buy my reloading stuff at Skaggs...