Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Former Whittaker's Guns apparently is going or has gone belly-up'

Chris Whittaker (left) and Luke Kuegel stand on the site where they will be opening a new gun store on the west side of Daviess County. | Photo by Ryan Richardson


A new gun store is coming to the west side of Daviess County, under the ownership of Luke Kuegel and Chris Whittaker. The duo promises a unique shop that will offer upwards of 2,000 guns.

The business, which they’re calling KWG, will be located on Worthington Road next to the Kuegel family’s farm shop. Worthington Road is across from Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline, just west of the roundabout that connects KY 56, KY 81, and West Parrish Avenue.

The building — a 7,200-square-foot pole barn — will sit about a quarter-mile off KY 56 on Worthington Road, across from Wyndcrest Drive. It will be on a 5-acre lot, with Kuegel saying there will be plenty of parking.

The owners expect groundwork to begin in the coming weeks and hope to be open by the start of summer.

Asked why they decided to open the store, Kuegel said simply: “We felt like there was an opening in the market.”

He said the inventory will set KWG apart from other retailers within a day’s drive. Both owners said that’s about how far away their primary market will be.

“My friends and I have traveled down to Bowling Green or Greenville to shop for guns. Within an hour’s radius, you’ll pull that market easily because that’s a day trip,” Kuegel said. “… But Bowling Green’s store concentrates mostly on tactical and Greenville concentrates mostly on hunting. We’re looking to combine that into a one-stop shop.”

The owners said they plan to stock about 1,500-2,000 guns.

“From a $200 gun to a $10,000 gun, we plan on having it all,” Whittaker said. “Maybe not in the beginning, but we plan on doing the whole gambit. We want somebody to walk in here and be able to find anything they want to find. And if we don’t have it in stock, we’ll be able to order it.”

They’ll also sell ammo, holsters, reloading equipment, components, and more.

KWG won’t include a gun range at this time. They said they’re open to trying to add one in the future, but if that were to ever work out it would likely be built at another location, they said.

The owners said they’ll be creating a Facebook page closer to an opening date, and they’ll consistently post information about the business there.

For now, they are just focused on getting the store up and running.

Whittaker said, “We’re already ready for people to come down and see us.”

Is that where shortactionsmacker works?
Member here.

I just was informed that the Whittaker family sold their interest in Whittaker's Guns a while back and have not been involved in the operation of the business at all since. No idea who bought it.

Pat Hayden Moving, LLC

Not every day we get to move a bear. We picked up this beautiful specimen from Whittaker Guns and delivered to the Owensboro Museum of Science and History. Fun fact: This bear lived to be 18 years old and came from Alaska.

Shortacionsmoker;

Still alive and kicking. Maintaining inventory has been a struggle. The shelves will fill back up this fall. The online ads don’t always mean we don’t have it in the store. We just don’t have the quantity in the store that we move online. Upper end goods have been a struggle to maintain and shipping has been dismal. 9-12 days on most restock. We probably have 4-500 guns in transit all the time. What most don’t realize is the capacity of the new store is far greater than the old store. In times past we’d get 10 of an item on allocation. That means a gun on the shelf would be there until we sold the last from overstock. Now we get one or two of the items on allocation and they’re gone the same day.

Covid was tough on us, but we’ll be around for a long time.

I was there about two weeks ago and the in-store inventory was way down. The gun racks were as bare as I've ever seen them. Other inventory seemed to be pretty much as it usually is. I asked one of the guys there about the lack of guns, and he said they'd just had a big run the past few months, hunting seasons and Christmas combined. He said the restocking proccess was running weeks behind, and that they hoped to start getting the inventory back to normal around the time that people started getting their tax refund checks, as that was another big season for them. That should be soon.

That new store that's referenced in the OP is going to be close to Whitakers curent location. A guy can kill two birds with one stone............three if he's inclined to eat at the Moonlite.

... That new store that's referenced in the OP is going to be close to Whitakers curent location. A guy can kill two birds with one stone............three if he's inclined to eat at the Moonlite.

Their website is down and the Facebook presence gone.