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| Leatherneck |
Yeah, Ed was a special kind of asshole. He tried to sell me some Mec-Gar 1911 mags for $40 each and told me they were basically the new Wilson Combat mag. To be fair I have several Mec-gar 1911 mags and they are fantastic, but I think I paid $15 bucks or so for them. I was happy when it became Nicks in the mid 2000’s and bought a lot of guns from there and then GA Firing Line. “Everybody wants a Sig in the sheets but a Glock on the streets.” -bionic218 04-02-2014 | |||
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Be prepared for loud noise and recoil |
Bought my first gun at Retting. A 226 Navy (Salesman kept calling it a “Popeye” gun because of the anchor.) To his credit, he was surprised it came with three mags and didn’t try pocketing one. I wouldn’t have known the difference. LAX range is fine, but parking is tight so you have to walk a bit to get to your car. Which made me nervous, because anyone watching the door would know I had at least one gun on me. Which, by following California law, would have been useless to me. A great range is Oak Tree. Just outside city limits, and a beautiful place to shoot. One time the pistol range was called cold because a deer wandered in. He was very comfortable. So much so, a range officer had to shoo him away so we could start shooting again. “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.” – James Madison "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." - Robert Louis Stevenson | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower  |
Here's a glimpse of John Jovino's shop circa 1973 in Scorsese's Mean Streets. Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro in the shot.  In researching Jovino's shop, I found something very interesting. Some of you may be familiar with the street/crime scene photographer Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee The man was one of a kind. I love his work, and it directly influenced much of the visual iconography of the film noir movement.  Well, it turns out that in the 1930s and 40s, Weegee rented the space above Jovino's shop, which was directly across the street from the rear of the old Lower Manhattan police headquarters at 240 Centre Street. The police would bring in prisoners through this back entrance and Weegee would climb out on the ledge of his "apartment" to photograph the comings and goings with his Speed Graphic.   Referring to 240 Centre Street: It had been built in 1909, and looked a little like one of the Parisian hotels of the Haussmann era, with a big green copper dome on top, seventy-five jail cells below, and hundreds of cops within. A small support system of businesses clustered around it, catering to police, reporters, lawyers, and anyone else doing work there. Moran’s, a luncheonette on the corner, cashed paychecks and sold coffee. Across the way, on Grand Street, a slightly dandied-up saloon called the Headquarters Tavern (LUNCH ALL DAY) kept officers in good pork chops and whiskey, though it probably wasn’t all that hard to find a bottle at someone’s desk. There’s a story, likely apocryphal, that the Headquarters Tavern and the police headquarters were linked by a tunnel to ease the wobbly trip back from the bar. The rear entrance of 240 Centre Street—“the hole,” down a light of stairs, where the wagons pulled up and the accused were hustled to their cells—faced a one-block through street called Centre Market Place. The rest of the buildings on the street were much less impressive than the police station, really just a row of tenements on the fringe of Little Italy. The storefront at No. 7 contained a business called George F. Herold, a dealer in guns and police equipment, whose founder had been an NYPD retiree. No. 6 had until recently been a poolroom but now contained stores run by two more police suppliers, Frank Lava and J. K. Carmichael. (Lava himself lived down the block.) No. 2 had Isaac Davidoff, known as Dave the Tailor, who specialized in cops’ uniforms. He later moved to a shop at No. 5, the building where John Jovino, yet another gun dealer, had the storefront and basement. Jovino, The New Yorker reported, outfitted “about three-quarters of the city police force, selling them all sorts of accessories, from shoes to whistles; and he has no objection to selling the more harmless items to civilians.” Several rooms in this block of buildings were leased by newspapers, serving as field offices where police reporters could make phone calls, type stories, eat, drink, and kill time playing cards or shooting craps. A lot of the job involved doing that, as they waited around for something to happen. Around the start of 1935, Arthur Fellig turned himself into a solo news operation based out of 5 Centre Market Place. It was less an apartment than a sort of half room on the stair landing over Jovino’s shop, although Weegee grandly called it “my studio.” It cost him seventeen dollars a month, and it was a dump. The bathroom was out in the hallway, and its one window let in barely any light. Aside from his coat and a camera case, both of which sat wherever they had been dropped, the furnishings amounted to an iron cot with a thin mattress and, next to it, a single chair that looked like a street find or maybe a castoff from a police captain’s office. For his first couple of years in the apartment, a cardboard carton of Westinghouse flashbulbs functioned as a nightstand, with nothing on it but an alarm clock; a small, plain radio; and an ashtray. (Later on, he got himself a beat-up side table and a desk.) The floor was covered in linoleum tile and was not especially clean. The door soon gained a painted plaque: ARTHUR FELLIG, PHOTOGRAPHER. Underneath, a pasted-on typewritten addendum read: CRIME STUDIOS / MURDERS ETC. -Christopher Bonanos - Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower |
John Wayne in McQ, buying a ring-hammer High Power. A video clip of the scene in on page 2 of this thread. I have been unable to identify the gun store, but filming took place in Washington state with all but a couple of scenes filmed in Seattle. I have no doubt this is a real gun store, almost certainly in Seattle. The clerk at the counter was probably a real employee. **edit** Oh Hell. I went back and looked at the comments on the youtube video, and there it is: Warshal's Sporting Goods in Seattle. "Warshal's was a pawn shop and then sporting goods store in Seattle from 1922 to 2001."  | |||
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Only the strong survive |
We use to drive down from Santa Barbara and shoot trap at night at Oak Tree in the mid 70's. Looks like it is still there: https://www.oaktreegunclub.com/ 41 | |||
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goodheart |
Great thread! And I agree, the gun store scene in The Highwaymen with Kevin Costner was fantastic; it almost certainly wasn't a real gun store, just a gun nut set director's dream. "I'll take that Winchester Monitor". Hoo boy. _________________________ “Remember, remember the fifth of November!" | |||
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| Member |
It looks like Martin B Retting is closing the business. The brothers have decided to retire. I never visited there but it sounds very much like the Stockade in Westminster that has also closed. Lots of selection, albeit prices a bit high. The exterior of the Stockade looked like Fort Apache. Southern CA loses another store. | |||
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