I was very lucky to go on a tour at Knight's Armament today. Sorry, no pics.
The tour started with Reed Knight's museum of small arms. It started at one end with Revolutionary War muskets and ended with modern era M4s. In betweeen was everything our armed forces have used in terms of shoulder fired and crew-served weapons. 03 Sprinfields, Garands, M-14s, M-2s, mortars, 1919s, M240 (serial# 000001) - if you can think of it, it was there. And...it was all fully functioning.
One of the really cool parts of that museum was the collection of mid-1800s Gatling guns. There must have been over a dozen. Tons of cool history.
The next part covered a collection of modern small arms directly tied to Knight's. Ever seen a gold-plated KAC? Hehe.
Next to that was a collection of Eugene Stoner's original drawings of the AR-180, M-16, and Stoner 63.
The next room was a collection of modern era small arms. It starts with the original prototypes that Stoner made in his gqrage and then progressed through all of the guns that were based off of those first fee guns. There had to be 70-100 unique guns on that wall. The next wall started with Colt's serial# 1 and serial# 1,000,000 M-16s and then, to the left, all of the guns based off of those. Again, all are working guns. It is the biggest collection of unique long guns I've seen outside of the FBI labs in DC.
The remaining two walls were dedicated to small arms of other nations - AK, H&K, FN, AI, Uzi, etc.
Next, and most unexpected was an tour of a tank museum. All of them run. There was even a 203mm self-propelled howitzer and a de-militarized Nike-Hurcules missle. Oh, and a Soviet T-55 and T-32.
We finished the tour with a brief walk through the manufacturing facilities. Very,very clean and squared away.
Again, sorry fo the lack of pics. But, a great tour and lesson in modern small arms.
The tour started with Reed Knight's museum of small arms. It started at one end with Revolutionary War muskets and ended with modern era M4s. In betweeen was everything our armed forces have used in terms of shoulder fired and crew-served weapons. 03 Sprinfields, Garands, M-14s, M-2s, mortars, 1919s, M240 (serial# 000001) - if you can think of it, it was there. And...it was all fully functioning.
One of the really cool parts of that museum was the collection of mid-1800s Gatling guns. There must have been over a dozen. Tons of cool history.
The next part covered a collection of modern small arms directly tied to Knight's. Ever seen a gold-plated KAC? Hehe.
Next to that was a collection of Eugene Stoner's original drawings of the AR-180, M-16, and Stoner 63.
The next room was a collection of modern era small arms. It starts with the original prototypes that Stoner made in his gqrage and then progressed through all of the guns that were based off of those first fee guns. There had to be 70-100 unique guns on that wall. The next wall started with Colt's serial# 1 and serial# 1,000,000 M-16s and then, to the left, all of the guns based off of those. Again, all are working guns. It is the biggest collection of unique long guns I've seen outside of the FBI labs in DC.
The remaining two walls were dedicated to small arms of other nations - AK, H&K, FN, AI, Uzi, etc.
Next, and most unexpected was an tour of a tank museum. All of them run. There was even a 203mm self-propelled howitzer and a de-militarized Nike-Hurcules missle. Oh, and a Soviet T-55 and T-32.
We finished the tour with a brief walk through the manufacturing facilities. Very,very clean and squared away.
Again, sorry fo the lack of pics. But, a great tour and lesson in modern small arms.
