Special thanks to National Firearms Museum Senior Curator Doug Wicklund for the following scoop:
This month's upcoming Nation's Gun Show will be a real blockbuster - in more than one sense. The NRA National Firearms Museum will be bringing famous guns from the movies. That's right -- guns you last saw on the silver screen will be there at the Dulles Expo Center April 23-25.
Ever wanted to see that strange silenced Remington shotgun from No Country for Old Men or perhaps a Star Wars blaster? (John Popp from NRA News models the silenced Remington, right.) They’ll be there at Chantilly, along with one of Audie Murphy’s Colts, used in several of his cowboy films. Maybe you’re hoping for another Murphy – like Eddie Murphy’s Browning pistol from Beverly Hills Cop? Or you know you’ve always wanted to see Hans Gruber’s H&K P7 pistol from Die Hard or Ernest Borgnine’s Winchester 1897 shotgun from The Wild Bunch. You need to come by to see these actual Hollywood treasures in person, direct from film studio collections and prophouses. Remember, these are the actual guns that were used in the movies!
The National Firearms Museum’s newest exhibition, Hollywood Guns, just opened and if you like what you see at Chantilly, plan to come by the NRA headquarters building to see much, much more. Dozens of cinema guns, from rubber “Hero” versions used to avoid damaging actors and actresses in close action sequences, to a Gatling gun used in the classic film Gunga Din, to an impressive selection of John Wayne guns covering his entire film career.
If you like the movies, and more especially movie guns, this is the exhibit you’ve been waiting to see! Want more? – how about more films – Serenity, Pulp Fiction, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Hurt Locker, Book of Eli, Botany Bay, McQ, Fair Game, Edge of Darkness, The Untouchables, Tightrope, Joe Kidd, We Were Soldiers and many more.
Hollywood Guns will run in the museum’s William B. Ruger Changing Gallery from April 2010 to March 2011. The National Firearms Museum is open daily 9:30 am to 5 pm. For more information, email nfmstaff@nrahq.org or call (703) 267-1600.