The Gun Museum Thread

[agentcolt]

La Porte County Historical Society - Home

Has a nice firearms collection, cars too.

 

[Tactically Fat]

Sadly Fred Ropkey passed away the Ropkey Armor Museum has closed and is in the process of selling off all the inventory. I along with the KILROY military vehicle club will make one last visit to the museum in March. Fred's wife has agreed to open it one last time for us. Wish I had the money to purchase one of the tanks.

The website makes no mention of the closure, nor sale of items. I doubt they pay much attention to it, though.

I do suspect this, however, since Mrs. Ropkey has the house/s, acreage, and the garages up for sale. https://property.mibor.com/listing/5649-E-150-N-Road/55bfe7a76f7d487279838156

 

[Alamo]

... and it dawned on me that INGO--as the "N" in INGO stands for knowledge-- ....

Oh. I thought the "IN" in "INGO" stood for INsurrection.

My mistake.

Anyway, if you head down Texas way,The Official Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas | Ranked one of the Best Texas Museums | Western History Museum is worth a stop, especially if you are a 1911 fan. Texas Rangers of the last century certainly were, there are a bunch of them on display, and I think quite a few Rangers still carry it. (Department issue is Sig in .357 Sig, but Rangers can carry any handgun as long as they qualify with it). There are also Thompson submachine guns, BARs, Remington autoloaders, and quite a few other arms there. It has been awhile since I was there, but IIRC there is a 1911 with the trigger guard cut back, and maybe some other mods to make it more suitable to its owner. Well worth the stop.

The most interesting thing I learned there was not about firearms tho: it was the statue of an early Ranger (George Erath, to be exact) that stands out front. He has his rifle in one hand, and the tripod for his surveyor's transit over his shoulder. I never realized it until I visited the museum that many of the early Texas Rangers were surveyors, sent out to map the great expanse (remember, "Texas" back then reached as far as Colorado and well into what is now New Mexico). They had to be tough and able to live off the land, fight, etc, which overlapped with the law enforcement requirements of that period, so they did double duty.

Note that this is the OFFICIAL Texas Ranger Museum. Are there other Texas Ranger Museums? Why of course, this is a big state and it enjoys intramural pollitical competitions. More on that later.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Anyway, if you head down Texas way,The Official Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas | Ranked one of the Best Texas Museums | Western History Museum

Fantastic museum. I stumbled across it driving from Dallas to Saint Tony's.

Loved the documentary. I watched it twice. And I liked the money and guns. Cool stuff. They even have a "assumble a Colt Peacemaker" game for the kids . . . Ok, I did it too.

Word to the wise. Don't tell the museum staff what inspired the Texas Rangers. I left them sputtering when I told them about the Indiana Rangers . . . I think they are still upset about that.

 

[indiucky]

Note that this is the OFFICIAL Texas Ranger Museum. Are there other Texas Ranger Museums? Why of course, this is a big state and it enjoys intramural pollitical competitions. More on that later.

It and the Autry museum in Los Angeles are on my short list....I just finished Lone Wolf Gonzales's biography...Them oil boom towns were rough places!!!! I heard that museum may have his Fitz Special recovered from Bonnie and Clyde's car????

https://theautry.org/

 

[indiucky]

Word to the wise. Don't tell the museum staff what inspired the Texas Rangers. I left them sputtering when I told them about the Indiana Rangers . . . I think they are still upset about that.

You are one brave man...You said that deep in the heart of Texas??? I salute you...

Doing some family tree stuff I had thought one of my kin was with Clark and the Illinois regiment...Kept digging and found out he was actually a later "Ranger"...IIRC they would patrol the Buffalo Trace (Hwy 150) between New Albany and Vincennes in the early days before statehood...Kind of helping out travelers and watching for Indian sign....Mainly just an armed presence...I have a map that lists (I do not know how accurate it is) the "Stations" (like a small blockhouse) and I believe there were three between here and Vincennes....I think his papers actually called it "For Ranging Service in the Territory"....Dad's family are all from Kentucky but my mom's family has been here since the 1790's...That and a dollar gets me something off the dollar menu around here...

You ought to see Kentuckians get fired up when I point out the most famous Kentuckian in the world was born in Henryville, Indiana...Colonel Harlan Sanders...World renown Hoosier lol.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders

 

[RustyHornet]

I also agree this should be a sticky.

 

[Alamo]

... Don't tell the museum staff what inspired the Texas Rangers....

I'll have to look this up. The term "ranger" has existed for long time, loosely meaning an armed guy who runs around a lot of territory. Besides, our rangers beat their rangers.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

You are one brave man...You said that deep in the heart of Texas??? I salute you...

Oh yeah. All the time. As soon as they bray about something in Texas, I am right on top of them with the truth. It's much fun and you can see why they bury them in matchboxes.

I think Kirk and indiucky Road Trip Across Texas would be an excellent subplot in the INGO movie. It would end with indiucky counting $100 bills to a bail bondsman while Kirk sits in jail.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I'll have to look this up. The term "ranger" has existed for long time, loosely meaning an armed guy who runs around a lot of territory. Besides, our rangers beat their rangers.

The Mexican rangers? Oh, they'll be back for you soon.

The Texas Ranger museum staff told me that the Texas Rangers were the "first rangers". I brought up the Indiana Rangers just to cut them long and deep.

It shut them up well enough that I did not have to mention Rogers.

 

[rob63]

Rock Island Arsenal Museum, Rock Island, IL - Rock Island Arsenal Historical Society

This reminded me of the Springfield Armory Museum.

Also, although not strictly guns, but just outside of Chicago on the way to Rock Island is the 1st Infantry Division Museum, it is outstanding! The mansion that is on the same grounds is also worth the visit, quite a few guns there as well.

Another tank museum, closer to home is the McClain Historical Museum in Anderson. I can't find a website for it, so I don't know if it is still open or not, but there is a facebook page? I would call before going just to make sure they are still open.

Another great military museum in Indiana is the National Military History Center near Auburn. It is mostly vehicles, but it also has some weapons. There are several wonderful car museums nearby as well, makes for a great day trip.

 

[indiucky]

I think Kirk and indiucky Road Trip Across Texas would be an excellent subplot in the INGO movie. It would end with indiucky counting $100 bills to a bail bondsman while Kirk sits in jail.

"Sorry about my traveling companion Mr. Bondsman...He just couldn't keep his wily lawyer skills in check with that tour guide at the Alamo..Yes sir...I tried telling him there was no basement at the Alamo but he was adamant...Yes he knows how you all feel about the Alamo...I know...Okay...Thank you sir..."

 

[Alamo]

The Mexican rangers? Oh, they'll be back for you soon.

Ah. Originally Ithought you wrote "Indian rangers." Mexican, indian, Indiana, whatever, bring'em on.

The Texas Ranger museum staff told me that the Texas Rangers were the "first rangers".

Maybe that's because Texas Rangers were first that anyone bothered to remember and write nationally known stories and TV shows about. It wasn't "Walker, Indiana Ranger," was it?

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It wasn't "Walker, Indiana Ranger," was it?

Hey, now, we had Closer to Home . . . nevermind, *kicks rocks*.

 

[Alamo]

I promised another Texas Ranger museum with guns.

The The Buckhorn Museum and Saloon in San Antonio contains the Texas Ranger Museum, which is sponsored or associated with the Former Texas Rangers Association. No I don't know why they are separate. I get the feeling that while publicly they put on civil faces, privately the FTRA and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco don't get along too well, but I don't have insight into that.

Lots of Texas ranger guns, but last time I was there also other firearms. One of the displays was on Ad and Plinky Toepperwein, and husband and wife crack shot team that used to give exhibitions. Ad once put on an endurance exhibition where he shot 72,500 hand thrown blocks over the course of 10 days -- and missed nine of them. They had blocks like these at the Buckhorn, and IIRC they were about two or three inches on a side.
Famous trick shooters wowed crowds for decades - San Antonio Express-News

Anyway the Buckhorn is well worth a stop for the guns alone, but it also has a huge number of exotic and indigenous animal displays, it has to number in the hundreds. And thousands of antlers, including a 78 point buck rack. It started life as a saloon, and used to take antlers and rattlesnake rattles in trade for drink. It's on Houston Street, not all the far from the Alamo.

 

[indiucky]

Maybe that's because Texas Rangers were first that anyone bothered to remember and write nationally known stories and TV shows about. It wasn't "Walker, Indiana Ranger," was it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rogers_(soldier)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers'_Rangers

Or maybe not?

 

[Alamo]

Oh, I forgot to add the conspiracy element to the Buckhorn Museum for the INGO unIlluminati crowd. The wife (Mary Friedrich Wallace) of the couple that owns the Buckhorn is the granddaughter of the guy (Albert Friedrich) who originally started the Buckhorn back in 1881. Her husband, Wallace Rogers III is a hunting aficionado and a member of a rich guys' hunting club (Hubertus). He (or at least his airplane) and some of the other Hubertus club members were out at the Texas ranch with Justice Scalia when he died, RIP.

I'm sure there is a in there some place.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

My good friend in Argentina e-mailed me to remind us that Argentina has a fantastic museum in the Museo de Armas de la Nacion. It is in downtown B.A.

Museo de Armas | Museo de Armas de la Nación de la República Argentina

 

[indiucky]

The fur trade museum in Nebraska is pretty sweet if one is in to black powder.....

Museum of the Fur Trade | Chadron, Nebraska

My wife's family is from Argentina...Mother in law lives near the old factory where they made the Sistema Colt's Modelo 1927's at.....The wife's last trip down she was skyping with me and stepped out on the balcony and you can see part of the old factory....

 

[indiucky]

Close to home there is the John Browning museum and gun shop in Navoo, Il at the old Mormon settlement.....

https://www.lds.org/locations/jonathon-browning-nauvoo-home-and-gun-shop?lang=eng&_r=1

I am sure Kirk will recognize this weapon John Moses Browning's father invented...