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Tune in to hear firsthand accounts from the LT Arms team about their journey in the shooting industry and their dedication to educating the community. Brandon talks about his career transition from the bike industry to firearms, while Evan shares insights on the reloading process. With a focus on safety and proper firearm knowledge, this episode is packed with valuable information for both seasoned hunters and first-time gun owners.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Sportsman of Colorado, Colorado’s premier outdoor radio show heard every Saturday afternoon on KLZ 560 with insights on hunting, fishing, archery, guns, and ammo from Colorado’s top outfitters featuring the industry’s leading experts on how to enhance your experience in the great outdoors. Now, here’s your host, Scott Whatley.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to Sportsman Colorado. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, it’s great to have you with us. Just a quick reminder now, you miss our live show on Saturdays, which is 1 to 2. You can catch us twice on Sundays, and that’s 8 to 9 a.m., 8 to 9 p.m., and then the following Thursday, that will be 9 to 10 a.m., of course, right here on KLC 560. You can catch our podcast anywhere you catch yours, and, of course, at sportsmanofcolorado.com. Well, we’re super excited to announce a new partnership. It’s always great to get introduced to a new group of folks, and we’re going to introduce to you today LT Arms. They are located at 8119 Schaefer. Is that Schaefer Street? Schaefer Parkway. Schaefer Parkway. All right. That’s Kyle the owner. I needed his information here. All right. So Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. Their number is 720-727-0400. And, again, it’s a great store. You’re going to be hearing a lot more about them every month here on Sportsman of Colorado. And I’ll go around the room here, and we’re actually coming to you from the World headquarters here at 8119 Schaefer Parkway of LT Arms. But Kyle Willey, the owner, which I’m so glad he knew his address. He’s with us. How are you, bud? I’m doing good. Glad to be here. All right. And we’ve also got Brandon Anderson. Hey, nice to be here. Brandon, thanks for being with us. And Evan Lee. Yes, sir. Good to see you. All right. All right. Let’s start out with Kyle. Let’s talk about owning a gun shop, man. Every guy’s dream. I’d love to own a gun shop. Let’s find out a little bit of your past and your background of what got you into this. What have you done in your life kind of with businesses and what led you down this path?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, like you said, every guy’s dream is to own a gun shop. Everyone wants the coolest, funnest guns out there. But the biggest thing with why I wanted to start a gun shop was just I felt like there was so much missing here in the Colorado market for hunting that I wanted a good, high-quality hunting gun shop to go to. where the staff is knowledgeable on all the stuff that, you know, is revolved around hunting. And also, you know, they can help you from start to finish on anything you need to get the, you know, hunt that you want.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. That is, you know, and I go into stores too, that is kind of a weakness with some shops, you know, and most shops, right, from the hunting side. Sometimes I walk in, and I think we talked about this the other day, but you walk in and, man, Guys look like they’re ready to go to combat. They got more pistols and magazines all around their belt. And I’m like, are you guys guarding this place or are we selling stuff, you know? But it is great. And, you know, man, when I first came in and I had heard of the store, but just being honest, I’d never been by. And just like you probably never listened to Sportsman of Colorado, so we’re even. But, man, walking in and just seeing the store, first of all, It was really shocking how kind of big it is in here and what all you’ve got. You know, you’re kind of in this commercial kind of location here, so it’s a little bit different when you pull up. But, man, when you come in, you have no doubt you’re in a gun store. So was that your mission, too, to kind of carry? I mean, I see some military things, some black guns here, and you’re hunting. You’ve got handguns.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I mean, my main goal was to be a one-stop shop for everything hunting and outdoorsy. But also having the historical aspect, I tried to get the guys in the shop that are very well-versed in everything. So anywhere from old World War II history to modern-day ARs, we can work on or tell you the history behind whatever it is that you bring in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s great.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, Brandon, let’s talk about you, sir. I started working here about 10 months ago. I came from the bike industry. I used to work at Weward Cyclery. And, yeah, about 10 months ago, I started talking to Evan. He was saying we needed a marketing guy down at the shop. And so he kind of threw it out there to Kyle, and then we ended up going for a nice – lunch at sushi den and did an on-the-fly interview and yeah i came in yeah last june oh yeah cool cool are you uh hunting are you in the hunting as well or you mainly just like that yeah i’ve been uh i go elk hunting we went on a shop bison hunt this the beginning of this year oh cool we got a couple so we got a lot of meat in the freezer for that I went shooting when I was younger, but I hadn’t really been into it in a while. And then I had started working with Evan over at the bike shop, and he offered to take me to the range. And one gun turned into a safe full of guns. Trust me, I know how that works.
SPEAKER 03 :
Totally, yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
I thought I was going to get, you know, like two or three and I’d be good. And, yeah, it grows into a way bigger of a hobby than that. I like guns and guitars and everything that drives my wife crazy and costs a lot of money. Yeah, I think we’re all good at that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Once again, if you’re just joining us, we’re coming to you live from LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. And once again, their number is 720-727-0400. And Kyle, let’s run through your hours that you’re open during the week.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so the hours we’re open is Monday through Friday is 10 to 7, and then Saturday we’re open 10 to 4. Try to accommodate hours for people between their work hours and stuff like that.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, great.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right, last guy in the room, Evan, the elder.
SPEAKER 03 :
The elder guy, right? Resident old guy. The old guy. All right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Tell us a little bit about you, sir. You know, I’ve been into the hunting and shooting and fishing world since I was a kid. And then, you know, hand loading really became a big passion for me. You know, tuning rifles and loads and that kind of thing. And I’d been a customer of Kyle’s for some time. It was a little shop, and we got to be friendly, bought a few rifles from him and that kind of thing. And then when he moved over here and got the bigger location here, I noticed there was a dearth of reloading equipment. I said, what are we doing here? We need the reloading stuff. And so I pitched the idea for reloading classes and helping manage that aspect. And that’s become a nice part of our business. Wow, that’s so cool.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. You know, I came in a couple of times, and Erica, a friend of ours, which we’ll be getting on, is helping them with some marketing as well. And Erica actually made the introduction. So thank you, Erica, if you’re listening. Evan was kind of doing some videos on some ammo, and I was like, wow, that guy knows his stuff. And here’s what, I think it’s aggravating. You guys have probably been in stores where you go in and you ask a question. And I’d rather a person say, I have no idea than making up something. Absolutely. And that’s fine. I mean, we can’t know everything. But, man, it’s disappointing when you want to know something like, you know, what’s the difference between this gun and this gun? And they start reading the tag like, dude, I can read. You know, I need you to know. Yes. But I think that’s what gives customers a great comfort of coming into the store here is because of the knowledge here, right? You agree?
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely, I agree. You know, it characterizes this. You say, well, you work at a gun shop. Well, yeah, we are a retail gun shop. We’re also a full-service gunsmithing operation with five craftsman-level gentlemen back there who know what they’re doing. We can do everything from building you a new custom rifle to restoring Grandad’s 19th-century shotgun. The wealth of knowledge and expertise in each little facet of each personality around here covers a lot of ground, and it is really nice. It does lend credibility, and it gives the customer confidence as well because, yeah, we’re not going to tell you we don’t know, but if we don’t know, we’re going to go find out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, sure, sure. So, you know, reloading, and I’ll just be honest, I’ve never gotten into that. Man, I don’t know if I’m smart enough to do that. I don’t want to blow something up. But first of all, there for a while, I know a lot of reloading things were hard to even get your hands on. Supplies and different things like that. So let’s talk about that first. Are things… More readily available for reloaders now?
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s loosening up, but prices have gone stratospheric. It used to be you could get 1,000 primers for $35. Now they’re $100. A pound of powder used to be $35. Now it’s $80 or $90. So it’s been tough. But availability is coming back. Prices are not coming down.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. We’ll do a segment sometime on reloading because I think that’s a very interesting deal. But I do want to ask you a couple of questions about it. So if somebody says, I think I want to get into that, what are some good things you would say, hey, look, you need to ask yourself these three questions before you do this. Because I would assume the machinery and all the different things are inexpensive.
SPEAKER 06 :
No, they’re not inexpensive. I mean, you can get into the game for less than $1,000 for a good single-stage press and some dies and that kind of thing. I always recommend the number one thing and the first thing you should buy is a reloading manual and read it and then read it again and then buy another one and read that one too. And that will let you know if that’s something you’re willing to pursue. It’s a little bit fastidious, a little bit meticulous, but once you get it down, it’s not really all that difficult to do. It’s just paying attention to detail, understanding that – Burn rates of powders and things, and things aren’t interchangeable. Just really sticking to the data, picking the bullet manufacturer you want to go with, and then going with their published data is the best, safest way to start. That kind of thing.
SPEAKER 03 :
What are some of the easy mistakes, the top two or three easy mistakes to make when you’re
SPEAKER 06 :
Mixing up powders is the biggest, baddest one for sure. Understanding bullet diameter, understanding head space and how much you’re bumping back the shoulder on a case and how head space works with a brass cartridge in the chamber of the gun. Understanding head space is a really important thing when you’re starting to resize brass.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Kyle.
SPEAKER 10 :
let’s kind of walk through the shop and what can people expect when they come in yeah so i mean here at the shop when your first time person that comes in uh i mean we’ll always try and greet people when they come in but i try to tell people that we’re one-stop shop for everything hunting If you need your gun cleaned or whatever, you know, hunting season just ended, we can do a complete once-over of your firearm, make sure it’s still in working condition before you throw it in the safe. Or if, you know, you just got done hunting, threw it in the soft case, and you realize, oh, shoot, it’s all rusted, we can fix that as well. So full-service gunsmiths. And then as far as our showroom, we have everything under the sun that any other shop would have. But we also have the expertise to go behind the product that we have. We can tell you about it, give you all the ins and outs, the pros and cons of different calibers and stuff like that. And then also we have an in-house taxidermy. So as far as being a true one-stop shop for everything hunting, from your first firearms purchase to taking care of your kill, We can have you taken care of under one roof.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. We were laughing the other day when I was here. I was like, dude, just get a little part where we’ve got a cooler and some processing. You’ve got it all covered. One-stop shop for sure. That is one thing with our guns. I think a lot of guys are great at taking guns apart and cleaning there all the time. I’m not one of those guys. One of my guys told me one time, he goes, Scott, this does come apart for cleaning. You know what I mean? And so but it is something that and I think, too, even, you know, it’s a lot of times in between hunting season. If you’ve got a lot of guns, it’s maybe several months when you may use that gun again. Hey, get it out. Check it. Make sure it’s good. And if it’s not, bring it by here. Let your guys take a look at it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly. And that’s the biggest thing. The summertime is a great time to look at your firearms and make sure they’re in working condition. Because it’s the worst right before hunting season when you open up your safe and you find out that your gun’s not in working condition, then we have a rush fee.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely. You’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado. Once again, if you’re just joining us, we are coming to you live from the world headquarters of LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. They’re open Monday through Friday, 10 to 7, correct? All right. And Saturday, 10 to 4. And, again, they’ve got a gunsmith here. They’ve got our good buddy Keith, Hunter T’s tax termy here. And if you haven’t been over to the shop, highly recommend you come over. And when you do, let them know you heard about it here on Sportsman of Colorado. And we’d appreciate that as well. Tell you what, we’re going to hit our first break, and we’ll be back with more from the guys at LT Arms right after this.
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SPEAKER 05 :
You’re listening to 560 KLZ, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
We are back. You are listening to Sportsman of Colorado. And again, we thank you for being with us today. If you’re just getting in the car, turn on the radio. LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. And we’ve got the owner, Kyle Willey, with us. We’ve got Evan Lee and Brandon Anderson. So, Kyle, you know, a lot of shops, they kind of just have a shop. They just sell guns and stuff. But you, again, you wanted to do more. So you’ve got a lot we’re going to talk about here and just some of the other services you offer. So I’ll let you take it from there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, definitely. One of the biggest things I wanted to touch on was education. I feel like our industry really lacks and struggles with that because the more informed the individual is, the better off they’re going to be in the daily activities of firearms. so one of the things that we try to touch on is you know we offer an hour with the gunsmith class uh and that’s anywhere from you know you have grad and dad’s gun that you just inherited and you want to know a little bit more about it you can come in spend an hour with the gunsmith they’ll walk you through it you know teach you how to maintain it properly care for it and also how to use it that’s one of the biggest things and that way you don’t have the problem of realizing You have a gun in your house that you have no clue how to use. That’s when bad things happen. And so having that hour with the gunsmith makes it super beneficial to where we can educate customers on their own firearms. And then we also have the… the AR build class. And one of the great things about the AR build class is people always want to build their own firearm, build their own gun, stuff like that, but they don’t know where to start. And so that’s one of the nice things that we do is we’ll have a full one-on-one build session with you. Everything from the consultation on what you want in your firearm all the way to the final bolt going in to where you can finally shoot your gun. And so that’s one of the cool things we do there.
SPEAKER 03 :
And those are held here?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yep, those are held here at our location. And you work with our gunsmiths. They’re very personable, friendly, good guys to deal with. And, you know, it’s a fun environment here.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, how would they find out, like, when classes are happening? Is there a website, or do they just need to call you? Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so people can always go to our website. It’s ltharms.com, an easy website to remember. But I mean, for the hour with the gunsmith and the AR build class, we kind of hold those at the customer’s discretion. Whenever it works best for them, we try to work it into their schedule so that we can be accommodating for whatever they need. That’s kind of the main goal about the shop. If you come in here, you’ll realize we’re very customer oriented. The whole thing in our background is revolved around the customer. We try to accommodate them the best that we can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Have you guys noticed A little roundtable question, I guess. But have you guys noticed more in the last few years first-time gun buyers? A little more? Oh, yeah. Talk about that a minute.
SPEAKER 06 :
The amount of first-time gun owners just since 2020 has been staggering. And the sales figures you get from National Shooting Sports Foundation supports that. And a large percentage of that is first-time female firearms owners, which is great to have Eric and Amanda here, too. That’s really going to help us with that segment of the demographic.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Now… Here’s something. We’ve got a lot going on in legislation. At the time we’re recording this, we’re not sure how things are going to turn out from the governor’s office with that. But first of all, I want to say I’m all for training, okay? I mean, you know, some of the things they’re pushing are a little extreme. But I am all for training. I think that should be done at a range and different things like that. So I don’t know who would like to address maybe some of the classes.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so I mean, as far as training aspects and all that, I mean, you hit it on the head. Everyone here is all for training. The more educated the individual is, the safer they’ll be with a firearm. That’s the biggest problem is uneducated people are creating big mistakes with firearms. It is a deadly weapon if used negligently or maliciously. I mean, it’s just given. But as far as training purposes, we offer training courses. We have firearm self-defense, CCWs, all that. We partner with another law enforcement person, and he specializes in training, carbine training, pistol training, and all that stuff.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
But also, we teach your concealed carry classes that are required by the state. We try to go next step further and hold those classes to a higher standard.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. You know, some people, I’ve been asked, you know, is there any way to get just one-on-one training? I don’t want to do a class thing because I don’t know enough and I don’t want to feel stupid, you know. Which is, I always tell people, hey, trust me, not everybody in there is as smart as you may think they are, okay? Everybody’s learning something, hopefully, when they come to a class. So don’t feel bad if you don’t know anything about guns whatsoever when you come to these classes because… the room is going to be filled with people probably just like you okay and uh so if people are looking for some individual things i mean those would come in different we can’t get into all the different things about that but something like that could even be available too probably
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, definitely. I’m more than happy to do a one-on-one class with people. I’ve done them before, and I’ll keep doing them. But to your point where people are afraid to be in a room full of people that know everything, I love those classes because the people that feel like they know everything very quickly realize that they know very little. And so that’s being humble and knowing that there is a lot of stuff out there that you don’t know. Even me to this day, I’ll learn something new every day. I try to find things that I can stump my guys with all the time. So that’s one of the fun things is you don’t know everything and just being able to have that open dialogue with people is nice. And so the one-on-one situation makes that a lot more inviting.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. So Brandon, from your side of things, in the marketing side, what’s the message you’re trying to get out from the marketing side about LT Arms?
SPEAKER 12 :
We’re trying to get out that we’re a hunting-specific shop, and also in the past year, like at the end of 2024, we launched our own rifle brand, Shikari, which is going to, in the grander picture of things, it’s going to kind of become the parent company of LT Arms and become a much larger shop. But yeah, our rifle brand, we do custom rifle builds. We have… Three different levels we do, an entry level that’s on a composite chassis, and then we do a mid-level that is built on a Wux chassis that’s kind of a combination of wood and metal, and then we do our high-end Safari build that is on a wood stock with… everything on it is completely customized. We do, we, we, uh, have our own actions on the rifles and everything. So trying to, trying to get that out there to the world that we, we actually make our own rifles and get them in front of people so they can see that stuff is, is one of our goals right now. But, Just getting the name out in general is a challenge just because with firearms businesses, you can’t advertise on Facebook. You can’t advertise on Google. They offer you advertising credit, but as soon as you try to use it, you quickly realize that they don’t want you to use it. We have to get pretty creative with the marketing avenues and how we get our name out there and stuff like that. So it’s nice to be able to work with you guys and be featured on the show and get our name out that way.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely, man. We’re super excited to have you. Once again, if you’re just turning on the radio and tuning in, of course, you’re listening to Sportsman of Colorado. But a new partnership for us, and we’re super excited about it. It’s LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. Their number is 720-727-0400. And they’re open Monday through Friday 10 to 7, Saturdays 10 to 4. And gunsmithing available here, taxidermy available here. and just a great selection of firearms as well. So I don’t know who wants to take this question, but now in this room we’re actually recording in, I hear somebody say the library. Is this what you kind of call the library room? All right, some cool firearms all hanging in here. And then in the middle room, so to speak, quite a few firearms in there. So whoever wants to take the question to kind of explain what’s in that middle room there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so in that metal room, that’s kind of our main showroom that we have. That’s your modern era guns. That’s our standard inventory. So we have everything from ammo, firearms, accessories, reloading components, cleaning equipment. Pretty much everything you would expect in a gun shop is in there. Now, this room that we’re in, the library, I kind of wanted a nice lounge area in my shop. And so that’s kind of what we made this room out to be. I mean, we have nice high-end chairs, comfy chairs for people to come sit in. We have a refrigerator with soda pop in it. And we have old vintage firearms on the wall. Yeah, there’s some cool-looking stuff. So that’s one of the things that I really like is I wanted a nice, warm, welcoming environment for people to come hang out in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, consignment. There are some rifles consignment could have. So let’s kind of talk about some of the things you offer as buy, sell, trade, whatever. Get into some of that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so as far as consignment, we offer consignment because, I mean, more lately we’ve been having a lot of people that are inheriting firearms, and they just don’t want to have to deal with all that and everything, so they want to offer it up for consignment. It’s a great option we offer for people. We’ll appraise firearms for people as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 10 :
And just giving that consignment option gives them the chance to unload firearms so they can buy more. That’s one of the nice things there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. Well, hey, we’re just kind of scratching the surface, so to speak, here today. But I wanted to bring these guys to you. Again, it’s LT Arms, 8119 Schaefer Parkway at Littleton. So, Kyle, if you’re explaining to people how to get here, how do you tell them?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I mean, we’re off of Kipling and 470, the business King Carroll Park District. The post office is right across the street from us, so if they know where that’s at in the King Carroll area, then we’re right across the street, and come in and say hi. The nice part is we’re friendly, and we’ll welcome you in.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yep, great. Great, knowledgeable staff, friendly folks, and hope you’ll come over here, and when you do, let them know you heard them here on Sportsman of Colorado, and we’d appreciate that as well. But look… now’s a great time to come in and see the gunsmith, get your guns looked at, make sure everything is good for the hunting season. Maybe even think about a new rifle. Hey, now’s the time to do it. I’m telling you, with all the gun stuff going on right now, you don’t know how all this is going to shake out. So if you’ve been looking at ARs, different things, you want to build one yourself, hey, you can do it all right here at LT Arms. And once again, they’re located at 8199. Schaefer Parkway in Littleton. Once again, their phone number is 720-727-0400. And, hey, we’ve got our text line as well. I try to mention this every show, but if you ever have a question for our guest, and maybe you’re listening, you can’t call into the show, you can always send me a text at 720-201-8585, and we will try to get your question answered. Maybe you want to see a topic covered. Maybe it’s reloading, and we’ll spend some time with Evan on that. So, Just whatever your questions may be for any of our guests, any of our shows, you can use that text line. And we want to thank our attorney, Kevin Flesch, for sponsoring that text line for us. But once again, it’s 720-201-8585. Well, guys, super excited about the partnership. Kyle, we thank you, sir, for the opportunity to work with you guys and looking forward to doing this for many years, man. So we appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Brandon, thank you, sir. Thank you. Evan, you’re welcome. Good job for an old man. Thanks, sir. You’re listening to Sportsman Colorado. We’ve got to take a quick break. We’ll be back with more right after this.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
Hey, Dan. You know, our jobs are pretty different. I’m a baseball announcer. You’re an attorney and a talk show host.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, but we do have something in common. Really? What’s that? Our favorite car dealer, Len Lyle Chevrolet. Yeah, definitely not your typical dealership. That’s so true, Jack. No high-pressure sales tactics. They respect your time. And when you have two jobs, that’s important. You know, I’d recommend Len Lyle Chevrolet to anyone.
SPEAKER 14 :
And with their low overhead, that means… Lower prices.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, we really do have something in common.
SPEAKER 14 :
Len Lyle Chevrolet. Go east and pay the least. Chevy, find new roads.
SPEAKER 03 :
Feeling those market jitters? Portfolio looking a little deflated? Hey, this is Scott Whatley for my friends at the Tanner Gun Show. Forget the fluctuating figures. This Saturday and Sunday, invest in something tangible, something reliable, something powerful. The Tanner Gun Show is back at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds in Aurora. It’s your ultimate opportunity to stock up on a massive selection of firearms, ammunition, and accessories. Whether you’re a seasoned collector, a first-time buyer, or just looking for peace of mind, the Tanner Gun Show has what you need. Tanner Gun Show has your best investment of this year. Tickets always available at the door or online at tannergunshow.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
Riding an e-bike will make you feel like a kid again. Just try it. Hi, I’m Randy Crancy, founder of e-bike of Colorado. E-bikes are a fun way to ride the trails. Pedal assist technology flattens the steepest hills. We have 14 major brands to choose from and our expert staff will find you the perfect bike. Come take a free test ride at e-bike of Colorado in downtown Louisville next to the historic grain elevator. Open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Learn more at ebikeofcolorado.com. Just try it. You’re listening to KLZ 560 AM, your home station.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome back to Sportsman of Colorado. Again, thank you so much for being with us today. Hope you’re enjoying a great weekend. We appreciate our listeners on Saturday, of course, our 1 to 2 hour. And then twice on Sundays, 8 in the morning, 8 at night, and then the following Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m. So, hey, whenever you listen, again, we appreciate it so much. If you ever have a question or… would like to see us cover a topic, use our Flesch Law text line. And we want to thank attorney Kevin Flesch for sponsoring that text line for us. That number is 720-201-8585. And hey, whatever you send us to maybe whatever guest you want back or learn more about, whatever. Use that text line and we will respond to that very quickly and try to help you out if you have a question. Colorado Gun Collector Association. Hey, you’ve been hearing from these folks here over the last four or five months, and Tom Hillman joins us once again. So, Tom, first of all, welcome. Good to see you again.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you very much. I hope they don’t all are getting bored from listening to me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Not at all, not at all, bud. But I tell you what, you know, back in January, February, we’re talking about the May show. Seemed a little ways away, and… Now it’s almost here.
SPEAKER 11 :
Almost here. We’re going to have 700 tables. We even are trying some new things this year that we’ll mention later. Okay. That are going to be available at the show, which you get at no other shows.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. And this is, let’s just define this, this is a collector’s show.
SPEAKER 11 :
This is a collector’s show. If you come to our show, we’re going to guarantee you, you’re not going to see windows. You’re not going to see anything else being sold there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Doesn’t that aggravate you? When you go to some place expecting to see something, then you see a bunch of stuff you weren’t expecting to see.
SPEAKER 11 :
Kind of like the hunt show. You really don’t want to see bowling balls. Basically, you’re going to see historical arms. Everything in our show will be 50 years old or older. It will be gun or gun-related.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. That’s cool. Yeah. We just finished up the mile high hunting fish expo, which I told you about. And that’s one thing we, we made a point. Everything there is going to be hunting and fishing and gear and, and, you know, guns. And I mean, man, it, it was a great show for us and man, I’m really looking forward to this one. And, uh, I have been before, but not in a few years. But I’m planning on coming. The dates, again, are May 17th and 18th at the Island Grove Event Center. This is the 59th annual show. And you can go to cgca.com for information. If you’re not familiar with the Gun Collector Association, they’ve got a great website there. And we’ve had different guests on here over these last few months on a few different shows. And just a great, great group. So you were telling me this is really the event that helps you guys stay afloat.
SPEAKER 11 :
It helps us stay afloat and gives us a reason for existing. There’s a couple of other things that we do. Remember, this club was formed back in 1964. That’s how long we’ve been here. Trying to express our interest in the history, see things that you don’t see a lot of other places. And that’s what we want to do. And we’re bringing in dealers from across the country where this is their interest. So you’re going to get a lot of information that would be available to you, which you only see this once a year. Unless, of course, you join the club. Because the other thing we give you is that every third Tuesday of the month, Our club has a presentation, and it may be something like it might be Lend-Lease, the Swords of the U.S. Cavalry. We just had one on Merlin and Hobart firearms, which may not be a familiar term, but they were probably the fourth largest producer of cowboy guns and that style of gun during those late 18s, early 1900s. Another very interesting detail about a collector show is that anything manufactured prior to 1897 is an antique. Antiques do not require background checks. They do not require waiting periods. And the reason is very simple is these half of the shows you can’t get the bolts for them anymore. Sure. We do it for the historical value and the history. Our desire to learn more about different things.
SPEAKER 03 :
Would you have ever dreamed in your lifetime that we would see the attack that we’re seeing on our Second Amendment rights right now?
SPEAKER 11 :
No. Again, I can’t speak for the club. I can only speak personally. Sure. And I have never suspected we would see what we’re seeing and to the depth that it is going. Some safeguards are necessary. I understand that. None of us here or no member of the club wants to see a child hurt.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, and everybody’s for training.
SPEAKER 11 :
Or any innocent person hurt. But you can go overboard in anything. And the fact that they’re putting a tax on guns and ammunition so that you fund spousal abuse. But the many other things that cause spousal abuse, which could be alcohol, drugs, many other things, are not being fined. We can’t quite see the logic of this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely. Tom Hillman is our guest. Once again, we’re talking about the Colorado Gun Collector Association. Their big, big collector show, May 17th through the 18th, as I mentioned, at the Island Grove Event Center. And tickets just at the door, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Tickets at the door. It’s $15 for two days.
SPEAKER 03 :
Man, you can’t beat that.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s pretty cheap entertainment anymore. And the value. Anybody who’s gone to a museum. And these are kind of things, because of the climate out there right now, you’re not going to see historical firearms displayed in the museums. Unless it’s a Pacific veteran-led museum.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 11 :
It seems to be about the only spot anymore.
SPEAKER 03 :
What are some other good history points you want to bring up today?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, you know, it’s, again… We’ll start with the club, then we’ll go over to the show, which is our main reason for being there. But the club is also a social event. You know, if you have an interest in this kind of thing and you want to learn more about it and you’re interested in history, we’re kind of a club for you because this all kind of blends together. One of my favorite things to collect is Filipino weapons personally from the Spanish-American War. Well, you get into it and you get into the whole history of why this war was fought, why there’s insurrections going on to this day down in the southern Philippines, which is basically a religious situation. You learn about how people… In the Philippines, how it was populated, how these people came and opened canoes, basically, over the oceans to land in the southern part of the Philippines. And it’s many other things of this nature. We are very fortunate. We live close to a colonial Spanish area. The colonial Spanish history and expansion should be very, I feel, more interesting to our people because they actually got as far up as into Nebraska and Colorado, just exploring and trying to find out what was there. Are their skirts clean? Absolutely not. more so than the Sand Creek Massacre, which none of us, nobody should be proud of. But it’s part of history, and we have to accept that history has its bad points as well as its good, and hopefully we learn from the bad and retain the good.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’ve talked about this before, but you mentioned one of your favorite areas, but I assume you have probably several with guns. Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, we tend to get spread like a Texas bridge. Yeah, right. You go one direction and you go another direction. But bear in mind that most of these guns, the highly collectible guns, the Colts, the Winchesters, the Marlins, all the guns of that Western cowboy period, they are all black powder guns. And the reason why we lost so many of them is people trying to shoot modern ammunition through them. So along with the selling of the gun and the history of the gun, we try to tell people, here is, if you want to go out and shoot it, This is what you need to do. Use the underpower. Use the black powder in it. Don’t use modern ammunition because you’re going to have a problem. So there are many safety things we try to stress, too, with these.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, sure. You know, not a lot of events are good family events. This is one that is, though, right? They bring kids, and they’re going to learn a lot. If you want to ask questions, I mean, all the different vendors that you have at the table.
SPEAKER 11 :
Every one of them. I shouldn’t say everything. There’s always an old curmudgeon somewhere. But the dealers as a whole, our grandfathers, our servicemen, they like kids. They want to spur that knowledge on. And this is where kids can see it. Now, like anything else, they need to be polite. They need to ask permission to touch. But I’ve never seen a dealer refuse a child the ability to look at something as long as it’s safe.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 11 :
And we don’t sell the kids.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know we saw two adults right so that is strictly And there are marshals throughout the store. Now, obviously, what we do is we rent tables, so we have certain controls we can establish, but the dealer is somewhat up to them. They are the ones responsible.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER 11 :
But this year, too, one of the new things we’re going to do, Scott, is we have a young man working on it that did our Lend Lease program. We hope to be giving a series of lectures and show and tells on Pacific areas during the show.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’d be cool.
SPEAKER 11 :
So it’s not, you know, people are going to go in and speak about areas that they enjoy, things that people will not see other places. I mentioned earlier, I particularly like Filipino weaponry. I will have a display and a short lecture on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
And these are free. This is not something you pay to go down and listen to a lecture. This is what this is. They can touch them. You know, within the safety limits. Sure, sure, sure. And our main thing is make sure somebody doesn’t get overenthusiastic. If they want to take a picture with it, go right ahead. But again, you have to ask the individual. This is the way I would handle it. But you do need to ask the individual person whose collection this is. Because some of these guns can be very valuable, even up into six figures.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 11 :
So they obviously want to… curtail the touching a little bit there have you had some people that can people bring something to this show that they just might want to ask a vendor about they absolutely can matter of fact one of the things we almost encourage is if they want to bring that family heirloom down and they’re walking through it they will get a idea of the value because the dealer will look at it tell them what they think is going on what they feel it’s worth and if nothing else you’ve got that what you were offered to use as an insurance point when you are trying to protect what is yours and protect yourself from loss. But you can also find out just all these things about them. And there are collectors there, they can identify, they can buy, You know, if you no longer have a use for this gun or you feel you don’t want it in your house, it’s going to a collector and somebody who would appreciate it and appreciate the history of it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
So Grandpa’s sword isn’t going to get thrown in the trash.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Well, you brought some pretty cool items with you in studio today. And, man, I’d like to touch on a few of these because they’re pretty cool. Yeah. And we’ll post a picture on our social media here, so look up Sportsman of Colorado Radio on Facebook if you’re on that, and you’ll see a picture of what Tom’s going to be walking us through here.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, these are some guns that are what I call the Western guns. These are the cowboy guns, the large frames. Guns obviously range from .22 caliber on up. But these are all ones which would be legally classified as antiques. They’re black powder guns. They meet all the criteria. Probably the most popular one is always the single-action Army Colt revolver. And they range from the ones the actual Calvary people carried, which was a six-and-a-half to seven-inch barrel in .45 long Colt. In their case, this one I have happens to be more like the John Wayne Special revolver. where you’re dealing with a four and three quarter inch barrel, but You have a variety of calibers, .45, .44, .41, .28, .30. There’s just so many different calibers out there in these pistols. Colt put out an amazing amount. But little known, though, to a lot of people is there’s two styles of that single action. The standard one, which you’ve seen in all the movies, but they also have a unit called a Bisley Colt that came in after the Colt. And to me, it fits my hand better than the actual single action.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
People back then had smaller hands. You’ll notice that in just about all weaponry.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 11 :
And if you’re a collector, you’re going to run into this a lot.
SPEAKER 03 :
Really?
SPEAKER 11 :
But I have always found the Bisley, which is not nearly as popular, fits my hand much better. So if I was looking to actually carry one, that would be the one that would be my choice.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
And if you look a little further, you’ll notice up here, We can go one step past this. Colt actually, even after the war, they tried to come out with rifles in that same time period. Well, it didn’t work real well. The Winchester was a rifle. And if you go through our show, you’re going to see an awful lot of Colts and Winchesters because this is that western time period, and we are a western area. And so we get a lot of things generated that way. But basically, Winchester and Colt each tried to kind of get into the other guy’s way. The Colts wanted to have rifles. The Winchesters wanted to have pistols. Well, it wasn’t successful very much for either one of them. So as a result… They kind of came to a semi-gentleman’s agreement, Colt made the pistols, Winchester made the rifles, and they didn’t step on the other guy’s toes. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow, interesting.
SPEAKER 11 :
In addition to that, the reason why there are so many calibers is Colt, in particular, was the head of marketing in the game, and they tried to produce a pistol that could carry the same ammunition as your rifle. So when you had to see the ammo belt around, you could basically fill either one. You could fill your rifle, you could fill your pistol.
SPEAKER 03 :
That made sense.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, you had commonality of ammunition. The other two here that we’re sitting here looking at is the other two main cowboy guns that were around. Probably the second most popular one was the Smith & Weston. And the Smith & Wesson had kind of a unique feature. Most of the cowboy guns, you’re actually punching out the empties one at a time. There’s a little ramrod built into them. When you took your Smith & Wesson’s time reload, you could actually cock the whole unit forward, and they would eject out the spent shells just like on what most of the modern revolvers do now. Okay. And again, although the Calvary used primarily the Colt single action, they also did buy the Schofields. And the Schofields were a Smith & Weston in a .44. So that was also a popular gun.
SPEAKER 03 :
So like back in the day when this pistol you’re talking about, what would something like that sell for back in?
SPEAKER 11 :
About anywhere from $15 to $25. As a matter of fact, we go to the next one, which is a Remington pistol, which is probably the third one most produced. And it was essentially a single action again. But when you say what it costs, this particular one we’re looking at has ivory grips.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s really pretty.
SPEAKER 11 :
The standard gun was $12.50. With the ivory grips, it was $21.50. So you had to have a little money and be a bit of a dude to carry that particular gun. Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, on the… The grips of this, at the bottom of the grips here, there’s a metal plate with a round ring. Is that for? That was for a lanyard. A lanyard.
SPEAKER 11 :
Which would basically be a connector to some part of the body so if it would be dropped, it would not fall away. And this particular gun was made on a contract for Egypt. So we were, you know, these Smith & Wessons, a lot of them were sold to Russia. The Colts had a lot of popularity over in England, believe it or not. So these guns had different ways. Fortunately for the collectors and not so much for Remington, Egypt kind of reneged on their contract. They had bought a bunch of Remington rifles earlier, were not paying, so the guns that were set to go to Egypt essentially were not shipped. So they were sold here, so they are in our market, so we see more of them. If they’d all gone over to Egypt, they’d been very hard to get back. Okay. Or in poor condition. Right. And as you become a collector, there’s one little mark here, which is like a little star.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
That tells you it was part of that Egypt contract made for it.
SPEAKER 03 :
It takes a lot of research, doesn’t it, for you to, if you’re going to get into this, you’ve got to be somebody that probably likes to read and look up things.
SPEAKER 11 :
And that’s what, you know, and I’ll have tables at the show as will many of the Colorado members. And we’re willing to pass this information on. Again, as you’re going through the show, and I highly recommend it as an educational thing, ask questions. People will talk to you. Now, if he’s busy selling something, you have to be willing to wait for him to talk to you. But, you know, that’s another thing that’s going on. And we talked about our show with two new things. The one, of course, being the lectures, which we hope to put on where people can just come over and listen if they want to. They don’t have to if they don’t have any interest that way. Guys like myself who can talk on and on and drone on and on. We’re more than happy to answer any questions that we can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Cool. It is May 17th and 18th, the Island Grove Event Center, 59th annual show. You can go to cgca.com to learn more about the Colorado Gun Collector Association. This is a great, hey, if you’re just looking for something kind of different to get into a little bit, and maybe you don’t even know if you’re going to get into collecting or not, but just to be with a great group of people, learn a lot, and then you never know. Have you had some things that you went into it knowing, hey, I know I’m going to be liking this, and then all of a sudden, once you got into this, you started liking other areas of guns?
SPEAKER 11 :
You absolutely do. It’s a constantly changing thing. I started out with military knives.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
Went to military rifles. Switched over to Civil War. Switched over to African weaponry. Switched over to Filipino and Spanish colonial weaponry. So it’s kind of a growing thing. Your interests will wane in one. You can always normally sell off for what you… spent for something, and you take it into another area and learn something else. So you get this basis of knowledge. One other thing I was going to mention that’s going to be new this year, too, is we’ve got a couple of door prizes for folks when they come in. And you’re essentially, there is no additional charge for signing up for these door prizes. They are, you could say, included in your ticket, but we just wanted to have them there to give us a little something new with interest. We have things like a… Tommy Hawk pipe, and that was made by Jacob Wilson, who is a fairly well-known knife maker up in Fort Collins. We have a gentleman who has donated a percussion double-action revolver from during the Civil War period or slightly after with all the accessories for that. We have a Civil War sword. We’ve got a bayonet that was used by a particular unit during the Civil War called the ZOABs, which was usually fire departments made up units. And they had very fancy-dressed red pants, if you’ve ever seen that with a fez. Some pictures of the Civil War people, you have seen those. So these are all door prices. And basically, we ask that people sign up. for each price, and it was just a matter of putting your name on, an email so we can contact you if you win, and boom, you’re on to the next one. If you’re interested in getting all five, you can sign for all five. If the only thing that you have any interest in is this one, sign up for that one. So again, with this and the lectures, it’s just something new that we’re trying to offer.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. It’s the 59th annual show. Hey, folks, it’s only $15, and that’s for both days. So it’s going to be a lot to look at. If you had to guess about how many exhibitors will be there?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, there’s 700 tables.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my.
SPEAKER 11 :
Of exhibits.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you told me before we came on air, you’re about sold out.
SPEAKER 11 :
And we understand we’re very close to selling out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s always a little bit of a last-minute give and take. Things come up in anybody’s life, but there’s usually people ready to step right in and take that same table.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, absolutely. Anything else you want to touch on before we get out?
SPEAKER 11 :
No, just to remind people that, you know, if your interest is, you know, this is a collectible antique show.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
But if you’re interested in guns, you’ll see old guns. If you’re interested in swords, knives, we’ll have those around. Crossbows, bows, medieval armor we’ve had there before. A lot of militaria from World War II, as well as the Civil War. These things are all going to be there. You can see them up close and really study them up. Right. Please join us. You can tell we have interest in this. We want to get you interested, too. And if you like the show, then we’ll talk to you more about the Colorado Gun Club.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, absolutely. Hey, you can meet a lot of fine folks up there. May 17th and 18th, Island Grove Event Center in Greeley. Once again, you get your tickets at the door. When were the doors open those days?
SPEAKER 11 :
You’re going to catch me there for a minute. I believe it is 9 o’clock.
SPEAKER 03 :
9 o’clock, okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
I apologize for not having a flyer with me.
SPEAKER 03 :
CGCA.com is the website, and you can check that out.
SPEAKER 11 :
And it closes at 5 o’clock on Saturday and 3 o’clock on Sunday.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Tom, it’s been a pleasure. And, man, can’t wait. And we’re going to get you guys on again before the show. But, folks, hey, circle the dates now, May 17th and 18th. Come up to Greeley and check out the Colorado Gun Collectors Show, the 59th annual. So, Tom, we appreciate it, bud.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you so much. And thank all of you out here on the radio station for listening to us. Absolutely. We think you have a fine group here.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, sir. We appreciate that very much. Thanks for being with us today for Sportsman of Colorado. Hope you have a great rest of your weekend. Leave it right here on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 09 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
