"American Guns" TV show.....

There's an article on Rich Wyatt and his customers on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption

Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status.

Invidious consumption, a more specialized term, refers to consumption deliberately intended to cause envy.

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An AR build that we would be proud to do on a kitchen table and bring in under 1 grand and under 1 or 2 MOA, those guys want to brag about spending two or three times as much for, just to hang on a trophy wall. Kinda like the game some people play of "out doing the Joneses".

This show is insultingly stupid and phony.

Plus...please..with the "my wife is beautiful" comments. NEWS FLASH: she isn't. He should have spent that $15,000 on some dental work instead.

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Oh the memories

Frau Blucher!

I waded through 10 pages of this thread, interested that all is negative. I love shooting and spend much of my day thinking about a particular build I'm working on etc. I have made many friends shooting at my local club, and I wish someone would do a documentary on my local Rod and Gun, some of the safest most outstanding generous folks I know....

That said, I have never found a gun store that wasn't filled with indifferent know it alls that charged a substantial mark up. And I don't think there is anything all that remarkable about this program. It is entertaining, and I think I was most impressed watching the boy do some hand graving.

It is just a show on discovery and I don't think it is unfair to establish that there are people like the Wyatt's in the gun owning community.

I'm watching the latest episode.

The writers need to work harder to not make this show any worse than it is: Guy comes into the shop with a 7mm magnum rifle and wants to know if they can convert it for dangerous game, but wants to retain the action. Rich's reply is "yes we can" before even asking what the guy wants as a new caliber....

The gunsmiths working on the 7mm to .458 Lott conversion -specifically disassembling the barrel from the action are crude. They have no concept of leverage. See the short handle on the bottle jack clamp and the action wrench. Hitting the action wrench is hardly subtle and could potentially twist the action. A longer handle (i.e. a longer pipe over the wrench handle) would provide a lot more leverage. I would think applying too much heat may cause the action to lose any heat treatment it received.

I noticed the pink Duracoated 1911 from a past show in the background when Rich shows the M1 Garand to Bob- oops.

Since the shop has the ability to test fire guns, I don't understand why they need to "go somewhere" to test fire the M1 Garand, except for something to blow up.

I wouldn't let that guy or anyone in his store anywhere near my Garand...

I have to admit, the boy does have a bit of skill engraving. Not saying he is a master or anything, but he does show promise. I just hope for his sake that his dad doesn't rub off on him too much. Sorry, but any man that would "pimp out" his wife and daughter the way he does will get absolutely no respect from any real husband or father.

And as far as the skill level of the so called "gunsmiths" down in the basement. I'd bet I could train a pet monkey to do better quality work than those morons.

Freedom_fighter_in_IL said:

And as far as the skill level of the so called "gunsmiths" down in the basement. I'd bet I could train a pet monkey to do better quality work than those morons.

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Ooooooo....ooooooo...me....me.... I'm housebroken and train a bit easier than a pet monkey, train me!

Only if you work for Bananas gatesbox!!!

Just saw "Ready Aim Sold" last night and thought it was decent. Nice seeing the diversity of guns that they sell.

Loved the 4 bore on that show. While I didn't really enjoy the last episode of American Guns, I can commend the show for at least showing the actual gun making. It was much better than watching them do something else idiotic even though they threw in a few "problems" with the gun making to keep the show "interesting."

Aside from the prices they were throwing around on that alleged Normandy Garand- I wish they would have shown some footage of it's innards. I bet that rifle was dry as a bone, or had a cruded up gas system, or both.

And like was said above- their smith-monkeys fired the Lott in the basement- why not the 30 Caliber M1?

Yea they gave the reason for not mounting in the stock as fear of damage if it blew up. WTH do they think will happen to the guys hand?
Function fire and it's ready for the new owner??? To hunt dangerous game??? If I spent that much coin on a rifle build it better come with a load and proof it shoots very accurately.

Funny thing that I discovered. The shop itself, aka Gunsmoke, does not have an email address. I was going to email this entire thread to them so they could actually SEE for themselves how true gun owners and people like us that actually work on firearms and know something about them are reacting to this lunacy. I mean really, what kind of a business in todays marketplace doesn't at least have an email. Pretty pathetic to say the least. Their webpage has a little information but if you have any questions you have to call them or snail mail. I guess they don't go public with their email since the show came out because he knows how stupid he comes across on the show.

Try emailing the Discovery Channel, they are the ones that count

The show is not perfect but I do enjoy it. I think some of the sillyness we all identify is pandering to TV and a wider auidence to make it more appealing.

As for the 458 Lott rifle. It probably would have been less costly to all those invovled to just purchase a new rifle and keep the 7 mm. It's not like the customer would never use it.

As for the Garand, was it really worth that much? I ask this becuase I have one on order for MilTec that will look like a musume piece for around $1800 to $2000. Of course it may or may not have seen actual military action but then again, there was not way of 100% confirming the one on American Guns had either. Just the word of the seller.

As others had mentioned, I was going crazy when they could torque off the barrel. By the time I was in high school I knew from frozen on car parts to first start with penetrating oil and then to put a pipe over a wrench. I wonder if this was done for TV.

Freedom_fighter_in_IL said:

Funny thing that I discovered. The shop itself, aka Gunsmoke, does not have an email address. I was going to email this entire thread to them so they could actually SEE for themselves how true gun owners and people like us that actually work on firearms and know something about them are reacting to this lunacy. I mean really, what kind of a business in todays marketplace doesn't at least have an email. Pretty pathetic to say the least. Their webpage has a little information but if you have any questions you have to call them or snail mail. I guess they don't go public with their email since the show came out because he knows how stupid he comes across on the show.

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I think they knew if the had an email address they woudl likely be getting 1000 emails a day making it hard to manage the info. Sons of Guns complained about this on their show re emails.

I wouldn't let that guy or anyone in his store anywhere near my Garand...

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Why not? He would probably offer you $50 for it and let you touch his helicopter.

Will & Rich,
Both shows are full of contrived phony drama, I wathced them a couple of times and the only thing I took away from them is,,,,,
Will seems like a basically honest man, who has poisoned his mind by reading his own press releases as facts.
Rich is obviously so slimy that he probably leaves a sticky trail wherever he goes.

I would NEVER work for either one of those nasty, arrogant, windsocks!
And I'm not bothering to watch, or promote their clown shows to anyone.

Done with it, the fake drama and money flashing makes me feel dirty.

their 458 lott conversion on a pre-64 win70 7mag shows why you do not have a dgr built by a general gunsmith.
at least they did supply the owner with a montana rifle co. action when the twisted his pre-64 action trying to remove the barrel, bet 99% of the viewers didn't notice they started out with a winchester and finished with a montana.

i'll give them a couple tips for the next time they need to pull the barrel on a bolt action.
1- you actually need to tighten the action wrench
2- righty tighty, lefty loosey

I'm surprised at all the hate here! And being critical of someone's appearance, that's "high road?"

But anyway, I like the show. Regardless of how the females dress (sounds like some people need to realize it ain't the 50's anymore!) and the typical gun forum criticisms of manufactured drama and scripting of reality shows (that's how it's done, folks), what I took away from the shows I watched is that it is a family that enjoys shooting guns together. Maybe taste is in the eye of the beholder, but the guy actually MADE a 1911 for his wife for their anniversary and she LOVED it! Then they took the whole family out shooting and they all had a great time. Let's repeat that - they showed a family at the shooting range having a great time together. And a wife who was EXCITED that she got a GUN for her anniversary! Wow! THAT you don't see on tv very much.

I also enjoy seeing the prices he gets/gives for other firearms and collections. It's interesting to watch.

I'm in the minority but I like the show. Nope, it's not perfect but it's got guns in it and it's entertaining. I like the personalities on the show as well. My wife will watch this one with me and be interested, where the Red Jacket show she has no interest in.

To each his own I guess.

Freedom_fighter_in_IL said:

Funny thing that I discovered. The shop itself, aka Gunsmoke, does not have an email address. I was going to email this entire thread to them so they could actually SEE for themselves how true gun owners and people like us that actually work on firearms and know something about them are reacting to this lunacy. I mean really, what kind of a business in todays marketplace doesn't at least have an email. Pretty pathetic to say the least. Their webpage has a little information but if you have any questions you have to call them or snail mail. I guess they don't go public with their email since the show came out because he knows how stupid he comes across on the show.

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Rich wyatt has a facebook page. As does paige.

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