doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Gunshops near FT Belvoir, VA?

The only place besides David Condon is Tony Wilcox. His specialty revolves around military firearms, but he does have something sporting on occasion. Not sure what his inventory includes because every time I stopped by on my way home his place of business was closed. Your chances of finding something of interest at Clark Bros. or Greentop are just a notch above proverbial needle in the haystack. I would would visit National Firearms Museum and enjoy DC landmarks and forget Northern Va. gun shops. As mentioned above with exception of few tables VA gun shows are basically expensive flea markets.

Clark Brothers and Greentop are indeed shotgun haystacks. I enjoy looking through shotgun haystacks. Museums are nice, but generally won't take a credit card if you find something you like ;-)

Old Town Armory. That was the place I was thinking of.

Interarmco (don't recall the name of their retail outlet) was always an interesting place to poke around. Saw a Nazi uniform there with a Dachau shoulder patch.

Interarms did not have a retail outlet. You are thinking of Potomac Arms, which was Ye Olde Hunter in years past, both now gone. Old Town Armory is also gone. Loudon Guns is the only shop left in Leesburg, not a great place to find a high grade shotgun.

Same company as best I can recall, eightbore. Right down on the waterfront. Lots of surplus stuff, but new guns as well. I bought one of the little Beretta .25's there.

Right on target.

Potomac Arms was located at 0 Prince Street, right on the Potomac River. The bottom floor routinely flooded at least twice a year.

International Armaments Corporation (InterArmCo, or just Interarms) was located at 10 Price Street. They also had about ten enormous warehouses in the surrounding blocks.

No connection between the two, other than being on the same street.

There was a nice shop in Leesburg (Nimrod), but its been closed for a long time. Clark Brothers doesn't have any doubles worth driving to see IMO and David Condon in Middleburg has some nice stuff but to say they are priced high is (IMO) and understatement. There was also a nice shop in Front Royal, but the owner passed a few years ago and it closed as far as I know. Old Dominion in Winchester often has some nice doubles and last I knew was a Merkel dealer. They do have some nice high end stuff with I think real world prices. You can find an occasional nice gun at GreenTop down towards Richmond. They have moved to a much large store about 2 years ago.

Sharpshooters International in Newington, Va., Dawson's in Woodbridge, Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, and Dicks' Sporting Goods in Fair Lakes and Manassas. Sharpshooters and Blue Ridge deal mostly in handguns, although I have seen some nice shotguns. Dawson's is pretty decent. Saw a Franchi over and under trap gun a few years ago. Dick's is the pits. The people who work there don't know what they're talking about and the guns they carry are low end. When it was Galyan's it was a different story. We carried and sold a lot of Brownings and Berettas. Not now.

In addition to the NRA museum, you could also check out the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle. Two of John Philip Sousa's L.C. Smith shotguns are currently on display, as well as an interesting Stoner exhibit.

I'm getting into this late, but the info from jmc, eightbore and others is spot on. There are a few other shops in the area, but virtually all of them are heavy into black rifles and square pistols, neither of which interest me, but sometimes a good old used gun shows up. Condon and Tony Wilcox are the main dealers in antique and classic stuff, but don't forget Cliff Sofia's CSArmory in Upperville (Rte 50 a few clicks west of Middleburg).

Last year I learned that the late John Appleton's shop in Front royal is still in business, sorta.... As of this summer it was open on Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p..m with Alice tending the counter and telephone. Besides the Martini target and Int'l .22s that John imported in quantity there was still a fair assortment of European doubleguns and smoothbore oddments in three to five figure ranges. I was able to buy a like-new BSA Martini barreled action, a set of Parker-Hale sights and a semi-finished stock for a very fair price, and putting them together is now my winter project. The backroom is said to be a trove of parts in serious need of sorting and labelling, according to one regular customer. There's no website, but you can google the phone number.