Sons of Guns (TV Series 2011–2014) Poster

(2011–2014)

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7/10
It's better than most
benbartlow17 February 2011
The other reviewer had all bad things to say about the show. It's a reality show that's as he mentioned 30 minutes long so of course they aren't going to go into a lot of history. That's what all the documentary shows are for. This is about this gun shop in Louisiana. I like the fact that the editing isn't absolutely horrid like most reality shows(the ones that could be decent on history and discovery like "axemen", or top shot). What I mean is almost all "reality shows" over edit the shows and make it look like more serious drama is coming up after the commercial etc and focus way too much on BS and that kind of stuff. This show doesn't do that so it gets bonus points from me. Overall its less annoying than most shows and is decently entertaining so far. It's about a gun shop so if your into guns its entertaining and better than shows like top shot that are more about the BS survivor like charades and "drama between participants. Bottom line as with any show don't take much stock in reviews(even mine) and just watch it and make your own decision. Don't let a reviewer that says it's horrid keep you from trying it out.
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6/10
Decent show that sold out for ratings.
terminalcle28 May 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I never watched this from the beginning but caught a marathon mid way through season one and rather enjoyed it. I've been a long time gun fan and it was an interesting change for a TV show.

However as time has passed the producers, and I'm sure owners of the shop have decided ratings and drama are more important than quality. The overly dramatic tension with the shop manager and his deserting his job was one thing and almost tolerable.

Now after returning from a hiatus the show is more soap opera than anything. Granted all of these shows are staged to a point, but now they are just insulting the viewers with pathetic and horribly written overly dramatic sub plots. When Vince returns during the storm and is shadowed standing outside the shop. And of course he is the only person in the world with the part they need. I'm sure that he and his supposed former boss/enemy enjoy a good laugh after each episode wraps. And the topper, when the employee guarding the shop during a severe storm hears a strange noise. And in a building full of supposed modern weapon innovations, the only thing he has at his disposal is a 17th century gun that only exists in replicas and doesn't even fire actual projectiles. Any gun shop I've ever been to in my life the staff carry in belt of hip holsters. And they carry guns that were invented within the last 200 years. After all they're not pirates.

I often wonder how the owners of these business feel when they look in the mirror after turning their business dreams into a cheesy soap opera.

I remember when the Discovery Channel was educational and had shows that required some actual thought.
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5/10
A soap opera with occasional scenes about guns Warning: Spoilers
This show was great when it first came out. I loved seeing these guys modify and build cool new guns. Unfortunately, as the seasons progressed, the show become less and less about guns, and more about stupid reality show drama. First, we had the Stephanie-Kris love crap, then we had the Vince crap. Now we have the Kris getting jealous of Stephanie goofing around with Jessie James crap. Come on guys! This show was great when it was solely about the guns, but when you add in this stupid reality show stuff, it just becomes a detractor. That said, these guys have always done some really cool stuff. I like seeing the design and building process, as well as the some of the old guns that come along. I just wish that they would go back to making guns and not trying to make this a soap opera.
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8/10
Entertaining if You Like Guns
DangerKitten1 July 2011
Sons of Guns is a about a custom gunsmith shop in Louisiana. It follows owner Will Hayden; his daughter and office manager, Stephanie; head gunsmith, Vince; shop apprentice and toady, Kris; and the various others who work with or buy from the shop.

If you like guns, especially military-style weapons, this is the show for you. Discovery's rival, the History Channel, has had a variety of gun-related shows, such as "Tales of the Gun," though that show felt compelled to have a disclaimer at the beginning stating that "guns have had an important role in history, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil," or something to that effect. This show doesn't pretend to be anything other than gun pornography, which helps keep it fun. Instead, at the beginning it simply says, "Guns can be dangerous. Don't be an idiot." This is more in keeping with the audience who will watch this show: They're here to see cool guns, not be lectured about how Nazis used them for evil. As much as I liked "Tales of the Gun," it's refreshing to watch a show in which there's no stigma for having an interest in guns, and we don't get bogged down in any moral debate or historical perspective as an excuse to show guns on mainstream TV.

This show splits screen time between the shop employees and the guns they work on. It's set up much like "Pawn Stars" or the myriad other similar shows on TV these days. The characters are entertaining enough, though it sometimes feels as if we're guests at a dinner party watching the hosts argue family issues. Will, as easy-going and nice as he can be, can also get a bit intense. He probably makes a great business owner, but this doesn't always translate well to making a good show. Comparing it to "Pawn Stars," even when shop owner, Rick, gets mad at his employees, we see that he still has affection for them. Will seems much more willing to get rid of people without a second thought. Even so, they still seem to have a lot of fun at the shop, and make interesting guns in the process.

The show is mostly about the guns, but the characters are interesting enough, too. It makes for quick, fun summer TV.
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2/10
Total Bullsh**
fotprint29 March 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I have now seen over 12 Episodes of this series and i can now say -without a doubt- that this is complete bullsh**.

First of all: Whats with all the soap opera stuff all the time? All this personal stuff is clearly faked/scripted and frankly just seems kinda whiny.

On the other hand we have all the gun-related stuff:

What the heck? No gun-workshop in the whole wide world is that way. They use machines that never ever can be accurate enough to call the final product "custom". And then in nearly every episode they all "hope" that their newly constructed gun will work. It may be boring, but in every real custom shops you take measurements all the time and make computer models. Every gun designer KNOWS if his gun is gonna work or not, because he can calculate how much pressure the barrel has to hold and so forth.

Then they make ridiculous claims like: We are the first people to put a silencer on a shotgun. Im sorry, but you are not!

And there is this one Episode where this big fella just shoots a newly constructed arrow-gun right in the workspace, right after saying that you should be save blablabla... If somebody would do that in a real gun shop, he'd be fired.

The other time they claim to have found a number-matching wooden stock for a German WW2-rifle, this is just ridiculous.

Im glad that I already have all the guns I want, because in the future we're gonna see some very stupid people repairing and maintaining our guns.

Not cool man, not cool...
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8/10
Great show, but a bit ridiculous at times.
dominic-penzone1 September 2013
I have been watching this show since it came out and it has kept me entertained ever since. They are good at their jobs, but some of it seems like just MacGyver random guns with pointless stuff. like a silenced shot gun and the desert AR. The shotgun was as loud as a normal rifle or handgun so it seemed kinda silly. Cool but silly. Same with the desert AR they made. They basically took a design that already exists and took credit for it. But it is fun to watch them make the guns so it makes up for their lack of creativity. If you like guns then this show is for you. Even if you think some of their ideas are dumb like i do. Its still a great show.
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Show is Great
mellowliving31 August 2011
This show is pretty good. They take a certain weapon and modify it or do restoration work on old pieces. As for what FilmMan wrote, this is a show for ENTERTAINMENT purposes. This show in NOT a history lesson. As much as I love learning about the history of weapons and military operations, sometimes you just want to watch someone mod an Ak-47 and fire it.

And if you have no idea and need to know the purpose of a suppressed shotgun (really?) then this show is not for you. Again, this show is for ENTERTAINMENT purposes if you want to learn more about a certain weapon and it's history go watch another show or look it up. But if you want to watch a weapon being modified and watch them blow stuff up with it, then you will love this show.

You kind of need to know a bit about weapons and enjoy them to enjoy this show. And by the way the M203 (Or clone) that they attached to the AR-15 which is the same thing as it's military twin the M-16 except it is only Semi-Auto, is NOT A FLARE LAUNCHER!!! They only used flare charges instead of the usual 40mm Grenades for obvious reasons. So FilmMan, I believe you aren't as familiarized with firearms as you say you are. And remember this show is for ENTERTAINMENT purposes.

Awesome show too!
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1/10
Yawn
whisp-989-3102741 May 2014
When I watch shows that are showing us how stuff is built or customized it would be great to actually learn something. The amount of info they give is very limited and it is more a soap opera then anything. All they ever have is continual drama between employees and such.

This show is a waste of time and I don't even bother to watch it anymore since so tired of their sob stories.

They need to change the outline of this show to show more info and although in the show their ceo says he wants big orders and stay away from the one time jobs its the one time jobs that would be interesting for this show and they need to go more in-depth into what they are doing.
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8/10
Sons of Guns - Don't Believe what you see
grd-277-76363028 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Sons of guns is a pretty good and enjoyable show however it is, yet another, "adjusted" reality show. There are so many setups that its getting to be more fun watching for the continuity errors than watching the content of the show.

One of the more obvious setups is when they call in Ira when attempting to repair the 32mm mortar. They grind the hole in the tube which leaves all the edges glistening with grinding marks yet when they call in Ira, supposedly after the grinding has taken place, he is seen examining a tube with no grinding marks around the hole. Obviously he examined the tube and condemned it BEFORE it was ground and from there on the whole segment was a setup.

The whole "wrong buffer in the AR15" episode was such an obvious setup. In the episode before you see the buffer fall to the floor when Kris angrily disassembles the gun (how a buffer which is shown encased in a spring not 2 seconds earlier falls to the floor is another mystery). When Vince starts to build the rifle he picks up a buffer from the bench behind him and very conveniently stands it on a block of wood on his bench, camera zooms in to show the buffer in minute detail - why?, is the camera man a modified AR15 expert and knows its the wrong buffer or is this just another example of the modified reality. Show the wrong buffer so they can solve the wrong buffer issue in the next episode? From then on the whole "it doesn't shoot in auto" segment is an obvious setup, either that or the AR expert camera man wanted the build to fail which raises a whole different set of issues.

If they keep making such obvious mistakes and adjusting reality to create the all important "illusion of peril / pressure" (in all shows like this every job has a stupid timescale on it - yeah right, business doesn't work like that) which every reality program needs these days then I for one will be finding something else to watch.

Apart from that its a good show; just don't believe everything you see.
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1/10
Neva been done befo
Reynoldshhr9 May 2014
I'll start off by saying that i am a huge fan of guns and weapon customizations. I've never been a huge fan of "reality" TV but i do like shows that are somewhat REAL, Like 'The Deadliest Catch" and even 'Pawn Stars". When i first heard about this show i was naturally intrigued and decided to see how it was, the first thing i noticed about this show is that none of the people in it are likable... The owner comes off as a jerk and all the other workers are just as annoying, especially his daughter who thinks she's the hottest gun chick on the planet. Secondly the weapons they customize are nothing special, or at least not special enough to make a TV show out of it, and then they claim all the stuff they build has "neva been done befo". This show could of been good but with the unlikable cast, the over the top drama, the constant sucking up to Will, and the mundane "action" this is for sure a show that you can pass up.
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1/10
poorly scripted cheaply made
martin_bill3222 March 2014
A show about a poorly managed, cry baby gun shop, with guys with little dicks, and big guns and cheap pyrotechnic explosions at the end. Other reviewers say this is a soap opera, they are too kind. The owner of the failing shop is an egotistical jerk who like to tell "us" that he is the luckiest guy on the planet because he can shoot a car or bale of hay or whatever, but we the "untrained" should never attempt anything that he does or we will die! "It is far to dangerous for us to have Hollywood come in and rig explosions and watch them go off. I thought this POS was off the air. I managed to make it through 4 minutes of the show, until sad little Willy (the boss) shows up and barfs out his lines. He is too emotionally upset to carry on. We could only hope. Don't waste your time.
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what a hollow and boring series
rightwingisevil13 September 2012
bunch of gun-crazy lovers including the daughter of the red jacket owner. this series, well, just lack of almost everything except guns, bullets, target shootings, destroying the targets. there's nothing really deep enough to keep you interested, really. watching these people in this series only gives me some sick feeling. i used to be interested in guns and all other kinds of weaponry, but not any more since after watched several episodes of this series, those characters in it just sickened so much. what are they doing? this series looked more like a NRA promotional marketing commercial. although these people know how to redesign guns, they got the know-hows, but what they have showed us episode after episode were using the killing machines to destroy lot of stuff other than dummies, paper targets. they are like a bunch of kids who got peter pan syndrome, never gave themselves a chance to grow up. their toys were guns, nothing but guns. there is no deeper thoughts about modern weaponry but shallow red-neck like Hillie-billy shallow thinking. this series is the most bored-me-death series i've ever encountered so far, very hollow and shallow. a total shame the western civilization. gun culture? give me a break!
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