Beretta Gallery?

[1911_sfca]

Has anyone been to the Beretta galleries in the US? I'm going down to Buenos Aires tomorrow and thought I might check out the one down there. Just wondering what to expect. Mostly shotguns and such, I would imagine.

http://www.beretta.com/index.aspx?m=53&did=554

[t001]

Went to the Beretta Gallery in Alexandria, VA, quite a few years ago, and the one in New York City a couple of years later. Pretty nice places. The first floor at both were dedicated to apparels, clothing accessories, books, etc. The second floor was where the fun stuff was. As expected, shotguns were the dominating products. They had the full range from the entry (then) A390's and White Onyx's, up to the fancy EELL's or whatever. At the time I was barely knowledgeable about shotguns, so I wasn't able to ask many intelligent questions about them, but the staff were certainly pleasant and eager to help. Many of the guns were simply on racks for you to pick up and mount. They had gunfitting services at both places. I didn't inquire much about it since, again, I didn't know all that much about shotguns then and was there mainly to take in the Beretta experience.

For some reason I don't remember much about the handgun section at Alexandria. However, it was quite interesting at NYC. Apparently you have to have a NYC pistol permit to even handle a handgun in store or something like that, so they didn't put the handguns out in the open. What they did was put all of them in a glass case on a center table, covered up with a tablecloth. When I inquired about the handguns, I guess the gentleman helping me decided I wasn't threatening enough, so he whipped off the tablecloth to show me the handgun display. I still wasn't allowed to handle them like the shotguns, however.

I was surprised to note that the gun prices there weren't all full retail like I expected. They had quite a few of their shotguns on sale at pretty decent mark-offs, I thought. They could arrange shipping the firearm to a FFL nearest you. I also thought they had a couple of rooms where the really good stuff was that a known customer would be invited into, rooms where they kept the really customizable shotguns and high-end used firearms.

I got a T-shirt and a Beretta book as souvenirs of my visits. Now those were expensive. Definitely worthwhile forays, though. Now, the couple of gunmakers I visited while in London a couple of years ago...WOW!!! One day I shall own a pair of those....