Phil Schreier has one of the best jobs in the firearms industry. As Senior Curator of the NRA’s National Firearms Museum Phil works “hands on” with the rare and historic firearms that make up the museum’s collection.
We talked to Phil about the museum, his passion for collecting and shooting, his writing, and his experiences as the NRA’s only accredited war correspondent since World War II.
GunUp the Magazine: Can you first tell us a little about the National Firearms Museum. When was it founded, what is the museum’s mission, and how large is the collection?
Phil: The National Firearms Museum was founded in 1935 as an off-shoot of American Rifleman Magazine. Manufacturers had been sending NRA Publications samples of their latest models for test and evaluation write-ups and allowed us to keep them. After a while, we had quite the collection that today numbers well over 6,000 firearms, and all but a dozen or so were donated. Our mission is to provide a tangible glimpse into the history of firearms through their development and use and link their evolution to the American experience of freedom, liberty and firearms.
GunUp the Magazine: How is the museum arranged and how do you decided what should be featured?
Phil: There are 15 galleries in the museum comprised of 85 exhibit cases that show off and highlight the development and evolution of firearms from 1350- present day. We try to hit the high points along the way but more importantly we demonstrate what it took for Americans to acquire their freedom and to maintain it ever since.
GunUp the Magazine: How does the museum’s collection compare to the firearms held by other museums, such as the Smithsonian? What makes the National Firearms Museum special?
Phil: Each of the numerous other firearms museums in the country has something special to offer. Springfield Armory has the best collection of US Military arms from 1795- 1968. The Cody Firearms Museum in Wyoming has the Winchester factory collection. The Davis Museum in Claremore, OK has the largest collection of any of us. We specialize in telling the whole story of American’s and their guns. From the founding of Jamestown in 1607 – present day, we try to highlight little known stories that had a huge impact on our history.
GunUp the Magazine: Tell us a little about the newest exhibit.
Phil: Right now we have a Steampunk exhibit that is somewhat a mix of fantasy and reality. Kind of a grouping of John Browning and Jules Verne’s love children as written about by H. G. Welles. It’s whimsical, a word I never imagined I’d use in describing an exhibit here.
GunUp the Magazine: What are your responsibilities as Senior Curator? What does that entail? What it is like being one of the public faces of the museum and the NRA on TV? What is the best part of your job?
Phil: As senior curator I am kind of a catch all for things here. From the NRA Gun Collectors Committee Awards programs at the NRA Annual Meetings and the NRA Gun Collectors Annual Gun Show to some of the new exhibits we have here on display. I also figure heavily into the exhibits we take on the road each year. With five million NRA members and annual visitation of 400,000 at our two museum sites, we see more members and members of the general public if we take the show to the people.
Being on tv also brings our collection into the living rooms of our members and friends. The numerous gun shows we film during the course of the year helps encourage folks to come and see us as well as view our collections online, the next best thing to seeing us in person.
The best part of my job is actually getting to meet and visit with our friends who do take the time to watch the shows and visit the museums. It is humbling to meet them and to find out where they are from and what got them interested in firearms in the first place. We all took different paths to get to the same place, each of those journeys is not only unique but interesting as well.
GunUp the Magazine: What have been some of your best experiences at the museum? (OR) What have been some of your favorite exhibits at the museum?
Phil: As Jerry Garcia once said, “…what a long, strange trip it’s been.” I had no idea what I’d be in for when I accepted a part time job in the museum gift shop some 26 years ago. Since I began the journey I have been to all 50 states and 14 countries (not all on the NRA dime mind you, but all work related) I was able to view nearly every gun museum in the US and many in Europe, I served as an embedded War Correspondent in Iraq and Afghanistan and I have had the honor of Curating a large portion of Theodore Roosevelt’s personal belongings, uniforms and firearms. Working with Robert E. Petersen’s collection has been a once in a lifetime experience as has been sitting down at the private homes of Bill Ruger and Tom Selleck and just smoking cigars together and chatting about our favorite firearms. I often have to pinch myself and ask, how did I get here but I try to thank God often for the opportunities he has given me and this blessed job that I enjoy on a daily basis.
It may be one thing to hold Theodore Roosevelt’s Winchester 1895 or Tom Selleck’s Quigley Sharps, but the lasting part, the most important part, is the actual people you get to interact with. I am very fortunate to work with a great set of colleagues who are all amiable and professional. I am also blessed to have made some of the best friends I could have ever dreamt of having through the relationships I developed here at work.
GunUp the Magazine:What do visitors react most strongly to? (What seems to be favorite/most commented on/etc?)
Phil: Well if we went by YouTube views alone, the Lewis & Clark Air rifle is the most popular at 4.1 million views. It is amazing that so many people have watched those 8 and a half minutes of video and find it interesting and compelling. It is a rifle that effectively changed the course of history for this country and it has escaped much notice until now.
GunUp the Magazine: The National Firearms Museum is unique in that guns in the collection are sometimes taken out and fired. How do you determine which of these historic guns to shoot? What is the experience like firing these historic firearms?
Phil: Well the curator in me still cringes sometimes when we shoot the real artifacts and I’m not entirely sold on the thought of doing that regularly but when you think about it, they are guns after all and they were designed to be shot. Most were shot sometime shortly before they were turned over to us and we do interest those who see us shooting them in the history of the guns, so I guess it has its advantages. We certainly do not shoot artifacts that have been loaned to us or anything that might be too fragile or delicate. For the most part we try to pull items from our own collections before we draw on the museums artifacts to shoot.
GunUp the Magazine: How did you get started in the firearms industry? How did you start working for the NRA?
Phil: I can proudly say that I owe it all to Scouting. I worked for many years at Scout camp in the Shenandoah Valley here in Virginia. I came to know the National Inspection team for Camp Certification and the Field Sports Director was a Division Director at the NRA and I bugged him relentlessly for years about a job. He actually called me one night while I was working the evening shift in a shopping mall. A friend of mine answered the call and I was offered the job of part time sales associate and curatorial assistant in the museum, Saturday and Sundays only. Six hours a day. I thought I’d be miserable for the rest of my life if I had to give up my weekends. My friend told me to jump on the chance. “You never know where it might lead.” So I took the job. Within six months I was full time. I called my friend to offer him the job I recently vacated with my promotion. I used the same lines on him that he used on me six months earlier. He too reluctantly gave up his weekends to start with the NRA and now he is Editor in Chief of American Rifleman Magazine. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for Dr. Gerry Kennedy and Mark Keefe.
GunUp the Magazine: Tell us how you were able to become embedded with the 101st Division in Iraq in 2003 as the NRA’s first accredited war correspondent since WWII? How did that come about? What was that experience like?
Phil: I’ve known Mark Keefe since he was about 12 years old and if a person is lucky enough to have just one friend in life like Mark, they should count themselves blessed. I am lucky enough to have a half a dozen friends that I’d instantly lay my life down for, so I consider myself truly blessed. Mark and I were talking about the war in Iraq in March of 2003 and how there were going to be embedded War Correspondents with the units. American Rifleman had not had a War Correspondent since Bill Shadel had covered D – Day for us in 1944. I looked at Mark, he looked at me and shook his head saying, “Naw, you might be crazy but you’re not insane…are you?” I was all about getting an accredited spot and Mark provided the camera crew and letters of introduction but the DoD was having none of it. They effectively stonewalled us for months. Even a personal letter from Charlton Heston to General Franks had -0- impact. I gave up at one point until I read a news article online written by SPC Thomas Day of the 101st ABN in May of 2003. It had his email attached to the by-line and I wrote to him. He suggested I speak to Major Cate of their PAO and the next thing I knew, I was on a big plane headed to the sandbox. It was surreal. It was also the most significant thing I have ever done with my life so far. For each of the 30 days I was in Iraq I had never felt so alive nor so close to death. It was an amazing experience.
GunUp the Magazine: You later visited the MEB (Maneuver Enhancement Brigade) in Afghanistan in 2009. How was that experience different (or the same) as your earlier experience?
Phil: Afghanistan was quite different. Everything was totally controlled. There was no wandering around and just “checking things out.” It felt like a different war and it certainly was. I was only there ten days to help sponsor a 5K run for two fallen warriors. I’d much rather spend 30 days in Iraq of 2003 than one more day in Afghanistan of 2009.
GunUp the Magazine: What’s your favorite firearms or type of shooting?
Phil: I like a lot of shooting events. I have shot competitively at End of Trail, Bisley and Camp Perry but I really like shooting my MG’s and SMG’s as well as Winchester 1895’s where ever and whenever I can get the chance.
GunUp the Magazine: What’s the one thing you’d want our readers to know about the NRA’s National Firearms Museum?
Phil: Well if nothing else, we have two museums, one at NRA HQ in Fairfax, VA and one at the Bass Pro Shops flagship store in Springfield, MO. Both are open seven days a week and free to everyone. Common by and take some time to visit us. We are also online at www.nramuseums.com.
By Rob Reed. Originally published in the October 2015 issue of GunUp the Magazine.All photos courtesy of NRA Museums, www.nramuseums.com.
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