Last day for Riley’s

Used to be my favorite shop. That was many years ago. I stopped in a few weeks ago and it was shocking. Very little stock on hand. They wanted to order it for me. Went across the street to Shooters Outpost and made my first purchase there. No shortage of stock in that place.
 
It was a great place in its day.

Yes, it was, because it was likely one of the first shops in new england that didn't sell stuff for rape prices... they used to sell loaves of XM193 for like $125.00 back in the day not that long ago.... plus, at one time, they had eeeeeeeverything. Even cases of bullets were reasonable.

-Mike
 
I havent been there in nearly 10 years so I never had the displeasure of seeing its downfall. I guess I'm lucky.
 
I havent been there in nearly 10 years so I never had the displeasure of seeing its downfall. I guess I'm lucky.
I haven't been in years but basically went right until the point where Ralph sold out a few years ago or whatever. Then suddenly bunch of people started telling me it started to suck badly so I never bothered going back. One of my friends dad used to go up once a month for reloading stuff and even that started to peter out... ghost town i guess.

-Mike
 
This is a sad day, but not surprising. For me, the closing signals the closing of yet another chapter of my youth as I have entered my 50's. The Riley's I grew up on LOOKED like a gun shop, FELT like a gun shop, Hell, it even SMELLED like a gun shop. I have posted here before about the new owners helping this shop leave skid marks on the bowl, now it's come true. My son and I were in there a month ago, and the place looked empty and shitty; they even covered up the old school wood paneling with some goofy white particle board shit.
 
Riley's has been dead to me for at least a few years now. I remember going there on the late 90s to get some supplies but then it was several years before I went back (lived too far away). Then Shooters opened and they became one of the few gun stores I visit.

I honestly won't miss Riley's one little bit.
 
I never bothered to go there as everyone on here has been saying it was a waste of time. We have a "What in THE HELL happened to Riley's?" thread for goodness sakes. I will say I primarily shop online but Shooter's had very competitive powder pricing the last time I was in there.
 
I never bothered to go there as everyone on here has been saying it was a waste of time. We have a "What in THE HELL happened to Riley's?" thread for goodness sakes. I will say I primarily shop online but Shooter's had very competitive powder pricing the last time I was in there.
Shooters also stocks a good amount of plated projectiles for reloading. Last time I went to Riley's back in the summer they had very little in the way of reloading supplies.....went up the road to shooters stocked up on everything. I tried going to Riley's first......but I can't support you with a purchase if you just don't have what I need.
 
I haven't been shooting that long, but I frequent Shooters Outpost ever since I started reloading a few years back. Someone told me to try Rileys a couple years ago so I did, and their prices and selection weren't that great so I continued shopping at Shooters Outpost instead. From what I've heard around the rumor mill, this isn't surprising that they're going out of business. It's sad to see them closing and I wish the owners the best of luck, but I'm sure it was a challenge competing with Shooter's Outpost literally 5min down the road.
 
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I bought my first gun there 38 years ago, a Ruger Speed 6,

Beat you by a year [wink]

I moved to NH from CT in 1980. I got my NH driver's license in Concord and literally drove straight to Riley's and bought a Browning Hi-Power. Of course that was when Dick still owned it.

I think one of Ralph's last compliance inspections is what was the last straw for him selling. Examiners were there for over a week and wanted to see EVERYTHING.
 
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I was in there last Sunday and it felt, well...weird. Salespeople talking in the little office in the back in hushed tones. I was looking at the CZ Compact they had there but ended up buying one at SO because of better pricing and they had the actual compact model I wanted (PCR).

I started going there in the early 80's after I got out of the Navy. I bought a few firearms there over the years and shot 2-3 times a week in the indoor range they had out back until it got shut down. I'd like to see someone take over the range, renovate it and open it up again to the public. I figure there's three chances of that...fat, slim and none.

I wonder what will happen to the firearms they still had in the store?
 
Note.....with the closing of Riley's it means that every single 4473 for that place gets sent to ATF for them to "maintain"

Thats a lot of purchases......

When did gunstores start keeping 4473's? 1986 or somewhere around there? They must have a warehouse somewhere just stuffed with paperwork...maybe the old indoor range behind the store?
 
started going in the mid/late 70's. hooksett was very rural then, you'd get off of 93 and there would be nothing along the way to rileys. you were lucky if you passed another car and when you did, chances were good they had just left rileys. i enjoyed dealing with dick. i liked him, a lot didn't care for him though. they had a decent reloading department and stocked a ton of stuff. shit loads of used guns, too. and the prices were decent. you could go to dick and bitch about a used gun price and he'd always drop the price for ya. this was before the internet so we found out about new products thru the gun mags and dick always had the latest shit up there. shot a lot of ihmsa matches on rileys range in the day also. got the shock of my life when i went up there a couple of years ago for the first time in a while. i thought everything would be the same as it was. i was wrong.
 
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