Meet the “Most Armed Man” in America. He goes by “Dragon Man” from Dragon Man’s Range outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. His brother taped a 20-minute video of the grandfatherly gent walking through his private military museum. The video provides an level of firearms ownership all POTG should aspire to achieve.
Dragon Man has quite a collection. As the camera pans, he gestures to his 65,000 square feet of ballistic goodness. Inside, it houses 3000 working weapons, 88 running vehicles, 900 uniformed mannequins. Everything works, he says. Dragon Man brags on the 200-plus full auto guns in his name, including 13 Ma Deuces.
He’s got a collection, including real “guns”. You’ll have to watch it to see the artillery and recoilless rifles. He’s got dynamite, cyanide, uniforms, a tank, jeeps and a whole lot more of militaria collectables, including a lot of very rare stuff.
“Everything works. Nothing’s fake. Because this is a private collection, not a government museum, everything can work,” he tells the cameraman.
He’s got six 1000-pound bombs. Not to be outdone, Dragon Man’s got cluster bombs and crates and crates of hand grenades.
Here’s a 20-minute tour of some of the high points of his private museum.
Pour yourself a beverage, get comfortable and hit play. Make sure you watch it full screen in HD. Better yet, if you’ve got a smart TV, watch it there.
What did he do die a living to make thar kind of cash? I feel I need to make a career change.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I wonder the total value of everything there, it is probably knocking well into 7 digits, right?
I doubt even he knows the total value of everything that he has. Keep in mind that he’s a class III dealer, so a lot of the NFA stuff will probably be non-transferrable.
Still, 80 some odd workin milsurp cars/trucks at an average price of $12,500/ea brings you to seven figures on its own. And that’s before you consider things like the tens of thousands of rounds of .50BMG milsurp ammunition at $4 each, or any of the guns, or any of the historical items, or anything else.
Don’t forget the several fully operational tanks he owns. What do you figure the shipping costs alone were on those babies?
My experience with the recoiless rifle is limited to the 90mm. That round he’s holding looks a lot bigger.
My experience largely mirrors yours. And until the “hearing protection act” guys get busy building dual side version of their finest kit, that’s how I intend for it to stay…. I’ll take the 1000 pound bombs any day.
How do you put 20+ 1000lb bombs into a deuce and a half truck?
He doesn’t know what a cluster bomb is (it’s not a fragmentation bomb).
We drove truck convoys down the Ho Chi Minh trail?
The T54 didn’t come into production until after WWII. Maybe that’s a prototype, but I doubt it.
His history is straight out of public school.
That’s a M40 105mm Recoilless Rifle behind him in the picture.
OK. I’m officially jealous.
Does he have a single daughter?
Snaggle-toothed and ugly is fine with me…
(As to a valuation guess, I’d say in the tens of millions at least.)
Actually he does. She is a shooting instructor and has a online radio show, something like “We love shooting”.
Ava is a good kid-
Holy armory, Batman!
As long as his collection is used for goodness, not for badness.
Paging Dr. Browning, Dr. Maxim, Dr. Colt.
Yeah, baby, yeah!
Such a shame his wife was killed during the making of a reality show that never aired. He probably got a chunk of money in the settlement for her death.
I used to go out his machine gun demos. He’s got it all.
Haven’t been there since I moved, but he used to have signs on the road leading in that the fields were mined and he had destroyed vehicles lining the road.
A gun lovers and all things military wet dream.
He tried suing the Discovery Channel on the basis that no one should’ve allowed his range staff to use amateur pyrotechnics. Didn’t work. Turns out if you build pyrotechnics yourself, it can get someone killed.
The range itself is wildly unsafe, too.
Greedy b@str*d. I’m jealous
How does one even purchase bombs? And from where? Fantastic video!
Goodness!! That makes having 8 safes / cabinets in three different houses and a dozen shelving units and storage containers of ammo seems like a couple of squirt guns.
Well done, sir.
Ok, finally, I can say without irony: “Now, THAT is an ‘arsenal'”!
No StG 44? No Nazi collection is complete without one.
He had one for sale back in ’08, IIRC it had a price tag around $30k.
Given his age, my guess is that a lot of his collecting was done a long time ago when the regulations were less restrictive and full auto weapons could be had for only a few dollars more than semi-autos. I know a dealer up here who has a pretty extensive collection including a GE electric minigun and several other tripod mounted weapons. It was all in the tming. A collection in the millions of dollars today could be had in thousands 30 years ago.
I would also guess that some of his stuff might be skirting the line of legality in that I doubt that he has full papers for every single NFA device on display. Even dealers need to have documentation and I’d suspect he does not have a complete set, which would make some of those items worthless on the open market.
Just guessing here, but I would think that collection came into being as a museum, which make importing a lot of that stuff legal back in the day. A lot of that stuff was never for sale to civilians in the US, but South America, Africa, and some Pacific island nations had lots of surplus stuff.
Since (again, guessing) a lot of that stuff was obtained before the NFA, I would bet there’s no paperwork on it.
Most of those weapons weren’t even invented before the nfa was enacted
Huh? NFA was 1934. Most everything he showed was World War II and beyond.
“Huh? NFA was 1934. Most everything he showed was World War II and beyond.”
Obvious confusion with the GCA of 68.
Dontcha think it’s kinda ridiculous to think that with all the press he gets, complete with live reports from the Colorado Springs news stations showing all this stuff for all the world to see, that there’s any possibility at ALL that he doesn’t have complete papers for all of it? C’mon…
I’m betting his monthly insurance bill on all that stuff is more than my yearly income!
Pardon me while I cry.
Who would DARE to rob him???
One lightning strike could flatten everything for miles.
On both sides of the road leading up to the museum are shot up vehicles with bloody mannequins hanging out of them and on the ground, some of which have the sign “Democrat” pointing at them.
When the zombie apocalypse hits, I know where I’m going…
My exact first thought…I will bring everything I own and hope he lets me in.
Impressive even if some of his information is wrong. Also, not sure about the stability of dynamite or anything else “live” that’s been laying around since WWII. Walk softly…
The one main point for me; I couldn’t get past to enjoy watching it. WHY? WHY? WHY? !!!!
I bought my first rifle (a sweet arsenal refurbished ’29 Tula 91/30) from Mel back in ’07, and his wife did the paperwork. I was a regular at his shop and ranges up until I moved in 2010.
I met some guys around the Springs who thought Dragonman was rude (etc) and refused to do business there, instead going to Sportsman’s or wherever. He kinda reminded me of Cotton from KotH; kinda grumpy, with little patience for window-shoppers in that little shop, and with a very curt/succinct way of selling guns…… which is exactly how I prefer things.
When I heard his wife died in that freak accident, it really saddened me. She was a good lady, and when Mel wasn’t there I often dealt with her.
But if I ever go back to the Springs, Dragonman’s is one of the first places I’m going, and that may be the last place too since I’ll likely be broke afterwards.
Living in Colorado, I’m sure he is compliant with the state’s new laws regulating MSRs, magazine capacity, etc.
It’s a museum, therefore exempt from most such rules.
I would bet he has enough lawyers to make sure he’s in compliance.
If the museum is a trust, with him the ‘owner’ of the trust, that’s one way to be compliant, I think. IANAL.
Good point. Maybe I should open a museum so I could finally buy that tank I’ve been wanting. 😉
This guy makes me proud to live in Colorado Springs. Lol. I think I sold him a tree once when I worked at a landscape company.
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