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BUILT ON A LEGACY OF NATIONWIDE FIREARMS SALES SINCE 1958
It all started in the 1950's
OUR STORY
In the 1950’s Alexandria Virginia looked like a completely different place than it does today. Alexandria Virginia was the major shipping hub for the DC area due to its immediate proximity to the Potomac River. Alexandria was home to factories that manufactured torpedoes in World War Two and shortly after the war it was home to Inter-Arms Corporation. Inter-Arms was founded by Samuel Cummings and that's a crazy story in itself about how he helped supply weapons during the Bay of Pigs, Contras and many more organizations that may or may not have been funded by the CIA in nearby Langley Virginia. During the 1950’s a man named John Richards decided he’d go visit his friend Samuel Cummings at Interarms after a long day of working at the concrete plant in Old Town Alexandria; shortly thereafter Potomac Arms opened its doors at Zero Prince Street next to Interarms. Potomac Arms was one of the largest firearms retailers in the United States all the way through the 90’s and early 2000’s when it closed in 2006. Potomac Arms was known by many trade names to include “Ye Olde Hunter”, “Hunter’s Haven” and others over the years. Many saw their advertisements in the back of magazines where one could mail in a check for $50 and in return get a surplus M1 Garand. Those days are here and gone but that’s where Full Metal Jacket got our start.
In 1988, Mark Richards approached his dad after four years of college debauchery where he majored in business and Budweiser to try and start his own business. His brother Steve Richards was already running Potomac Arms but Mark wanted to do something adjacent to the family business and that was military surplus. Mark quickly learned the ins and outs of the business, building relationships with the local DRMO auctions, surplus distributors and manufacturers. Mark had needed a name for this business venture and his ex-girlfriend at the time mentioned it and it stuck. The Stanley Kubrick film never trademarked the name and he was able to buy the rights; he was able to name his business based on their oversight. Full Metal Jacket was originally in a mobile-office style trailer out front of the gun store but quickly outgrew it and took over the first floor of the Zero Prince Street building where the gun store was run upstairs on the second floor.
When Mark first opened the store, his intentions were to capture sales from collectors and people wanting to wear military surplus for fashion. When Operation Desert Shield happened in 1990, most troops still had M81 woodland field gear and a lot of woodland camo, which didn’t necessarily blend in with the desert of Kuwait very well. Families came to Full Metal Jacket for anything and everything that was even vaguely sand colored. This wound up being a common occurrence throughout the nineties and eventually the early 2000s. The nineties was the first real big boom of military surplus for Mark; the wall fell and the communist surplus flooded the market. Mark bought up as much of the combloc surplus he could, peddling to tourists in DC as well as the growing collector base. Some of these customers who would become regulars in the store included people like George Peterson who ran National Capital Historic Sales (this is the guy who supplied all the Russian and Cuban uniforms worn in the original Red Dawn). Mark even had some customers who were well known to include the guy who famously played Darth Vader, James Earl Jones.
As the nineties transitioned to the new Millenia so did the business. In 2001, Mark watched smoke billow out of the Pentagon just a couple miles up the Potomac and quickly knew the world was changing even faster. Mark quickly understood that business would be booming after that terrorist attack occurred in our back yard. Sure enough business did explode both in the gun and surplus stores. The uncertainty of what Al Qaeda could do next created a panic among people and there was a line out the door of customers wanting to buy everything from gas masks to body armor and MREs. Not only did citizens want to prepare, so did the guys going overseas to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Mark finally discovered the demand for modern gear to be sold in the store and did everything he could to carry commercial tactical gear. Mark was one of the first dealers for Surefire when it was still Laser Products, Benchmade Knives, as well as Propper in the DC area. As Mark began carrying these brands the demand also soared locally from guys who wanted better gear as well as the growing demand for better gear from cops. The demand from regular joes still wasn’t quite there yet.
In 1988, Mark Richards approached his dad after four years of college debauchery where he majored in business and Budweiser to try and start his own business. His brother Steve Richards was already running Potomac Arms but Mark wanted to do something adjacent to the family business and that was military surplus. Mark quickly learned the ins and outs of the business, building relationships with the local DRMO auctions, surplus distributors and manufacturers. Mark had needed a name for this business venture and his ex-girlfriend at the time mentioned it and it stuck. The Stanley Kubrick film never trademarked the name and he was able to buy the rights; he was able to name his business based on their oversight. Full Metal Jacket was originally in a mobile-office style trailer out front of the gun store but quickly outgrew it and took over the first floor of the Zero Prince Street building where the gun store was run upstairs on the second floor.
When Mark first opened the store, his intentions were to capture sales from collectors and people wanting to wear military surplus for fashion. When Operation Desert Shield happened in 1990, most troops still had M81 woodland field gear and a lot of woodland camo, which didn’t necessarily blend in with the desert of Kuwait very well. Families came to Full Metal Jacket for anything and everything that was even vaguely sand colored. This wound up being a common occurrence throughout the nineties and eventually the early 2000s. The nineties was the first real big boom of military surplus for Mark; the wall fell and the communist surplus flooded the market. Mark bought up as much of the combloc surplus he could, peddling to tourists in DC as well as the growing collector base. Some of these customers who would become regulars in the store included people like George Peterson who ran National Capital Historic Sales (this is the guy who supplied all the Russian and Cuban uniforms worn in the original Red Dawn). Mark even had some customers who were well known to include the guy who famously played Darth Vader, James Earl Jones.
As the nineties transitioned to the new Millenia so did the business. In 2001, Mark watched smoke billow out of the Pentagon just a couple miles up the Potomac and quickly knew the world was changing even faster. Mark quickly understood that business would be booming after that terrorist attack occurred in our back yard. Sure enough business did explode both in the gun and surplus stores. The uncertainty of what Al Qaeda could do next created a panic among people and there was a line out the door of customers wanting to buy everything from gas masks to body armor and MREs. Not only did citizens want to prepare, so did the guys going overseas to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Mark finally discovered the demand for modern gear to be sold in the store and did everything he could to carry commercial tactical gear. Mark was one of the first dealers for Surefire when it was still Laser Products, Benchmade Knives, as well as Propper in the DC area. As Mark began carrying these brands the demand also soared locally from guys who wanted better gear as well as the growing demand for better gear from cops. The demand from regular joes still wasn’t quite there yet.
As the GWOT went on and business was generally great for Mark and crew there were some factors beyond our control. Hurricane Isabel had come knocking in September of 2003 and left her mark on all of the DC area. The store flooded, the Potomac saw a historic storm surge that washed Mark’s house away and a whole multitude of unexpected headaches. The store was flooded and a lot of damage was done but Mark and his brother wanted to continue the store’s tradition on Prince Street as it was prime real estate. This prime real estate was being eyed up by the city of Alexandria as well, Alexandria came in after the hurricane with an eminent domain order and wanted the gun and surplus store out. Gentrification of the area was drastically impacting business and the affluent area growing and the snarling began from the new neighbors. Not to point fingers at anybody but certain groups of people do not like WW2 era Nebelwerfers pointing towards their Apartment windows. Steve had decided it was time to hang up his hat and close down the gun business between break-ins, eminent domain and flooding; he took it as a sign to retire. After some long family talks they agreed to an offer from the city sometime in 2006 and that building today is the Old Dominion Boat Club.
Full Metal Jacket was closed for exactly two (scheduled) days as we moved all of our inventory 2 miles up the street to our current location at 2379 South Dove Street. Mark opened up that Tuesday to customers with boxes of surplus for them to find stuff themselves as they unpacked and built new displays for the new space. This spot here on Dove Street has served as a bit of an oxymoron as we call ourselves “The War Store” and the dove is the universal signal of peace. The store was relatively unchanged for twenty years and remained the same with the old display cases from the original location as well as the original Zero Prince Street sign hanging on the office door. Mark and company continued to help servicemembers fulfill missing items on their CIF (Central Issuing Facility) lists as well as get young wide-eyed men and women ready for an upcoming deployment. A lot of this era was focusing on the GWOT era of servicemembers more so than the collectors market which was a drastic shift in what we did. Mark also had a lot on his plate getting the contract for the Virginia Commonwealth ROTC programs; we still are the contract provider for uniforms to nearly ten schools to this day.
In 2013 a young Chansa “Champ” Sok came through the store looking for a few items that he needed while pursuing a possible career with 20th Special Operations Group in Maryland. Champ is a first generation American who hails from Cambodia; he was a Khmer Rouge refugee who ended up in the States as a baby. This was during the big cut of military and Government personnel and he unfortunately got cut from the program and remembered how Full Metal Jacket seemed short handed. Champ came in and asked for a part time job as he had recently moved to the area after majoring in business at Arizona State. Mark often shares the story of how he had hired a private investigator to see if Champ was a real person and not some sort of plant because he was so knowledgeable and determined. The private investigator determined that he was just a normal guy trying to make a normal living with a wife and kid on the way. Champ eventually proved his worth and was asked to join in ownership with Full Metal Jacket. Over the years Champ brought a good bit of modern flair to the store and introduced the team to brands such as Crye Precision, London Bridge Trading and other high end brands. Champ being extremely charismatic has led Full Metal Jacket to pursue contracts with foreign and domestic Military and other Government agencies.
We’ve supplied things like Mystery Ranch Komodo Dragon packs to Czech Special Forces and L3 Night Vision to State Department groups throughout the world. We have built multiple relationships with some of the best first quality brands when it comes to bulk buys for certain entities. The store has seen numerous improvements over the years as well as employees come and go. We’ve had gear from just about every unit imaginable and uniforms with every badge from Combat Jump Wings to Astronaut Wings. In 2021 we expanded and took on the other half of our building and built it into a two story warehouse of Military Surplus equipment. Since we had more room for storage we also fully updated our store for the first time in almost fifteen years. Today we have nearly 9,000 square feet of space between our warehouse and showroom featuring over 30 new fully stocked tactical brands along with tons more foreign and domestic surplus from nearly every era. If you read all this we greatly appreciate your time learning a little bit about us; we hope it puts you at ease if you are thinking about ordering through us!
Full Metal Jacket was closed for exactly two (scheduled) days as we moved all of our inventory 2 miles up the street to our current location at 2379 South Dove Street. Mark opened up that Tuesday to customers with boxes of surplus for them to find stuff themselves as they unpacked and built new displays for the new space. This spot here on Dove Street has served as a bit of an oxymoron as we call ourselves “The War Store” and the dove is the universal signal of peace. The store was relatively unchanged for twenty years and remained the same with the old display cases from the original location as well as the original Zero Prince Street sign hanging on the office door. Mark and company continued to help servicemembers fulfill missing items on their CIF (Central Issuing Facility) lists as well as get young wide-eyed men and women ready for an upcoming deployment. A lot of this era was focusing on the GWOT era of servicemembers more so than the collectors market which was a drastic shift in what we did. Mark also had a lot on his plate getting the contract for the Virginia Commonwealth ROTC programs; we still are the contract provider for uniforms to nearly ten schools to this day.
In 2013 a young Chansa “Champ” Sok came through the store looking for a few items that he needed while pursuing a possible career with 20th Special Operations Group in Maryland. Champ is a first generation American who hails from Cambodia; he was a Khmer Rouge refugee who ended up in the States as a baby. This was during the big cut of military and Government personnel and he unfortunately got cut from the program and remembered how Full Metal Jacket seemed short handed. Champ came in and asked for a part time job as he had recently moved to the area after majoring in business at Arizona State. Mark often shares the story of how he had hired a private investigator to see if Champ was a real person and not some sort of plant because he was so knowledgeable and determined. The private investigator determined that he was just a normal guy trying to make a normal living with a wife and kid on the way. Champ eventually proved his worth and was asked to join in ownership with Full Metal Jacket. Over the years Champ brought a good bit of modern flair to the store and introduced the team to brands such as Crye Precision, London Bridge Trading and other high end brands. Champ being extremely charismatic has led Full Metal Jacket to pursue contracts with foreign and domestic Military and other Government agencies.
We’ve supplied things like Mystery Ranch Komodo Dragon packs to Czech Special Forces and L3 Night Vision to State Department groups throughout the world. We have built multiple relationships with some of the best first quality brands when it comes to bulk buys for certain entities. The store has seen numerous improvements over the years as well as employees come and go. We’ve had gear from just about every unit imaginable and uniforms with every badge from Combat Jump Wings to Astronaut Wings. In 2021 we expanded and took on the other half of our building and built it into a two story warehouse of Military Surplus equipment. Since we had more room for storage we also fully updated our store for the first time in almost fifteen years. Today we have nearly 9,000 square feet of space between our warehouse and showroom featuring over 30 new fully stocked tactical brands along with tons more foreign and domestic surplus from nearly every era. If you read all this we greatly appreciate your time learning a little bit about us; we hope it puts you at ease if you are thinking about ordering through us!
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