Rick Washburn's weapons are real but shoot blanks on film. Angel Franco / The New York Times

Deep inside a nondescript building in the SoHo district of Manhattan, a two-story steel vault marked "Fort Knox" holds a huge arsenal of weapons that has armed action heroes and their adversaries, fake armies and feds, and even Tony Soprano.

The collection of more than 5,000 firearms includes sniper rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, revolvers, pistols, machine guns and even a 15th-century wheel lock, one of the world's first practical handguns. Each has played a role in film or television.

"All these guns are real," said the arsenal's owner, Rick Washburn, a former actor whose company, the Specialists, has become an emporium for production weapons. While the guns once fired live ammunition, they have been modified so that they now shoot blanks.

Over the last 30 years, Mr. Washburn, 65, has gained a following as the man who can get any weapon. The Specialists recently finished working on "One Shot," the Tom Cruise thriller based on the popular Lee Child series of novels with Jack Reacher. The company also provided weaponry to one of this summer's most anticipated blockbusters, "The Dark Knight Rises," the final installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

Since it opened in 1981, the company has provided guns and other weapons to more than 1,200 films and TV shows, including "The Cotton Club," "Die Hard With a Vengeance," "The Bourne Ultimatum," "American Gangster," "The Sopranos," "Law & Order" and the Prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire."

"Rick always helps me out in a pinch," said Max Sherwood, a prop master in New York who is working on the film "Blood Ties," a drama starring Clive Owen and Billy Crudup. "I can go in there with an actor or director and Rick will tell them, 'This is the kind of gun a criminal would have in 1974,' and I know that will be right."

Mr. Washburn noted that New York City's gun-control laws require him to keep thorough records of all the weapons in his control.

The gun in greatest demand is the Glock, which, according to the book "Glock: The Rise of America's Gun," by Paul M. Barrett, Mr. Washburn was instrumental in popularizing in film. He was among the first prop masters in the country to push for the use of the brand. The Glock's popularity spread in the 1990s, because the gun has fewer parts and an expanded magazine compared with the traditional revolver.

Mr. Washburn is readying himself for a new generation of weapons. "In a few years there will be sonic weapons and lasers and rail guns," he said, and added, "We'll be a part of that."

The New York Times

(China Daily 06/10/2012 page12)