History Series / SonsOfGuns

* CoolGuns:
** Particularly the large-caliber machine guns the crew works on; they've also worked on some interesting historical pieces. The shop makes its living mostly off of Saiga (An AK-47 variant) conversions into cool guns (such as automatic or supressed shotguns).
** Really, the entire show is a combination of this and GunPorn.

* DoingItForTheArt:
** Supposedly, Will OK'd the motorcycle-machine gun because he had never gotten the opportunity to create a gun for purely aesthetic reasons.
** On the Sons of Guns: Guns of Glory clip show, the crew reveals that the motorcycle gun was actually a fairly practical design and it wound up working better than they originally thought.

* FiveManBand
** TheHero: Will
** TheLancer: Vince, and later Joe after he leaves.
** TheSmartGuy: Joe and Charlie
** TagalongKid: Kris
** TheChick: Steph
** SixthRanger: Flem

The show was cancelled on August 27th, 2014 after airing five seasons due to child molestation charges brought up against Red Jacket owner Will Hayden. In April 2017, a Louisiana court convicted him on two counts of aggravated rape and one count of forcible rape, charges that carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

* RareGuns:
** Almost once an episode, a customer shows up with a rare firearm that someone at the shop gets over-excited about. Most of these guns wind up repaired and fired, with interesting results. Some of the older pistols can get downright scary to shoot, because they're unpredictable as to whether or not they may simply explode in your hand.
** Also inverted, as they've had several guns come across that, while sometimes still rare, are not as rare as thought or outright fakes; see the Coffee-Grinder rifle and the pair of Lugers.
** Averted when an owner brings in a family heirloom shotgun that was partially destroyed in a fire. Despite Will stating it was a common mail-order shotgun with minimal value, the gun was fixed up and made to fire. Will notes that the value of a gun was outweighed by the family history of the gun itself, which was important to note.

** Later taken UpToEleven with a custom-made flamethrower the size of a tank cannon.

** Taken UpToEleven when Steph got to shoot a Solothurn; a 20-millimeter semi-automatic anti-tank gun roughly ''as big as she was''!

* UpToEleven: A lot of the custom guns made on the show take existing concepts and crank them UpToEleven.

* RantInducingSlight: [[{{Jerkass}} Vince]], in the April 11, 2014 episode, gets an earful when he calls Kris "Boy Wonder:"
--> '''Kris:''' Call me another fucking name on my property again and I'll beat the fucking shit out of you.

* BaldOfAwesome: Will Hayden, also Officer Mike.

* BadassBeard: Vince.
** Joe, Kris, Charlie, and Flem have smaller ones too.
* BadassTeacher: Joe's main job is a high school teacher; Red Jacket is his SECOND job.
** Up until season 3 where the demands of working both jobs became too great and he had to resign his teaching career to dedicate his time to Red Jacket.

-->'''"Shelter Me"''', theme song

* InfantImmortality: Averted in the first episode of season 3 when a child dies in Joe's arms following a shooting on Halloween in New Orleans.

* WeaponsUnderstudies: The gunsmiths at Red Jacket Firearms are asked by a WWII veteran to build a quad anti-air cannon for a re-enactment as part of an anniversary celebration. They originally planned to stay true to the original design, based on the .50cal BMG, but when it became apparent that each would cost about $100,000 to build, they decided to use far-cheaper MG-42s in their quad-cannon instead. (Flem notices the irony of using the enemy's weapon; cut to a Confession Cam scene where he apologizes to his WWII veteran grandfather.)