Emporium Man Made Gun Used By Leonardo DiCaprio In "The Revenant"
EMPORIUM (KDKA) -- A movie that's up for a dozen Academy Awards, and has already won a couple Golden Globe, has a Pennsylvania connection.
A man in Emporium made the rifle Leonardo DiCaprio used in "The Revenant." He says the phone call he first thought was a scam turned out to be the call of a lifetime.
"We subsequently concluded a deal to make the gun that Leonardo DiCaprio would be using in the movie," Ron Luckenbill, owner of Recreating History, said.
Luckenbill said he was contacted by producers of "The Revenant" about an Angstadt Rifle on his website. He had one gun in stock, made an exact duplicate, and got both guns to British Columbia in less than a month.
"It's not an opportunity you get every day, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime shot for me. So, I did the work that was necessary," Luckenbill said.
Luckenbill keeps an autographed photo of the film's star, holding his rifle, in his workshop.
He said he purchases the curly maple wood used to create the guns locally.
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"It's cut into a gun shape and then a barrel is set into the stock," Luckenbill says.
He then begins to shape the gun, carving out their unique designs like those of "The Revenant" gun.
Luckenbill says he was thinking about retiring again after building his 300th gun. But thanks to this movie, retirement is now out of the picture.