Ashley Hlebinsky

Ashley Hlebinsky is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on firearms history. Hlebinsky spent a decade leading the most prominent firearms museum in the world, the Cody Firearms Museum, where she directed a multi-million-dollar renovation that reopened in 2019.

Additionally, Hlebinsky has advised organizations including the Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service, Los Angeles Police Museum, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Hindman Auctions, Staccato Firearms, and Colt CZ Group. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of the University of Wyoming College of Law’s Firearms Research Center and founding member of the Centre for the Study of Arms History. Hlebinsky has also been an expert witness in nearly 30 civil and criminal cases in the U.S. and Canada.

A prominent public historian, Hlebinsky was a co-host on Discovery Channel’s Master of Arms and currently appears on Outdoor Channel’s Gun Stories with Joe Mantegna and Fox Nation’s Wanted: Dead or Alive. She has been an on-air expert, writer, and/or producer for other networks such as National Geographic, History, Travel, PBS, and NPR. She has been published over 200 times in popular and academic outlets and serves on the editorial board of Armax: The Journal of Contemporary Arms.

Outside of her historical work, Hlebinsky is a vocal mental health advocate, partnering with organizations on suicide prevention initiatives as well as publicly discussing how she navigates her own Bipolar 2 and PTSD diagnoses.