Daniel Defense is a company with success in its crosshairs.
The local firearms manufacturer has opened a new $5.3 million facility in Ridgeland, S.C., sold $35 million worth of product in three months and added a line of hunting rifles to its existing tactical weapons business, all since the start of 2012.
So why is the local firearms manufacturer gun shy in regards to growth?
“Because we understand market forces are like the law of physics — what goes up must come down,” Patrick Kisgen, the Bryan County-based company’s director of business development, told attendees at Thursday’s Buy Local Savannah luncheon. “We’re growing, but we want to manage that growth.”
Daniel Defense has, at times, resembled a speeding bullet over the last 12 years. Shooting enthusiast Marty Daniel founded the business as a specialty component manufacturer because he couldn’t find a source to make parts for his M-16 rifle.
Daniel Defense quickly outgrew the Garden City space it shared with Daniel’s other business, an overhead door and fireplace company. He landed contracts with the U.S. Army, making parts for the M4 rifle, and the United Kingdom’s defense ministry.
Daniel Defense built and outfitted a new manufacturing facility in 2008 at Bryan County’s Interstate Centre. The plan was to make a line of tactical weapons for the military and law enforcement agencies.
Then the recession hit and knocked the company off the mark. In July 2009, Daniel Defense laid off 30 employees and furloughed many of its remaining workers. Daniel sold his overhead door and fireplace business to local lumber and hardware magnate Ray Gaster around the same time.
Daniel gradually rebuilt the firearms business in the years that followed. The company went from building 24 guns in 2009 to 10,000 the next year. Daniel will manufacture 25,000 weapons this year and had to quit taking orders in March because of capacity issues.
Daniel Defense now employs more than 150 workers between its Bryan County and Ridgeland facilities.
The new plant in Ridgeland, which opened earlier this summer, allowed Daniel Defense to bring operations it previously outsourced to other companies in the Northeast in house. And the company’s new line of hunting rifles is part of a strategic plan to diversify their product offerings to guard against future market fluctuations.
The hunting weapons are sold at Bass Pro Shops under the brand name Ambush Firearms.
“We make assault weapons, and assault weapons are often in the news for less than flattering reasons,” Kisgen said. “Given the ever-shifting political climate, we though it would be a good idea to look at branching out into other markets.”