Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Legendary Arms Works Rifles-A new rifle manufacturing company

Greetings 24HR Campfire,

Thank for the interest and recent postings in Legendary Arms Works rifles. I would like to take the opportunity to respond to the posting and some of the comments related to Legendary Arms Works and to give clarification about the company.I have posted similar information on other forums because we want to ensure that the most accurate and honest information is available to our customer base.

In the spirit of full disclosure-My name is Paul Reed and I am the Chief Operating Officer for Trop Gun Shop Corporation and Legendary Arms Works. Trop Gun Shop is a retail and online firearms company and we have a manufacturing division that includes Legendary Arms Works where the 704 rifles are being built. We are the sole owners and producers of the Legendary Arms Works Model 704 bolt action rifle. A little bit of history about the company will help to clarify. The creation of Legendary Arms Works comes about through the joining of three forces in the firearms industry and is an interesting story that will help to understand the company and the people driving it.

Ed Brown created the 704 bolt action around 2002 with improvements over the next few years that led ultimately to the Model 704. He produced a small number of rifles for a time period and they were of very high quality and had excellent accuracy. The development of the 704 action was novel at the time and for anyone who knows Mr. Brown would not be surprised at his design, it is an engineering accomplishment. Mr. Brown's business grew substantially and during that time the interest in high quality AR style rifle was growing at a fast pace. Ed decided to concentrate on AR rifles as well as his outstanding 1911 pistols and the bolt action production languished.

In 2012, Mr. David Dunn, to whom I report, purchased Trop Gun Shop in Elizabethtown Pennsylvania. Dave has deep experience and keen interest in the firearms industry and was a consultant to The American Custom Gunmakers Guild, ATK and other organizations in the shooting sports. He has interests and knowledge in the fine gun market as well as military and tactical firearms. Trop Gun Shop dates back to 1961 and has been a mainstay in the Pennsylvania firearms business. Dave and his wife Tara, rebuilt the company both physically and financially and it includes a modern state of the art indoor shooting range, 13000 square feet of retail space and a vibrant and growing e-commerce business. Visit our Web site at: Trop Gun Shop


Mark Bansner, a formally trained gunsmith with a world-class reputation under the business name of Bansner's Ultimate Rifles, has been building state-of-the-art bolt action rifles on a variety of actions for 30 years. Many of you know about or own one of Mark's rifles and his reputation as a riflesmith is first order. Approximately 20 years ago Mark purchased a synthetic stock making company, High Tech Specialties, and over the course of many years continually refined the hand laid fiberglass stock to enhance accuracy, pointability and durability. Mark used these stocks in the production of his Ultimate Rifles as well as making them available on the secondary market to customers via the High Tech Specialties Web site and through Brownells. Mark achieved a worldwide reputation for producing outstanding firearms for the hunting and shooting community.

In 2013 David Dunn purchased the rights to produce and market the 704 action in its entirety from Ed Brown under Trop Gun Shop business. This purchase included all of Ed's drawing and engineering diagrams, spare parts and specialized machinery with full rights to produce and sell the 704 action and rifles based on this action.

In early 2013, David also teamed up in a business agreement to purchase Bansner's Ultimate rifles and High Tech Specialties stock works from Mark. This purchased included all of Mark's business and Mark remains on the management team as President of our manufacturing division. They subsequently formed a new company, Legendary Arms Work, with a goal to produce an American made, state-of-the-art production style bolt action rifle at a competitive price point. It is our company�s view that high quality rifles can be built in America with all the features shooters seek. We feel we can move away from the current industry path of producing cheaper and cheaper injection molded, MIM or cast parts rifles in a race to the bottom. The joining of these three forces, The 704 action, Trop Gun Shop financial and manufacturing capabilities, and Mark Bansner custom firearms expertise, gave rise to Legendary Arms Works. The mission of the company is to produce a rifle of outstanding quality and accuracy that will appeal to the worldwide market at a price that every shooter can afford.

Over the past year Mark and his team have been diligently enhancing and making design modifications on the 704 action to get ready for production. No detail has been left out in this time consuming and expensive process. For example Mark and his gunsmiths spent nearly two full weeks adjusting the design for the 3 positions safety to get the timing, function and feel exactly right. We also have been ramping up a manufacturing and production facility for the stocks and rifle assembly and I have overseen the development of the LAWS Web site. Our company is located in Lancaster County Pennsylvania which is truly the birthplace of American rifle making dating back to the early 1700s and The Pennsylvania Rifle a fact that is not lost on those of us dedicated to the model 704. We formally launched the new company officially in December 2014 and have had outstanding success at the Dallas Safari Club and most recently announcing it at the 2015 SHOT Show where we hosted a writer�s event at the SHOT range day. Our rifles have been used by Craig Boddington in Africa, Canada and the United States and we have become the official rifle sponsor of his television show, The Boddington Experience. In addition, we have a sponsorship relationship with Freddy Harteis, The Hollywood Hunter, and Freddy is using our rifles now on a variety of hunts.

We are currently in late stage production of our three introductory models: The Closer, the Professional and The Big Five. Each of these models have a number of similarities including the M704 true controlled round feed action, a Timney trigger, stainless match grade barrels and a High Tech Specialties fiberglass stock. The rifles action has a strong similarity to a Remington 700 model with the round body to allow for easier bedding and will take 700 bottom metal. Our rifles include Weaver style scope bases on the Closer and Professional and Talley style bases on The Big Five. Complete details and descriptions as well as photographs of our rifles can be viewed at the Legendary Arms Works website: Legendary Arms Works

We are now moving into a full production mode with the hope to have rifles available in the March or April timeframe. For anyone who has been involved in building a firearms manufacturing facility, you can understand the monumental tasks and amount of work plus huge financial commitments that are required to undertake such an endeavor. The rifle actions are machined from 416 stainless steel on state of the art CNC machines. Currently we are producing two action lengths, the short action 308 size, and a long action 30-06 size that will handle standard magnum rounds such as the 300 Winchester and 375 H&H magnum. Our plans and ideas are many and include a true magnum sized action and eventually left handed configured actions. For the moment we are offering a rifles in a broad and novel variety of caliber options such as the 35 Whelen, 26 Nosler, and 6.5 Creedmoor etc. but are limiting stock color and Cerakote metal finish colors to allow us to get rifles out to our customers. At some point in the future we will begin again offering custom rifles similar to what Mark offered for many years. Our rifles come with a full lifetime guarantee for the life of the rifle not the owner and an accuracy guarantee. All the pertinent details can be found at the Legendary Arms Works website.

We would be pleased to answer any questions about the rifle and our production as we can but may beg for a bit of patience in us getting the rifles to the market. We waited until our production facility was well under way to announce the company to avoid the usual firearms industry new product announcement and significant time lag before availability. The rifle is truly 100 % American made, every piece of metal, spring, screw etc. is a 100% American made and we believe we have a price point that will pose a very significant challenge to our competitors. In addition we will make our Model 704 actions available to purchase to the gunsmith trade.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide insight into our company and the people that are driving at and we look forward to our success. Please visit our Website for more information.

Paul

"Diligentia - Vis - Celeritas"
NRA Patron Member

Jeezus Gawd you Clueless Fhuqks go wayyyyyyyyyyy outta your way,to fhuqk simple [bleep] up! That is an awesomely pathetic Fluff piece,fixating on STUPIDITY. The name dropping is fhuqking HILARIOUS! Like ANY of you dumb fhuqkers associated and who "helped" with this Goat Fhuqk,have a first fhuqking clue?!? PLEASE cite how you all really "thought" this out! Laffin'!

As opening moves,you totally botched twist rates. Then cite NOTHING in regards to COAL latitude or throat geometry.

Here's a fhuqking question. How come all of you stupid fhuqkers bolted together,can so badly botch so many things...given all your collective "knowledge" and "experience"?!? Laffin'!

A herd of Salad Eaters threw some schit together and dumbfhuqks as stupid as you,think it is "something"?!? You gals had best delete your dumbfhuqkery and connect some dots.

Thank me later for the guidance.

Hint.

Wow.


P.S. and by the way,consider it a Two Dog Dare,to get some of your "names" to say something about rifles,glass or bullets and I assure you,it will be funnier than fhuqk. You obviously are in wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over your head and will need to burn more than a few Life Lines,to begin to crowd par.

Re-hint.

Just sayin'.

Laffin'!

Mr Reed,

Thanks for the information. I have been and will continue to watch the development of Legendary Arms Works. And will keep you in mind when I "need" another rifle.

Also please do not judge the membership by one or two posts. Most people here have at least a few manners and are reasonably polite.

shoot straight
Mike

If the quality level of the LAW products equal the work Mark has done for me past, these products will be a success.

As i see it, having more options when looking for the next rifle is seldom a bad thing.

Mr. Reed, Welcome to 24HCF. Merging/integrating multiple businesses into a single operating unit is a significant endeavor. I wish your group well. As a Southpaw, I will be waiting (patiently) to see when the Left Hand versions become available.

Finally, the "ignore" button is very handy for blocking out the "noise".

Is there any way to preorder one?

After your thoughtful introduction, I'm ashamed that your first response was this.

I've always wanted a "Brown" rifle. I'm looking forward to doing business with your firm. Perhaps you can come back here when things are in full swing, and you can tell us where the dealers are so we can see your rifles.

Better yet, once one is built, offer it up for sale here.
(Maybe in .270 )

One of our members could purchase it and provide a review of it.

Paul,

Twist em faster than anyone thought possible and you'll own the market.

I like what LAW is trying to do. Just give the quality rifle buyers what they want, fast twist rates and no freebore.

Mike

Reed,

Welcome, and thank you for posting; the information is interesting.

One design point catches my eye from a safety perspective.

From this photo of the bolt on the website, it looks like the extractor undercuts almost all of one lug, and there appears to be a hole drilled through the bolt for a pin or screw to hold the extractor in line with the lugs. This bolt design seems like weak from a safety perspective.

Any more information or explanation regarding this design?

http://www.legendaryarmsworks.com/product/the-closer/

From another thread...

Originally Posted by Reed

Glad you think the High Tech Specialties stocks are well regarded. Mark used that stock after purchasing the company 20 years ago on all his rifles and we have basically kept it the same with a few minor modifications to make production easier and faster. They are still hand laid fiberglass with all the finish, fit and feel of the originals.

This is the part that has me concerned. I've had several of the original stocks from Mark over the years.

When you say they're still "hand laid glass" does that mean they're still made with sheets of glass cloth like they've always been? Or are you using chopped glass?

I think in general Marks previous stocks finished up at around 26 oz's with paint and bedding w/ 1" Decelerator. What's the current average weight now that you've added aluminum?

Brad, it sounds pretty clear to me that he is saying that they are made the same way but just on a larger scale. The original High Tech stocks that Mark put on his customs were excellent. From their literature it sounds like they have designed some sort of modified aluminum bedding block system for the recoil lug area and a separate type pillar for the rear tang.

I hope that's the case... I've always liked the Banser and would hate to see it jacked with. "Aluminum bedding blocks" are something that is a warning flag to me (think chopped glass).

I'm curious as to why the are doing a 10 twist on a 280 Ackley ! But the 7 rem mag is 9 as the 280 should be ?

Curious as to why they are a "warning flag" to you. I've always thought of bedding blocks as a way to get a better and perhaps stiffer platform than having a synthetic stock without a bedding system, meaning not glassed/Marine-Texed w/o pillars as well. In the literal sense, "bedding blocks" are not really a bedding system when you are trying to mate a receiver to a particular stock. A bedding system using pillars and some form of epoxy perfectly mates (or cratels) the receiver to the stock so that their are no voids between the two or IOW no air space at all. With factory actions there are certain variances between the size of the receiver at the front and at the rear. A stock company has to account for those tiny variances by going slightly larger so that all their stocks will mate to a factory receiver. Obviously, that can't happen with a aluminum chassis so to get that perfect mate, you'll still have to use some sort of epoxy to fill in the gaps. To me, aluminum bedding blocks are better than no bedding, but I still prefer the old standard of using pillars and Marine-Tex.

The only stocks I'm aware of that use aluminum blocks are all chopped glass... they need them for strength. That's why it's a warning flag.

I don't get adding a heavy chunk of metal in the lug area and a pillar in the rear... why not just pillars in both?

Seems self defeating.

One of the raison d'etre of a fiberglass stock is light weight. Start adding "blocks" and the ounces start accumulating.

On the other thread Reed answered the question about glass, but didn't answer the portion about current weight.

I have a McMillan Hunters Edge on order and had been contemplating cancelling it to order another Bansner... it's looking less likely I'll be doing that. The original Bansner was already around 2oz's heavier, and it sounds like even more now.

That makes them out for me.

I don't know, aluminum ain't heavy. A cubic inch of typical alloy only weighs about 1.5 ounces and it ain't like epoxy resin is light.

I bet the difference is small. Unless the block is quite large!

Perhaps.

But, it would be nice if the gent would respond to my weight query to remove all doubt... I find it hard to believe an electronic scale is not on the premises.

If you take what I said before about action variances then I think you might understand why bolting a receiver to one solid aluminum chassis can cause the action to flex or twist so to speak when you tighten the two together. I think using a separate system (block type up front and a pillar of sorts) at the rear makes more sense. I might be entirely wrong about this so it's best to leave this with the experts, like Mark Bansner.

As fa as I low from having had several original Bansner stocks,solid fiberglass pillars were molded into the stock,as opposed to adding them afterwards,as we do with some other designs. But each stock had to be bedded to the rifle.

Seems that has been replaced by the aluminum bedding blocks, probably to facilitate easier manufacturing on a mass basis as opposed to the older design which required individual bedding of each stock,which would be more expensive and time consuming....one of those little things we do for ourselves or paid Bansners to do for us...a "custom" touch. Not something we usually get in a production rifle.