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
