Umarex Aims to Expand Ops

It’s been almost 70 years since combat training was initiated at what then was known as Camp Chaffee in Fort Smith. In less than a month, one of the world’s largest airgun manufacturers will open a new, cutting-edge facility on part of that same ground.

“There won’t be one person here who takes it for granted,” Umarex USA president and CEO Adam Blalock said from the company’s increasingly cramped headquarters, about a 10-minute drive from the new digs. “We go out there and look at everything now, and literally are in awe.”

Anyone studying the meteoric rise of Umarex USA might walk away with a similar sensation. Though Blalock declined to release specific revenue figures, he indicated growth north of 600 percent since 2006.

That’s when Umarex USA was born out of Germany-based Umarex Corporate Group’s acquisition of Ruag Ammotec USA. That company was located in Closter, N.J., but moved to Fort Smith and set up as Umarex USA a short time later.

Four years later, it’s a feel-good story that would be the envy of many retail suppliers.

“This isn’t your typical air gun,” Blalock said. “These are high-powered air rifles that are well-made. A lot of the air rifles we sell – not only in design and precision, but in performance – they perform like a firearm.

“We’re bringing excitement to the category.”

 

Building Blocks

Blalock has worked in the outdoor sporting goods manufacturing industry for more than 20 years, including stints at Daisy in Rogers and PRADCO in Fort Smith. It was during his time with Daisy that Blalock met Wulf-Heinz Pflaumer, the president and CEO of Umarex.

At the time, Umarex sold its products through Crosman Corp.

“That’s not nearly as efficient as having your own company, so he would call from time to time,” Blalock said.

The talks between Blalock and Pflaumer eventually intensified, and the result was the purchase of Ruag Ammotec USA. The conversation then turned to where the new operation would be located.

“I said, ‘Well, we could locate anywhere, but I’m going to be in Fort Smith,'” Blalock said. “‘That’s where my family is, it’s where I want to be. On top of that, we’ve got great people here, it’s a great manufacturing environment, it’s centrally located and it fits our distribution well.’

“For all those reasons, we chose Fort Smith.”

Umarex USA’s current location is a space of about 30,000 SF just off Zero St. The work done there includes assembly, light manufacturing, and packaging. There also are two gunsmiths among the 40 employees, and their primary job is servicing Umarex products.

At its new 116,800-SF building, Umarex will expand in every facet, perhaps most notably in space dedicated to distribution and manufacturing. The company also could add as many as 60 new employees, though no timetable for hirings has been set.

The new facility, set on 27 acres and including a small man-made lake, comes with a price tag of about $8.5 million. It also will contain a 70-yard wall-to-wall gun range.

The land was given to Umarex by the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority following reviews by real estate and design committees.

 

‘BBs and Pellets’

If the amount of land, construction costs and revenues seem out of whack for a maker of airguns – or “basically BBs and pellets,” as Blalock said – consider the approach one of Umarex’s customers has taken.

“One of our online retailers actually uses the slogan, ‘This isn’t your father’s BB gun,'” marketing coordinator Justin Biddle said.

Indeed, many of the products Umarex USA sells practically are mirror images of everything from Rambo-style military weapons to James Bond’s pistol of choice. Such products are possible because Umarex USA has licensing agreements – generally exclusive in nature – with companies like Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Heckler & Koch, Colt and others.

“We have the brands that people recognize and look for,” Biddle said.

Some of those brands come with price tags that might shock the uninitiated. Consider, for example, the price of Umarex airguns ranges from a $45 CO2 pistol to an $800 pellet rifle.

Blalock said such air guns appeal to a variety of customers. There are recreational shooter, or plinkers, those who use the weapons for hunting or varmint control, and those who might choose to use a Umarex product as a practice duplicate for their sidearm.

For the latter group, the cost of BBs and/or pellets also is attractive. Biddle said those customers prefer paying “a fraction of a penny per-round for a pellet pistol or pellet rifle” rather than buying ammo for a comparable sidearm.

 

And More

Umarex also deals in Airsoft and paintball guns, blank-firing guns and some firearms. The Airsoft and paintball guns typically are used for two purposes: recreational or military and law-enforcement training.

Airsoft guns range in retail price from a $17 spring pistol to a $500 high-end rifle. A .43 caliber paintball gun, meanwhile, can range from a $185 pistol to a $595 rifle.

“Our focus is on law enforcement and military,” Blalock said. “The difference between our paintball and what people typically think of when they think of as paintball is that typical paintball guns have a big hopper on the top, kind of weird looking.

“This looks like a real rifle. It doesn’t have a big hopper holding paint. It has a magazine that holds a realistic number of rounds.”

And while Umarex’s blank-firing products – often used for movie-making, dog-training, etc. – are a very small percentage of its market, its lines of .22 tactical rimfire weapons are blossoming, if not booming.

Tactical rimfire rifles like the Colt M4 Ops or HK MP5 .22 LR range from $550 to $675. And while that might seem like a lot of money, the cost of the ammunition again comes into play.

“Yes, it looks military and tactical, but it’s still the same as shooting a .22,” Blalock said of Umarex USA’s semiautomatic weapons, “and in some cases it’s five cents a round vs. 50 cents a round.”

 

Room to Grow

Tom Manskey, president and CEO of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce in 2008, when Umarex USA announced plans for its new facility, commended the company for its expanding employment and payroll. Umarex had 22 employees at the time, barely more than half of its current total.

That number figures to grow higher as Umarex continues to develop new products. Examples of products developed since 2006 include a line of Ruger air rifles, a Browning pellet pistol and a Walther hunting rifle.

“Whatever our retail customers demand,” Blalock said, “that’s what we’re going to do.”

Those customers can find Umarex products at retail outlets such as Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Kmart. Umarex also sells to sporting goods distributors that service smaller stores like Tackle Box in Fort Smith and Ozark Sportsman Supply in Tontitown.

Blalock said Umarex has more than 80 sales representatives spread across the United States. And while they often represent some other outdoor sporting goods company, too, they do not represent other air gun suppliers.

Umarex USA’s future, in other words, looks promising. Even so, Blalock said he and his staff will stick to the principles that have worked to this point once they move into the new facility.

“We want to have the same good parts of our culture we have here,” he said. “We’re not strutting. We’re very humble.”