Barbie pink and Tiffany blue coloring. Leopard print designs.
Those aren’t the first things that come to mind when one thinks about guns.
But such designs are one of the reasons Shelton-based Charter Arms is an exception to the “death of American manufacturing” trope week in, week out on an acre-sized plot off Shelton’s Brewster Lane.
The company began its “Gun of Color” line about five years at the suggestion of women in its work force of nearly 50 employees, Terry Rush, the company’s vice president, said last week while hosting a tour for Shelton state Reps. Jason Perillo and Ben McGorty.
“A lot of people said we were crazy,” Rush said.
Now those guns — the “Pink Lady,” “Lavender Lady,” “Shamrock,” “Goldfinger,” and “Old Glory,” to name a few — account for nearly half of the company’s output, he said.
“The ‘Pink Lady’ would be good for Ben,” Perillo joked to his fellow lawmaker.
“I was thinking of the ‘Shamrock’ myself,” McGorty shot back.
The legislators said after their tour — part of a “Small Business Highlights” series of stops they’ve been making at local companies — show that manufacturing can still succeed here, if companies take approaches like Charter Arms’.
“People say manufacturing is dead in Connecticut,” Perillo said. “It’s really not. It’s just not what it once was.”
Don’t think Charter Arms is based on design gimmicks such as the “Pink Lady,” though.
The specialty models offer a touch of flair and élan, but above all Charter Arms wants to put well-produced, reliable defense tool in their customers’ hands, Rush said.
Reviews of their products — they make only five- and six-shot revolvers — on industry websites indicate they’re doing a good job.
That’s no surprise after a walk-through of the company’s headquarters, where employees work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily assembling firearms from American-made materials, most of which are sourced from nearby firms in Connecticut and New York.
The company dates back to 1964, and previously produced guns in Bridgeport, Stratford, and Ansonia.
The company’s current iteration first opened on Canal Street in 1998. They moved to the current Brewster Lane building in late 2012.
When they first got up and running, Vice President Terry Rush said, if they produced 25 guns in a week, “that was wonderful.”
“Now, our target is usually 1,000,” he said.
Part of the company’s appeal, Rush said, is their ability to offer a more affordable product than competitors like Ruger and Smith & Wesson.
Another is their customer-is-always-right approach to customer service, which dictates the replacement of any product made in the factory, no questions asked.
“Our attention is basically to quality,” Rush said.
Beyond that, the company takes care of its employees — most are able to work several hours of overtime a week, and the company provides health insurance and even a 401(k) plan, even bonuses “when times are good,” Ecker said.
They were last year — he said the company doled out $400,000 in bonuses to its work force.
That results in collegiality and cooperation on the factory floor, as employees polish, assemble, test, and package shipments to dealers all over the country and in Canada.
Most of Charter’s employees are from up and down the Route 8 corridor.
Rush, a Tolland resident, jokes that he’s “the only one not from the Valley.”
As the company has grown, Rush said, they’ve also received offers to move elsewhere.
But they’re not interested.
“We’re very loyal to the area,” he said. “We don’t want to get any bigger. We want to get better … There’s no advantage for us to go any place else.”
An example of the “getting better” mantra in action — Charter Arms owner Nick Ecker recently invested in two robotic polishing machines from a company based in Italy in order to make production more efficient.
But Ecker didn’t use the machines — named “Mario” and “Luigi,” of course — as an excuse to lay off any employees. Some were just reassigned to do other work.
Check out “Luigi” polishing a gun frame during last week’s tour by clicking the play button on the video below.
Ecker said a third machine is currently on order — named “Yoshii,” to continue the Nintendo theme.
