![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Umarex-USA-building.jpg\")
<\/a>Umarex USA\/Walther Arms U.S. Headquarters<\/p><\/div>\n
If you are unfamiliar with the Umarex name, my bet is you are familiar with some of the airguns in their extensive lineup — airguns such as the faithful CO2<\/sub> BB firing copies of historic firearms in their Legends line, or the awesome replica of the famous Colt \u201cPeacemaker\u201d in both BB and pellet firing models.\u00a0 The lineup goes on to include break barrels, CO2<\/sub> and PCP offerings with names like Hammerli, Ruger, Beretta, HK, UZI and, of course, Walther as well as a few other major names in the industry.\u00a0 Umarex has licensing agreements in place with each of them in order to use the name branding of those companies and\/or produce practically exact duplicates of their famous firearms.\u00a0 Of course, Umarex also produces airguns under their own name that cover all levels of airgunning from entry level to high-end in price ranges that fit just about any pocketbook.<\/p>\n I had the great pleasure of visiting with Umarex USA\u2019s Director of Marketing, \u201cJB\u201d Biddle at their plant when I was in Fort Smith recently.\u00a0 JB graciously spent the entire afternoon providing me with an in-depth tour of their expansive facility.\u00a0 Currently the plant is a distribution center, Consumer Services call center and repair depot that opened in Fort Smith in 2010.\u00a0 The original 117,000 square foot plant was expanded in 2013 to accommodate the opening of the U.S. headquarters of their sister company; German firearm manufacturer Carl Walther Waffenfabrik, in this location.\u00a0 The expansion was necessary to comply with strict U.S. firearms regulations on storage and tracking of all components considered firearms by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.\u00a0 Some assembly of firearms is taking place at this facility in relation to the repair\/recall service.\u00a0 Plans are in the works to bring more manufacturing in-house from overseas and existing floor space already exists for this expansion.\u00a0 Offices on upper floors house Sales and Marketing for U.S. operations of Umarex and Walther as well as the Elite Force airsoft subsidiary.\u00a0 Currently, 90+ full-time employees keep this operation humming.\u00a0 Some part-time staffing helps during rush periods as well.\u00a0 Included in that figure for full-time employees are four gunsmiths, one being a master gunsmith.\u00a0 The repair center was quite impressive with rows and rows of drawers containing tens of thousands of inventoried parts.\u00a0 An interesting tidbit I learned was that they have provided service on guns made in the late 1800s that passed through the repair center.\u00a0 Their R&D\/Engineering department was equally impressive boasting a large 3D printer capable of producing a full size stock for evaluation as well as an optics center where scopes could be tested\/evaluated for quality control.\u00a0 Of course, all the other necessary measuring and testing equipment was present along with a small airgun test firing range.\u00a0 The Call Center folks were busy as I passed through and JB commented how each member of the team “lived and breathed” airguns.<\/p>\n Optics testing table in R&D lab<\/p><\/div>\n The culmination of the tour was a visit to their 2 lane, 50 yard indoor firing range.\u00a0 Multiple airguns and firearms were made available to me for test firing and the afternoon flew by too quickly.\u00a0 One of the guns fired was the new Gauntlet PCP, considered an \u201centry level\u201d PCP because at $299.00 w\/o optics, it provides a welcome addition in that it will be a great help in getting more folks into PCPs that might have held back due to the high costs of PCPs plus the needed accessories for filling them.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let the price point fool you, this new PCP is an accurate shooter with many bells and whistles on it that you could expect to pay a lot more for.\u00a0 I really enjoyed shooting the Gauntlet and then they handed me the MP40, a faithful BB firing copy of the WW2 German \u201cmachinenpistole\u201d submachine gun.\u00a0 Running off of two CO2 cartridges loaded along with 90 BBs into the stick magazine, the MP40 allows for full-auto firing.\u00a0 I had a ball quickly empting the magazine in short order.\u00a0 Other items fired during our session included the Octane Elite and the Forge air rifles along with the Strike Point single-shot pellet pistol.\u00a0 All worked flawlessly and, like a kid in a candy store, I wanted to take all of them home! \u00a0Look for more in-depth reviews in future blogs. \u00a0A couple of the Walther handguns in 9mm were also provided and while I was setting up for the next airgun I was to shoot, some police officers from a nearby town were trying out the pistols before my turn came.<\/p>\n Parts galore<\/p><\/div>\n I feel very privileged that being involved in the media opens doors like this so that I can be invited to visit operations like Umarex USA\/Walther, Inc. and describe them to readers.\u00a0 Hopefully I\u2019ve piqued your interest in Umarex products and you\u2019ll check them out on the Airguns of Arizona website: www.airgunsofarizona.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Umarex USA indoor range<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Upon crossing the bridge into Arkansas from Oklahoma on U.S. Highway 64, you\u2019ll find yourself in Fort Smith, an historic city with roots going back to a Wild West town on the edge of the Indian Territory.\u00a0 This is the home of Umarex USA, Inc. and Walther Arms, Inc.\u00a0 They are subsidiaries of the German…»<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4320"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4328,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions\/4328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.airgunsofarizona.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a>