Locally made rifle wins top honor

Brian Sipe nods with satisfaction that Field and Stream magazine recently recognized his American Standard Rifle as the "Best of the Best" new rifle on the market in its first year of production, but it's an accomplishment that took a long time to develop.

"I've been working on this project for 12 years," said Sipe, owner of the burgeoning Montana Firearms Group and the Montana Rifleman, sister companies located off Montana 35 east of Kalispell that manufacture more than 100,000 gun barrels a year and more than 10,000 actions over the past 10 years.

The September issue of Field and Stream regards the American Standard Rifle - one of several production rifles that the company has been manufacturing for the last year - as a weapon that is not only "very, very accurate" but "also has excellent fit and finish."

The magazine went on to say that the gun is a "no-frills hunting rifle that looks as if it came out of a custom shop. And all for less than a grand!"

Sipe's son Jeff, director of sales and marketing for the Montana Firearms Group, describes the rifle's action as being a hybrid between a Winchester Model 70 and a Mauser 98. The rifle that won was a .308 caliber, but the company makes the American Standard Rifle compatible for about 24 different cartridges.

The award is prestigious for the industry, considering that other contenders included Remington, Ruger and Winchester, which manufactured the second-best rifle recognized by the magazine, the Model 70 Safari Express.

Jeff Sipe anticipates the Field and Stream honor will trigger some brisk business.

"We're taking a lot of orders, a lot calls," said the younger Sipe, adding that he's fielding about 70 calls and the same amount of emails per day.

He estimates that Montana Firearms Group, which is the operation that assembles the production rifles, currently has a capacity to produce up to 2,000 of them per year. He figures that the current combined workforce of 80 to 100 people will soon probably expand to 135 jobs to meet new consumer demand.

"It's starting to pick up pretty big. It turned out to be so much bigger than we thought it would be," Brian Sipe said. "You start out thinking you're going to make a few guns, and then it takes off."

Although the company has just started to develop a retail dealer network, it already has about 150 dealer stores, but none in the Flathead Valley so far.

"It's been 21 years I think I've been doing this," the elder Sipe said of his immersion into gunsmithing after years of construction work and driving trucks in Alaska.

He started out making custom guns in an old dairy barn off Whitefish Stage Road. He had guidance from well-known local gunsmith Les Bauska, but adds that he pretty much had to develop his own ideas, methods and machinery.

But in 1999, he dived into the world of action manufacturing, because most custom gunmakers were at the mercy of having to use actions that were stripped from other guns. By 2002, he had a design and production capabilities that enabled the Montana Rifleman to start shipping actions, mostly to other custom gunsmiths.

When the economic downturn struck about three years ago, Sipe concluded that he could no longer get by in the custom gun world and started turning his sights to barrel manufacturing for broader purposes, along with considering the prospects for a production rifle line.

Since then, the manufacturing line has been bustling in a simple building without a sign on Montana 35. It is made up of an eclectic mixture of extremely high-tech, expensive gunsmithing equipment along with World War II-era machinery that the Sipes swear by and some homemade manufacturing equipment that figures prominently in their production process.

Combined, it produces all the various precision pieces required to assemble actions and a huge variety of rifle and pistol barrels. For the production rifle line, the companies rely on two other manufacturing companies to produce synthetic and wood stocks designed by Montana Firearms Group.

The barrel-making part of the business is dominated by orders from other companies, such as DPMS Panther Arms, the world's largest manufacturer of the AR-15 rifle.

Sipe estimates that about 70 percent of the company's barrel production goes to DPMS Panther Arms.

"This spring they were ordering 10,000 at a time," he said.

And he anticipates the volume of overall production to go nowhere but up because of surprising calls he gets from other gun companies on a regular basis.

Both of the Sipes foresee the company easily reaching a capacity of 250,000 to 300,000 barrels a year in the near future, which would require a workforce of 150 to 200 people.

Brian Sipe is proud of the economic activity his businesses have stirred up already.

"The good thing is we bring in money from outside the state and we don't have to draw on the people of Montana," he said.

Jeff Sipe is optimistic about the company's future in production rifles.

He says the new Dangerous Game Rifle is a large-caliber weapon that has promise.

"This is the newest thing that we think will take the market by storm, because there's no other rifle like it in the world," he said.

But for now he's savoring the Field and Stream recognition of the American Standard Rifle, saying it is a reflection of the company's workforce quality.

"This is a very big honor for us," he said. "While we live the small-town lifestyle here, Montanans can still produce a world-class product.

"We have some amazing employees with hard work ethics. It's that hard work that has always made Montana great, and we are extremely proud that our company name can reflect those same ethics."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.