SADJ 7#3

This machine is using electricity going through a wire
and cutting the receiver to the correct specification
shape. It is computer controlled and automatically
cuts as many as 6 receivers in a single setting. The
liquid inside the container is sterilized water.
our tender for this trial along with 17 other
companies, most of them American and
European with Remington, Winchester,
Walther, Browning, Mauser, Beretta, BSA
and Parker Hale among them.
SADJ: Some of these companies had been
in existence for a hundred years already.
Dave: Of course, and they make hundreds
of guns a week, whereas between us if we
were lucky we’d probably get only one rifle
every 4 or 5 weeks. We were a very small
business in comparison. We submitted our
trial rifle and surprisingly enough the army
actually quite liked it. From 17 rifle entries
it went down to about 8, and we were still
in it. Then it went from 8 to 5 and we were
still there again. Then we began to have
some worries that we might win this. The
worry was what would we do if we were to
win. The next elimination process took it
down to 3 and we were still a contender.
BSA was eliminated from the group, leaving
Parker Hale and ourselves to take part
in a shootout to win the contract which
we won with the provision that it would
be manufactured by a company with the
approved quality standards.
SADJ: They must have found out that all
you had was a garden shed operation?
promoted the rifle in his name as he had
world recognition for being a world champion.
Malcolm then asked if we wanted
Fame or Fortune: “If you want fame, we
do it in your name. If you want fortune, we
do it in mine.” I didn’t have any money at
that time and neither did Dave Caig so we
settled for fortune. Malcolm promoted the
weapon in his name and that’s the way it
began. We then started assembling the rifles
ourselves in a company in Portsmouth,
which was the start of Accuracy International
Ltd. The company expanded and we
started purchasing machines. I managed
the production, programming and running
the machines along with my son who had
recently done a CNC programming course
at college. More machines were purchased
along with the increase of employees to six
people working on the machine shop floor.
After we had completed the MOD contract,
we tendered for the Swedish contract and
won the trial, which would become the
Arctic Warfare System (AW Rifle). This
was soon followed by Holland, Belgium,
Denmark and Germany and was followed
by several other nations that could not
afford extensive trials and were happy to
follow on the judgment of other countries.
In 1999, Accuracy International was sold
to a group of investors and Malcolm Cooper
retained 10%. Accuracy International
now had new people running the business
and maintained the normal running of the
company until 2001/2002 when they decided
to outsource everything made in the
machine shop and shut down the manufacturing
side of the company. They only
kept two machines and these were to make
stock sides and sold all the other machinery.
Tom Irwin was appointed as sales and
marketing manager. In 2005 the company
went into receiverships and within
the first minute it was announced, I stood
up and said, “I want to buy it back.” Tom
immediately walked over to me and said
I’d like to join you, so we got together and
did it. Since we took the company back it’s
gone in leaps and bounds. My focus has
always been on making the guns shoot
well and my target background married
up with the military side extremely well. I
Dave: Yes, they realized that and told us
that it would have to be made by a reputable
company and overseen by us. So
we were sent to a company in Dartford,
which was chosen by the Ministry of Defense
(MOD) to manufacture the rifles.
We would oversee the production for the
first batch of rifles helping their production
manager with our knowledge. Before
Accuracy International Ltd. was formed
Malcolm suggested to us that we would
stand a better chance of success if we
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