Eye on the target
The technology is said to date back to the Napoleonic Wars and the Lewis and Clark expedition. At Crosman Corp. in East Bloomfield, it's used to make air rifles that Olympic athletes fire at targets, and airguns that celebrity hunters use to take down wild boars and deer.
But more than anything, the company is about the Crosman 760 Pumpmaster, an entry-level BB gun that still sells for $30 to $35. That's roughly the same price it cost when it was introduced nearly five decades ago, eventually becoming a rite of passage for so many youths.
"They're one of the top manufacturers, if not in the country, throughout the world," said Fred Calcagno, owner of American Sportsman gun shop in East Rochester. "Crosman has been the industry leader for years."
In some ways the Ontario County company is doing business the way it always has, by building relationships with people who enjoy the shooting sports. But even among guns, trends come and go. So Crosman has tweaked how and what it does. It has changed manufacturing technology and materials to keep its top seller affordable, and explored niches in the market to meet the demands of enthusiasts.
Also in those 48 years since the Pumpmaster came on the market, Crosman got into and then out of the paintball gun business. Its current catalog includes high-end scoped rifles for hunting, a seemingly endless selection of target guns, guns designed for games in which players shoot plastic pellets at other people, and several versions of its old favorite BB gun.
More than 17 million 760 Pumpmasters have been sold, and the company makes proud note of the fact that these and the majority of its guns are built in the United States.
Crosman Corp.'s history dates to the end of World War I, when an employee at Crosman Seed Co. — now in East Rochester — brought back an air-powered rifle he had used abroad and improved upon the design. The seed company bought the patents and in 1923, a separate Crosman company started making airguns in Rochester.
"The technology has been around since the Napoleonic War(s,)" said Chip Hunnicutt, marketing manager. Today's air guns propel a pellet or BB by coiling a spring, compressing air pneumatically, or by using a canister of compressed air.
A tour of the plant on the west side of East Bloomfield, where Crosman moved in 1971, shows operations divided into ammunition and gun assembly. Many of the parts for the guns come from local companies that make custom-designed plastic parts, such as PMI Industries in Gates, or Nordon Inc., near downtown Rochester.
Company representatives won't reveal how many guns the factory turns out, but they did share that the plant makes 20 different lines of pellets, and manufactures 6 million pellets a day, seven days a week. It also makes 140,000 canisters of carbon dioxide each day.
During recent weeks, when most parents were making back-to-school purchases, the workers at Crosman were focusing on what parents might buy their kids for Christmas: Crosman's 760 Pumpmaster.
Crosman assembly line workers were assembling, testing, packaging and stocking Walmart store displays with the BB gun that many youngsters cut their shooting teeth on. Each cardboard store display was being filled with 40 guns with black stocks and 16 guns with pink stocks — all ready to be sold at a special price on Black Friday.
"Pink is the new black," said Jennifer Lambert, vice president of marketing, commenting on Crosman's efforts to please female participants on the shooting sports.
But it isn't just color that makes a gun new — though pink and various forms of camouflage prints offer some variety in gunstocks from basic brown and black. Crosman also keeps tinkering with mechanics of the guns to make them perform better.
Such is the case with their break-barrel, or precharged pneumatic guns. Lewis and Clark reportedly carried this style of gun on the Voyage of Discovery, and Crosman scored big by updating it.
"It's taking old concepts and taking a second look at it," Hunnicutt said. That's how Crosman won the "most innovative" category from the Blue Book of Gun Values'Firearms Industry Awards earlier this year. Improvements to the patented Nitro Piston technology in its Benjamin hunting rifles made them more accurate and easier to pump, and also increased the velocity of the pellet.
Accuracy is an important issue for hunting, as anyone who is trying to catch dinner humanely knows, but it can be even more important for competitive target shooting. That's one reason every gun the company makes is tested by shooting it in the factory. If the gun barrel fails to meet specs in two trials, it's discarded. For some of its competition rifles, several shots must hit within an eighth of an inch when fired from 30 feet.
"When a guy buys one of our guns and we say it's going to cover a dime with five shots, it better cover a dime with five shots," said Dave Dandino, the company's health and safety coordinator.
Hunnicutt said some competitive shooters will take every pellet out of a container of ammunition and weigh them individually to make sure there's no variance. They'll also roll them around to make sure they're perfectly symmetrical. If anything doesn't measure up, the company hears about it.
Crosman is also using 3-D imaging technology to make models of new guns it is designing and considering for future production. Designers keep tabs on the gun industry to follow trends. Military-style guns are hot now, as are a variety of and pistols and rifle gunstocks that can be customized according to consumer preference. And don't get the employees at Crosman talking about which style of camouflage are their favorites. You're likely to get into an arcane debate on Realtree versus Mossy Oak.
New models start out with pencil drawings. Once the drawings are given the go-ahead, the designer makes a mock-up in hand-carved wood or bonded wood.
Because guns are so ergonomic, "doing it in the physical world is a lot easier" than computer-assisted design for the initial steps, said Scott Shinkle, industrial design supervisor at Crosman. Once the physical model is approved, it's scanned into a computer and a 3-D model is made.
"It can take 60 hours to build an entire gun stock," Shinkle said.
Though the company is proud of how many of its products and parts going into products are made in the United States, some production has been going on in Asia. Recently, though, Crosman won Foreign Trade Zone status to help bring some of that work back to Ontario County. The move could result in some additional hiring, swelling the company's current ranks of 300 by about 25.
And it will help keep an American tradition going strong on the shooting range.
Crosman Corp. makes guns, but not firearms.
Say what?
Airguns, which are Crosman's specialty, propel pellets with various methods of compressed air. Firearms, on the other hand, explode gunpowder to move a bullet.
As a result, firearms go "boom" and airguns don't.
"The impact of the projectile is louder than the report of the gun," said Chip Hunnicutt, marketing manager.
"It's more like a 'thwack,'" added Jennifer Lambert, vice president of marketing.
Another key difference is how they're regulated.
"Firearms are considered highly regulated. Airguns are not," Calcagno said. "... An airgun is considered non-lethal, basically."
Calcagno even refers to airguns as "non-guns," but warns, "Even a pellet gun and a BB gun shot in the right spot can kill someone."
Airguns are often an entry-level gun for youngsters, but they are not toys.
"Just like with firearms," said Hunnicutt, "you don't point it at anything you don't intend on destroying."
Some airguns are powerful enough to kill a deer and are made specifically for hunting.
Crosman also makes low-powered airsoft guns so people can shoot soft pellets at each other in a game, but Hunnicutt said they should be handled with care, too. The airsoft line is made abroad and they're distinguished by a bright orange tip on the barrel.
"Crosman's products are enjoyed by youth and adult shooters around the world, and a key part of the company's success in the outdoor industry over the past 90 years has been partnering with organizations that promote the safe and responsible use of our products," Hunnicutt said. The company supports a number of gun safety efforts, such as safety training for consumers.
Oddly, though firearms are more regulated than airguns, hunting regulatory agencies sometimes eschew air guns. New York is one of just a handful of states that prohibits hunting with air rifles or pistols.
Shooting "varmints" with air guns though, is allowed here. One of the more popular uses for air guns is shooting pest animals — rats, squirrels, racoons. Airguns are also favored for target shooting, from "plinking," the gun trade's word for shooting at cans and bottles, to Olympic competition.
Calcagno said many owners of firearms use airguns to practice shooting — you can shoot them indoors without worrying about combustion side effects. And they're often used in gun safety classes instead of traditional firearms.
Some hunters and target shooters prefer air guns because they're quiet. One benefit: You can shoot an airgun without scaring off all the wildlife in the immediate area. Another benefit: You keep your hearing.
"If you hunt with a high-power gun, if you don't use hearing protection, you won't have hearing for very long," Calcagno said.
What: A 91-year-old manufacturer of airguns based in East Bloomfield.
Key players: Phil Dolci, CEO; Robert Beckwith, vice president of finance; Jennifer Lambert, VP Marketing; Lenn Phegley, VP Manufacturing; Steve Upham, VP Sales.
Employees: 300, but can escalate to 400 in the summer.
How Crosman measures success: In the accuracy and popularity of its airguns.
Crosman in a word (or two): Targeted market.
Crosman Corp. is the 12th business to be featured in our Passport to Innovation series. It's noteworthy because:
• Despite its longevity and longstanding popularity of a key product, it continues to develop new products to dominate the airgun market.
• While some manufacturing processes are tried and true, emerging technology such as 3-D printing is being used to make new models of guns.