New rifle company takes over Bushmaster plant

Former Bushmaster owner Richard Dyke launches Windham Weaponry and rehires former employees

Portland Press Herald

8/1/11

WINDHAM - While traveling on the Orient Express train through Europe in early April, Richard Dyke fired off an email to his former staffers back in Maine.

Richard Dyke, founder of Bushmaster Firearms, has just opened Windham Weaponry, which will occupy the same building Bushmaster once did and will assemble the same type of high-powered, semi- and fully automatic rifles made by Bushmaster.

Roger Cote, a quality control inspector at Windham Weaponry, explains the workings of some of the rifle’s systems. Photos by John Ewing/Staff Photographer

"Would you be crazy enough to go back into business with the old man?" asked Dyke, who owned Bushmaster Firearms International until selling it in 2006.

By the time the train pulled into Venice, Italy, many employees had responded, emphatically, yes.

Bushmaster closed its Windham plant last spring, but Dyke, 77, has brought gunmaking back to town. The native Mainer just launched Windham Weaponry, a company that will assemble the same type of high-powered, semi- and fully automatic rifles made by Bushmaster.

But Dyke isn't starting from scratch. His new company operates from the same building once occupied by Bushmaster, and employs former Bushmaster staff.

"We have a lot of experience. We have already learned what we shouldn't do," said Windham Weaponry production manager Doug Price, a laid-off Bushmaster worker who was jobless when he received Dyke's April email. "I was excited when I replied."

Dyke is an old hand at starting new businesses. Over the years he has bought into some 60 companies, including a lumberyard and perfume, aftershave and communications companies.

The Wilton native grew up in a home without an indoor bathroom. His parents, wool and shoe manufacturing workers, bathed the kids in a tin tub behind the sink.

"We always had to live in rented houses, and every few years my parents moved," said Dyke. "Times were tough."

He attended Wilton Academy and studied for one year at what was then Husson College before joining the Army and serving in the 108th Counter Intelligence Corps in South Korea and Iceland.

Dyke finished college with degrees in finance and tax and took a job at the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1976, he paid $241,000 to buy Bushmaster, a maker of M-16 and the related AR-15 rifles used by law enforcement agencies, private security firms, sportsmen and militaries.

Under Dyke, Bushmaster grew into an $85 million company that produced up to 9,000 guns monthly.

Jeff Weinstein, president of the Maine Gun Owners Association Inc., said Dyke's Bushmaster had a reputation for excellent management and top-shelf products.

"They could not make enough of (the guns)," Weinstein said.

Dyke sold Bushmaster in April 2006 for $70 million to New York City-based private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus affiliates own Freedom Group of Madison, N.C., Bushmaster's parent company, said a spokesman.

Age 72 at the time, Dyke was ready to step down. And the price was right.

"They had a bag of money, which I was looking for my entire life," he said.

Dyke leased the 52,000-square-foot Windham plant back to Bushmaster for five years, and signed a five-year noncompete agreement.

In December, Bushmaster announced it would shutter the Windham plant by March 31 and move production outside Maine.

Seventy-three workers were laid off.

Dyke said he couldn't let his former people go without work, and he decided to found Windham Weaponry with help from his son, Jeff Dyke, and outside investors.

"You can't let good people get hurt by a corporate decision. That was one of the driving factors," Dyke said.

Weinstein, at the Maine Gun Owners Association, called Dyke a "straight shooter" and a "man of high integrity."

"Here's a businessman who doesn't need to do this. He doesn't need the money. I think that is a very substantial endorsement of this person's character," said Weinstein, who also teaches firearm safety courses as director of Maine-based FirearmSafety.net.

Dyke has already hired about 50 workers and plans to add more in the coming months. Starting pay is $20 per hour, plus benefits, and employees can share in profits.

In the next few weeks, Windham Weaponry will begin assembling AR-15- and M-16-style rifles with parts made by manufacturers in Maine and throughout New England. Dyke said retail prices will be about $1,000.

Customers include gun distributors and "big box" sports stores such as Cabela's Inc., Academy Sports + Outdoors and Bass Pro Shops. Military sales may come later.

Dyke said most major vendors have showed interest in his products. Demand greatly exceeds the company's initial production rate of 1,500 rifles monthly, he said.

He has used creative tactics to land clients. When one vendor hesitated to place an order, Dyke dispatched his private Bell JetRanger helicopter with Windham Weaponry employees aboard to the vendor's office.

"Fly down in a helicopter, land in their lot and you'll get their attention," Dyke said. "It's about perception."

But gunmakers face unique and unavoidable challenges, Dyke said.

In 2003, Bushmaster was sued by the families of the victims of the Washington, D.C., snipers, who shot 13 people with a stolen Bushmaster rifle. The company denied responsibility but settled with the families.

"Every time somebody is shot, you hold your breath," Dyke said.

Also, Windham residents had complained to town officials in recent years about gunshot noise from a local quarry where Bushmaster tested weapons.

Dyke said he won't test at the quarry. His staff will shoot at an indoor range, or possibly a Casco gravel pit.

"I don't think local residents should have to put up with it. So they won," Dyke said.

Staff Writer Jonathan Hemmerdinger can be contacted at 791-6316 or at:

jhemmerdinger@mainetoday.com