Shepherd Firearms making name for self in rifle industry
Posted
Dale Hubler-dhubler@timesuniononline.com
Don’t be fooled by the fact Shepherd Firearms has only been around since 2013 and has but two employees. The truth is, the Warsaw-based gun manufacturer is certainly on the industry map. In just its third year or existence, Shepherd Firearms is certainly a company making a name for itself. An endorsement from professional shooter Amanda Furrer doesn’t hurt either. Furrer, 24, Spokane, Wash., competes in the 50-meter three position event. She won the bronze medal at the Pan-American Games in 2007, won gold at the ISSF World Shooting Championships in 2010, and finished 15th in the 2012 Olympics in London. According to Furrer’s wikipedia page, she has also qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games. And yes, she now uses a rifle from Shepherd Firearms, whose only two employees, Terry Shepherd and Abe Hepler, are Warsaw Community High School graduates. “She and I actually became friends through Twitter a couple years ago,” Hepler said of how the connection with Furrer was made. “I followed her through the Olympics basically. I bumped into her at a trade show ... we started talking and I explained who I was and what we did. “She said she’s been looking to move into more of the three-gun world and would love to talk to us about our rifles. We ended up outfitting her with a gun that was built specifically for her, and we just sort of built a friendship with her the last couple years.” Shepherd Firearms also teaches classes about gun safety, concealed carry, as well as a number of other things. The Warsaw-based company works closely with Sierra Training Group, a Columbus, Ohio-based company that offers rifle training classes, among other things. WCHS grad Shawn Lingofelter is a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, and runs Sierra Training Group. Last week, Furrer was in Ohio at a training course with Lingofelter, who used a Shepherd Firearms rifle to win four golds and one silver medal at the Ohio Police and Fire Games. “She flew into Columbus, Ohio, last week, I met her there, and the two of us went through a rifle class together,” said Hepler. And what does it mean to the tiny Warsaw company to have such a huge endorsement? “One of the things that we have talked about a lot as a company is everyone of us that has worked as a part of Shepherd Firearms has orthopedic background,” said Hepler. “In a town like Warsaw, a thousandth of an inch makes a part no good. You miss a part by a thousandth of an inch, you better throw it away. But the gun industry, the standards are so sloppy, the tolerances are so large that from gun to gun you’ll find stuff that wiggles, stuff that moves, that doesn’t fit. If someone from our area looks at a part like that, they’re going to say it’s junk. “And so one of the things that we wanted to do from the very beginning was bring that orthopedic standard to an industry that has pretty sloppy manufacturing standards. As we’ve gotten into this thing, one of the things that’s been fun to do is to keep going back to the parts, and see what can be better. And we’ve made them better. I can honestly tell you we make some of the best parts on the market. And again, some of that is only possible because we live in a community where guys look at high-end components and throw it away if it’s a thousandth of an inch off.” Shepherd Firearms has the machining done for its parts at Lyntech Engineering in Athens, the tiny town between Akron and Rochester. Shepherd’s son, Neal Shepherd, is an engineer at Lyntech. It was in early 2013 that Neal Shepherd designed a carbon-fiber magazine for an AR-15. According to www.sheperdfirearms.com, from this initial idea the CA-30 carbon fiber magazine was born. Shortly thereafter, according to the website, the men realized there was a place for the industry to see upgrades in both the materials being used, as well as the quality of the components themselves. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. And now a small company in a small town is making a big impact in a big industry. For more information, visit the following websites www.shepherdfirearms.com www.sfatactical.com www.amandajaynefurrer.com sierratraininggroup.com Or visit the Facebook page www.facebook.com/shepherdfirearms
