Gun maker PTR Industries hiring again

An hour before break time Tuesday, Randall Rollins inspected the greased barrels of PTR Industries’ rifles.

It was his second day on the job, a change of pace for the 52-year-old Navy veteran who decided to scrap a construction career for one in welding.

“Who wouldn’t want to work on a gun?” the Little River man said. “I’d rather work on a gun than work on a car.”

Stories like Rollins’ are welcome at the Cool Springs gun maker. Seven months after laying off eight workers, PTR has rehired most of those employees, released a new firearm and begun adding staff again.

A sharp decline in orders for PTR rifles forced the company to trim its workforce last summer. PTR also fell behind on its bills, including the rent the company pays Horry County for using the manufacturing facility at the Cool Springs Business Park.

County officials sent PTR a notice on Jan. 30 informing the company that it was four months behind on rent. Including late charges, the bill totals nearly $52,000.

County spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier said Tuesday that PTR hasn’t submitted a payment since the last notice was mailed.

Despite those struggles, the company remains optimistic.

“We’re kind of digging our way out of a hole,” said PTR spokesman Bob Grabowski.

One reason for that positive outlook is the Generation 2 PTR-32 rifle, which the company introduced last month at the Shot Show in Las Vegas. One of the new firearm’s features, Grabowski said, is that is can accommodate a variety of AK-47 magazines. So far, he said, demand has been strong for the product.

“There has been an incredible reception to this gun,” Grabowski said.

Along with the early interest in the new firearm, Grabowski said PTR has picked up some contract work from two other gun manufacturers. That started in January and the additional work prompted the company to ramp up hiring.

Josh Fiorini, the company’s CEO, said PTR has rehired six of the workers who lost their jobs last year. The company recently hired five employees and is planning to add four more by the end of the month, bringing the PTR workforce to 52.

“I don’t take layoffs lightly and we don’t as a company,” the CEO said. “We felt very badly about having to do what we had to do over the summer and so it certainly feels good to offer those folks an opportunity to come back.”

The gun maker, which manufactures military-style rifles, left Connecticut in 2013 because of the Nutmeg State’s new gun policies. Connecticut leaders passed that legislation in response to the Sandy Hook school massacre in December 2012.

The shooting also prompted a national discussion about gun laws, and that led to skyrocketing demand for firearms.

When PTR moved to Horry County, the company promised to create 145 jobs over three years.

But when the dust of the panic buying settled, gun distributors were left with warehouses full of guns they needed to move. That meant fewer orders from manufacturers like PTR.

The company’s struggles worsened in April, which saw the lowest revenues since Fiorini’s family acquired the business in 2009.

To explain the fluctuation, Fiorini pointed out that his company went from getting orders for 1,000 rifles per month to getting slammed with 15,000 orders per month during the height of 2013 buying.

The following year, he said, the industry saw a “hangover.”

“We always knew that would come to an end at some point,” Fiorini said of the mass orders. “We figured there would be a dip maybe to 600 or 700 pieces a month. Unfortunately, that dip dropped as low as 180 pieces a month. That magnitude was what we didn’t really see coming. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. … We were just getting all the bills from the move.”

PTR officials had hoped to supplement the business with off-brand contract work last year, but that didn’t come on line until recently. Still, revenues are rising and the company has changed its marketing strategy, targeting customers directly. PTR officials hope to catch up on their bills by the end of next month.

As for keeping its hiring agreement with the county?

“We’re going to be on track or we’re going to be very close,” Fiorini said. “That plan really had a couple of components to it, one of which was expanding our contract manufacturing, which is already happening. The other was an assumption was a relatively normal level of [rifle] sales, which we’re on our way back to but we’re not quite back yet.”

Fiorini hopes to continue growing the business by adding contract work and new products, including a firearm his staff will be developing over the next year.

“We would very much like to get into the pistol calibers,” he said.

The company’s upbeat approach resonates with Bridget Foley, who was hired in February 2014 only to be laid off a few months later.

Unlike some of her peers, Foley has a second job working at a call center and she took on extra hours after losing her PTR job.

“I was one of the fortunate ones,” she said.

But when PTR called her in December and asked if she’d like to return, the 49-year-old Socastee woman didn’t hesitate. In tourism-dependent Horry County, the dearth of manufacturing jobs means few opportunities like those at PTR.

“I know how the area is,” she said. “I’ve lived down here going on 30 years now. … It’s tough, especially in the winter time. It’s very, very tough. People think they can take jobs for granted. You can’t.”

Contact CHARLES D. PERRY at 626-0218 or on Twitter @TSN_CharlesPerr.

This story was originally published February 9, 2015 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Gun maker PTR Industries hiring again."