DPMS (Defense Procurement Manufacturing Services) Panther Arms is an American manufacturer headquartered in

West Columbia, South Carolina West Columbia, formerly Brookland, is a city and commuter town in the suburban eastern sections of Lexington County, South Carolina, United States. According to the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the population was 14,988, and the 2019 ...

, known for its wide range of military and civilian

rifle A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...

s and accessories.

History

Randy Luth founded Defense Procurement Manufacturing Services (DPMS) in 1985 in Osseo, Minnesota, as a precision

machine shop A machine shop or engineering workshop is a room, building, or company where machining, a form of subtractive manufacturing, is done. In a machine shop, machinists use machine tools and cutting tool (machining), cutting tools to make parts, usua ...

for manufacturing M203, M14 and M16 parts for U.S. military contracts. In the later 1990s, the company employed 30 people selling Colt 1911 and AR-15 parts and accessories and moved the company to Becker, Minnesota. DPMS later began producing AR-15 style rifles. DPMS moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 2004. In 2007, the firm was named one of '' The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journals "50 fastest-growing privately held companies". DPMS doubled its revenue between 2004–2007 and employed 65 people in 2008. Freedom Group purchased DPMS Panther Arms on December 14, 2007, the same year it purchased

Marlin Firearms Marlin Firearms is an American firearms manufacturer, manufacturer of semi-automatic firearm, semi-automatic, lever-action and bolt-action rifles. In the past the company (based in Madison, North Carolina and formerly based in North Haven, Conne ...

. Freedom Group was a consortium of firearms manufacturers and was part of

Cerberus Capital Management Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American global alternative investment firm with assets across credit, private equity, and real estate strategies.Leaders Magazine"Providing Economic Opportunity: An Interview with The Honorable Dan Qua ...

, a New York private equity investment firm. Cerberus combined DPMS with

Bushmaster Firearms International Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, is an American firearm manufacturer and distributor. The company's product line revolves around semi-automatic pistol and semi-automatic rifle, rifle variants of the M4 carbine, M4/AR-15 style rifle, AR-15 ...

Remington Arms Remington Arms Company, LLC, was an American firearms manufacturer, manufacturer of firearms and ammunition. It was formerly owned by the Remington Outdoor Company, which went bankrupt in 2020 with its lines of business sold to several purchase ...

and Cobb Manufacturing to form the Freedom Group. Remington was the company's immediate corporate parent. On December 20, 2012, Cerberus announced they were selling their Freedom Group brands, including DPMS, based on pressure from a California pension board. DPMS was purchased by JJE Capital Holdings LLC on September 29, 2020, during the Remington bankruptcy proceedings.

Products

The company manufactures AR-15 style rifles chambered in Remington/ 5.56×45mm NATO and

AR-10 The ArmaLite AR-10 is a 7.62×51mm NATO battle rifle designed by Eugene Stoner in the late 1950s and manufactured by ArmaLite (then a division of the Fairchild (aircraft manufacturer), Fairchild Aircraft Corporation). When first introduced in 1956 ...

style rifles chambered in Winchester and Remington, among others. The company attracted attention within the firearms industry with its version of the AR-10, the Panther LR-308, earning ''Shooting Illustrated'' 2005 Golden Bullseye Award for "Rifle of the Year". In 2006, the Panther LR-308AP4 earned ''

American Rifleman ''American Rifleman'' is a United States–based monthly shooting and firearms interest publication, owned by the National Rifle Association of America (NRA). It is the 33rd-most-widely-distributed consumer magazine and the NRA's primary magaz ...

'' Golden Bullseye Award for "Rifle of the Year". In 2008, DPMS introduced the LR-338 chambered in the Federal cartridge.

Production relocation

DPMS's St. Cloud production facility with 115 employees was closed and production has been moved to Remington's new non-union facility in

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

. Remington's Ilion, New York, production facility closed down two production lines for their Bushmaster-branded AR-15 style rifle and R-1 1911-pattern pistol, and moved them to Huntsville. In 2014, Remington moved production of two gun lines and 150 jobs from New York to Alabama because of

New York state New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...

's gun laws which banned the sale of those products in the state, and consolidated its production from six locations into Huntsville in order to increase efficiency, and reduce production and labor costs. The six companies being relocated were: Advanced Armament Corp of Lawrenceville, Georgia; Montana Rifleman of Kalispell, Montana; TAPCO; LAR Manufacturing of West Jordan, Utah; Para USA (formerly Para-Ordnance); and DPMS.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dpms Panther Arms Firearm manufacturers of the United States Companies based in Minnesota St. Cloud, Minnesota Cerberus Capital Management companies Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020