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ATI’s Quick Turnaround The aftermarket stockmaker proves nimble when opportunity strikes By Robert F. Staeger
ATI’s relationship with Ruger allows it to design aftermarket components quickly.
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ast year, Ruger announced new versions of its popular Charger pistols, with both the Charger and the Charger Takedown now being available in polymer stocks. Almost immediately, ATI (Advanced Technology International) responded by offering the Ruger A-22 Pistol Stock for the Ruger Charger. ATI has a long history with Ruger, working with the manufac-
turer on numerous projects in the past. “They’ve been very good to us,” says Jon Shaffer, director of business development at ATI. “Some items we hear about the same time as everybody else, but on other items, we’re in development with them.” Given the quick turnaround, surprisingly the aftermarket Charger stock wasn’t developed with Ruger’s initial involvement.
Instead of being a measure of ATI’s considerable industry connections—the company has longstanding relationships with Mossberg and CZ-USA, among others—it’s a sign of how nimble the company is when responding to a variety of interesting market opportunities. “We started working on this when they first brought the Charger back,” says Shaffer. “Well before the polymer stock version was planned, we were working on it.” So when the polymer-stocked Charger was announced, ATI was ready to make the most of the moment. “We had some things in the pipeline already that we were going to be able to move over to the Charger,” says Shaffer. “The handguard on the Charger stock, it’s one of our existing 15 handguards. We were able to use a pistol grip that we used on another
project, so it’s basically just making sure that the polymer chassis that sandwiches over the receiver fits correctly.” That’s when their existing relationship with Ruger came into play. “Ruger was very gracious,” says Shaffer. “They’ll share their 3-D files and stuff like that with us when we need them. Obviously, they don’t like to send them out all the time, but when it’s instrumental to a project, we have that longstanding relationship where we can manage to get that stuff from them, which makes our job easier, rather than having to reverse-engineer a firearm.” Later in the process, Ruger sent ATI a few pistols to fit the stocks to, to make sure everything—fit, form, and function—worked as planned. “We can turn things around pretty quickly,” says Shaffer. The small company doesn’t answer to a board of directors, just the two owners. “There’s not a lot of red tape, so if we see something that’s a good idea and want to move forward with it, we can build tooling and have something pumped out in a few weeks.” Booth #16762. (atigunstocks.com)