Big Horn Armory | Cody, Wyoming

EXCLUSIVELY OFFERED FOR SALE CODY, WYOmIng

The History of Big Horn Armory

It all started in 2008…a conversation between two huge lever action enthusiasts discussing a newly created cartridge:

The .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum.

How to utilize the merits of the .500 Smith & Wesson round in a lever action gun chambered for the powerful .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum.

The idea that evolved: a Browning type lever gun to accommodate the round. They started exploring the idea with different lever guns and discovered it wouldn’t work with a Marlin or anything else readily available. Several guns were bent in testing for the new round.

The only solution was to build a new gun of their own. Big Horn Armory was born and painstakingly overbuilt a strong modern gun, the Model 89, using steel of 17-4PH stainless with CNC machining techniques.

The painstaking work of designing, tooling, machining and assembling these guns resulted in the creation of their first gun, the name coming from blending the Browning Model 86 action, which was too long, with the Browning Model 92, whose action was too short.

They discovered that the Model 86 had parts that were too complex to machine. This resulted in the decision to use the outside body of the 86 with the internal components of the Model 92 to create the gun, whose name is halfway between the Model 86 and the Model 92, giving rise to the naming of the Model 89.

In 2012, the first new gun, the .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum was shipped from the new Cody, WY facility.

Since 2012, several derivations of the original have been created, providing for a sizeable array of rifles that make for great stand-alone rifles, or companion guns for revolver enthusiasts:

• The Model 89 in .500 S&W Magnum

• The Model 89A in .500 Linebaugh

• The Model 90 in .460 S & W Magnum

• The Model 90A in .454 Casull

• The Model 90B in .500 Linebaugh or .45 Colt

• The Model 89B in .475 Linebaugh

• Black Thunder Tactical .500 S&W Magnum

• White Lightning Tactical .500 S&W Magnum

Big Horn Armory was so excited with the power of the .500 Smith & Wesson in a rifle, the company continued the momentum and went big with its latest offering, the AR500 semi-automatic rifle and pistol in an AR platform, the world’s most powerful AR style rifle in .500 S&W magnum in 2018.

Big Horn Armory’s line of custom-built firearms are arguably the best lever guns manufactured in the world today, optioned to be built to a Buyer’s liking. The options that are offered include Circassian Walnut stocks and fore ends in several different grades: Standard, Fancy, Collector and Exhibition grade of highly figured graining, along with laminate grey or brown stocks and fore ends. The receivers and barrels can be finished in either Standard Hunter Black, or matte stainless steel, or colored case hardened finish. Three barrel lengths are offered: 16, 18 and 22 inch barrels, in round or octagon. Various sighting options are offered, including rail systems for mounting a scope. Metal parts are cured in a nitride bath to harden the steel ensuring a long useful life.

The various chamberings are commercially manufactured in a variety of bullet weights and types. In the .500 S & W magnum for a hand loader, bullet weights can be loaded in a range between 200 and 700 grains.

These guns are all proudly manufactured by the 18 gunsmiths and employees in the USA in the Cody, Wyoming facility.

Big Horn Armory employs 18 highly skilled, product specific, and dedicated gunsmiths and employees plus a vast array of product specific computerized machinery and tools, and is located in Cody, Wyoming, a quaint Western town of just over 10,000 people and the County seat of Park County. Local attractions are the famous Irma Hotel, Cody Stampede and Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Cody is located east of Yellowstone National Park via 50 miles of, according to Teddy Roosevelt, the most scenic 50 miles in America.

Cody is known world-wide as an outdoor recreation mecca, with some of the finest Big Game hunting and fishing available in America’s first National Forest, the 1.4 million acre Shoshone National Forest. Largely designated Wilderness area, the Forest is accessed via thousands of miles of back country trails by foot and Horseback access only. This huge region of Wilderness provides residents and visitors with access to hike, ride and hunt for all manner of big game, Elk, Deer, Moose, Big Horn Sheep, Rocky Mountain Goat, Black Bear, Grizzly (no hunting season yet) Wolf, small game and bird hunting.

This fantastic sporting firearms manufacturing opportunity is offered turnkey ready for $3,425,000.00. The price includes an extensive amount of preproduction parts, materials and inventories, goodwill, and an extensive list of computerized machinery and tools.

Income and Expense Financials can be obtained after signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Please contact the listing office for more information on this incredible Wyoming Business.

Located in Cody, Wyoming

Park County

Distance to:

• Red Lodge, MT - 63 miles

• Yellowstone National Park - 52 miles

• Billings, MT - 105 miles

Escape From Chicago: Wyoming Firearms Founder Makes World’s Most Powerful AR-Style Rifle

Featured in the Cowboy State Daily: Article by Mark Heinz - 12/24/2023

Greg Buchel was born and raised in Chicago but “escaped Illinois” to move to Wyoming and founded Big Horn Armory which touts its AR500 as the world’s most powerful AR-style rifle. Buchel says it will down anything from “pachyderms to Peterbilts.”

Upping Smith & Wesson’s Power Levels

When it comes to bagging big, dangerous critters, hunters want all the knockdown power they can get, and a Cody-based company has taken that to the extreme. Big Horn Armory Inc. touts its AR500 as the world’s most powerful AR-style rifle. The semi-automatic weapon is chambered in the company’s own .500 Auto Max cartridge and can thump out half-inch diameter bullets just as fast as a shooter can stand to pull the trigger. “Bison are pretty much the toughest critter on this continent and it punches right through both sides of them,” Greg Buchel, the company’s founder and president, told Cowboy State Daily.

Escaping Illinois For Wyoming

Buchel wasn’t born in Wyoming, but said that he couldn’t feel more at home in the Cowboy State. He was born and raised in Chicago, and already had an extensive background in manufacturing before he moved to Wyoming more than two decades ago. “I moved out here about 21 years ago. I escaped Illinois and I haven’t looked back since,” he said. He enjoys the wide-open spaces, freedom and hunting opportunities the Cowboy State provides. And he also appreciates the business-friendly atmosphere. He wasn’t in Wyoming very long before opportunity came knocking.

“When I first moved out here, a neighbor of mine was a gun crank. The .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum cartridge had just been created. And we thought, ‘Hey, we should make a lever-action rifle chambered for the .500 Smith & Wesson.” So the seeds were planted for Big Horn Amory. The company was founded in 2007, and started turning out its first lever-action rifles a couple of years later. Smith & Wesson created the .500 cartridge for its legendary revolvers. It dwarfed even the mighty .44 magnum. That round made Smith & Wesson a household name — thanks in large part to Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” movie character packing a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum revolver.

Cartridges like the .44 magnum and .500 Smith & Wesson are certainly respectable powerhouses in their original revolver platforms. But there’s a long tradition of building lever-action rifles chambered for magnum revolver cartridges. The longer barrels take the bullets’ performance to whole new levels, Buchel said. With their shorter barrels and gap between the cartridge chambers and barrel, revolvers blow out a fair amount of unburned powder when they’re fired. The enclosed action and longer barrel of a rifle allow more of the gunpowder to burn, Buchel said. And more powder burned explosively during firing equals more velocity, and more bullet

velocity means more devastating impact on the target. Muzzle velocity, or the speed the bullet is moving when it leaves a firearm’s barrel, is measured in the feet per second (fps). So, for instance, a 400-grain bullet fired from a revolver might have a muzzle velocity of 1,457 fps. Whereas out of a rifle with an 18- to 20-inch barrel, it might be trucking at 2,000 fps, Buchel said.

An AR For Any Critter

Big Horn Armory’s popularity was growing among Wyoming hunters who wanted something that could stop a charging grizzly, if need be, as well as folks headed to Alaska to hunt huge game like moose and coastal brown bears. Meanwhile, the popularity of AR-style rifles continued to grow. AR stands for “Armalite Rifle” after the company that first produced the firearms. And the most common chamberings for ARs are the relatively small .223 Remmington, or the 5.56×45mm NATO. But ARs were also gaining popularity among big-game hunters who wanted them chambered for beefier cartridges, such as the .308 Winchester. So, Big Horn Armory figured, why not produce an AR chambered big enough to take down anything that might lumber across North America? Working off the .500 Smith & Wesson template, they designed the .500 Auto Max cartridge. It’s essentially a rimless version of the .500 Smith & Wesson, Buchel said, which allows it to feed property in a semi-automatic action. “Lever-actions require a rimmed cartridge (one with a lip around the base), but semi-automatic actions operate with a rimless cartridge,” he said. “As an AR cartridge, the .500 Auto Max is our baby.” A semi-automatic firearm fires one shot for each pull of the trigger, and the action cycles itself between shots. The AR500 is designed as a hunting rifle because everybody who works at Big Horn Armory is a hunter,” he said. Some of its features include a generously-sized trigger guard, making it easier to shoot with gloves on during cold weather hunts. “We say it’s suitable for everything from prairie dogs to pachyderms to Peterbilts,” he said. The latter being a reference to the rifle’s ability to punch through engine blocks.

Won’t Ruin Smaller Game

The company’s lever guns have been taken on South African Safari hunts. However, it’s unlikely that the AR500 will be used on Safari, because semi-automatic rifles aren’t allowed in South Africa, Buchel said. Even so, it’s suitable for Wyoming hunts, he said. Folks might worry about such a massive round making a complete mess of relatively smaller animals, such as deer or antelope. But with hard-case bullets that’s not the case, he said. He knows of one hunter who used an AR500 to shoot an antelope, and said the critter “was dead before it even fell completely over.” “There was a half-inch entry wound, and a half-inch exit wound” indicating that the bullet didn’t expand inside the antelope as smaller-caliber bullets would have done, he said. “But with a half-inch bullet, how much expansion do you need?” he added. Big Horn Armory’s rifles are higher-end, but represent a long-term investment because of the craftsmanship that goes into each one, Buchel said. The AR500s are priced around $2,500, and the lever guns are priced around $4,500 on up.

Promoting Wyoming Manufacturing

Buchel said he’s not only happy that his company has thrived in Wyoming, he’d like to see manufacturing continue to grow here. “As a company, we’re growing. We can’t build them (rifles) fast enough,” he said. And manufacturing can continue to add well-paying jobs to Wyoming’s economy, and help retain the state’s youth, Buchel added. And manufacturing can continue to add well-paying jobs to Wyoming’s economy, and help retain the state’s youth, Buchel added. “In Wyoming, we sometimes say that we import retired people and we export our kids,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.

“Perhaps the greatest asset of Buffalo Bill’s home town of Cody is the continuation of the spirit of individual accomplishment, western hospitality, honesty, friendliness, and joint cooperation of the citizens as was instilled in the early settlers by the “Old Scout”. That spirit still prevails and is manifested today on the streets and in the homes of Cody Country people.”

- Cody Country Chamber of Commerce

www.codychamber.org

CODY+WYOMING

A quiet and unique community, Cody offers a true mix of rich western culture and modern sophistication, unmatched by any other small town in America. Also rich in history, Cody is located near the East Gate of our country’s first national park, Yellowstone. Deeme d a “World-class tourism destination” – according to the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce – Cody’s thriving economy can be attributed to the mil lion or so tourists that travel through each year in search of the ultimate western experience: abundant outdoor recreation, unmatched scenery, diverse wildlife, and the adventure of a lifetime.

As a popular stop for millions of travelers on the way to and from Yellowstone, visitors to Cody will undoubtedly stroll through the vibrant downtown shops, restaurants, and galleries along Sheridan Avenue.

Main attractions for Cody visitors include the nationally recognized five museum complex, The Buffalo Bill Center of the West [a nationally recognized fivemuseum-in-one complex, is one of the main attractions for Cody visitors], The Buffalo Bill Dam and Visitor’s Center, The Cody Nite Rodeo, 4th of July Cody Stampede, Old Trail Town, The Irma Hotel, Cody Trolley Tours, and the Wild Horses of the McCullough Peaks.

Cody is the “Hub” of the Big Horn Basin:

• Just under 35,000 residents call the Big Horn Basin home

• High quality of life and adequate, affordable housing

• Centralized location for dining & shopping, world-class regional medical care, arts & culture

• 25 Minutes from Northwest Community College in Powell

• 2 Hours from Billings, Montana

• Reliable, seasonal air service through Denver and Salt Lake City

• 22 city parks, a 105,000-square foot recreation center, skate park, biking/ nature trails, indoor ice arena

• Abundant outdoor recreational opportunities: 2,000 miles fishing waters, hunting, hiking, rock climbing, biking, camping, golf, winter activities

• Minutes from public lands: 82% of the county is managed by the Shoshone National Forest, National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management

This area was one of the last frontiers settled in the lower 48 states, and a true recreational paradise, just as Colonel Cody envisioned.

The entire region was driven by and is still heavily influenced by Buffalo Bill’s vision. His regard for the wildlife, scenery, and the wonders of Yellowstone can be appreciated by all who visit Buffalo Bill’s Cody/Yellowstone Country.

- CodyYellowstone.org

“The West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles, and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.”

The legendary Colonel William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody came to the West with the purpose of land development. The newly established community was aptly named after Cody in 1895. In 1902 the town was incorporated and Cody opened his “Hotel in the Rockies”, the Irma, named after his youngest daughter. He had a clear vision of expansion and was instrumental in bringing the Burlington Railroad to the area and establishing a road from Cody to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Through his influence and support, the Buffalo Bill Reservoir and Dam were constructed (the highest dam in the world at the time). The result was the development of an irrigation system and ensured future agricultural success for the entire region.

[above] Cody Nite Rodeo - July 1st-August 31st. [below] Old Trail Town - Old frontier structures dating 1879-1900.