By Ginny Mink
Business Up Front
Zombie apocalypses, government conspiracy theories, wild hogs tearing up your citrus groves or personal protection, whatever your bent, guns are a hot commodity. When your sister gets your parents bullets for Christmas because that’s what they asked for, and a sweet, innocent, little blonde you went to college with celebrates the successful completion of her concealed weapons permit course on her Facebook page, you realize something has definitely changed! That’s when you discover that new gun shops are popping up all over the country and the newest one to hit Plant City is Silent Technology Inc. owned by David Harris. Given the opportunity to chat with him, we discovered his rather interesting background. He shared, “I didn’t do a whole lot of agriculture, my parents weren’t into it, it was my uncles. I grew up in the summers on a dairy farm in North Georgia. As a kid I just helped out with summers. I remember I didn’t care for it too much. Cow poop is no fun! I went to Georgia Tech. Actually, I went to the Navy first when I got out of high school, spent almost 10 years in the Navy, got out, went back to school, finished a degree at Georgia Tech in engineering. I did that up until the last few years when I got into designing silencers for guns and that kind of took off into a small little business, doing gun shows and things like that, and reselling. Then that progressed into enough stuff that I could open a store, so I opened the store next to my engineering office here in Plant City and started specializing in reloading supplies and high-end knives. So far it’s been doing pretty good. We’ve had the store open now about eight weeks.” Designing silencers is a little bit more high-tech than the width and depth of a potato, or the thickness of a down pillow. No doubt David’s engineering experience was beneficial, but we wondered just how someone gets started designing silencers? His explanation wasn’t too in-depth, but the revelations he provided as to his clientele were pretty interesting. He said, “We were playing with pistols and we finally got our first silencer and thought, ‘Well heck, we could try and make it better!’ So we started playing around, playing more and more with them, and it just ended up becoming a lot of fun, so we took off with it and it kind of migrated into a business. We don’t design them anymore because there are so many different designs out there that we can just buy them and resell them. We found that there was a market for a lot of farmers, they like to buy silencers to take out varmints and hogs without alerting the people down the street who hear gunfire and call the cops. It actually works out as a pretty good tool for the local farmers. Sold quite a few in the area! And then you have people that have varmints that get into their stuff, they don’t want to alert the neighbors, you know, they’re trying to be nice.” Perhaps you’ve only considered silencers as necessary murder accoutrements. According to David they’re also common courtesy!
Who does Silent Technology Inc. cater too? Gun shop regulars might not be surprised by David’s description of his typical customers but those new to the industry, those whom have WWW.INTHEFIELDMAGAZINE.COM
Guns, Ammo, Knives, Oh My!
just recently discovered the rage that is turning housewives into gun enthusiasts, might be just as shocked as he was. He told us, “Our clientele is mostly reloaders, precision target shooters, hunters that want better ammunition. It actually spreads the whole spectrum. I can tell you most guns are purchased by females! It is quite the opposite of what I thought it would be. You know, for the longest time I thought some of the extreme people would be the prevalent customers but that’s not been the case, it’s been just normal people! There are some scary people that come in every once in a while but they’re not as prevalent as I thought they’d be. You know preppers, people with all the government conspiracy stuff. It’s not like I thought it would be because when I used to visit gun shops, it’d be everybody and their: ‘the government’s gonna take your guns,’ but we don’t get a lot of that. It’s people that basically use it as tools.” We asked him for clarification on the term reloaders. He explained, “Reloaders are people that load their own ammunition. So they can actually tune their ammunition to their gun. You’ve gotta get the powder and the bullet weight, you’ve gotta get the mixture just perfect. So there’s a lot of science behind it, a lot of math. So, you get a lot of technical type people doing it. It’s comprised of your reloading equipment which would be your presses, things like that, then you have your commodity type stuff, the brass, the gunpowder, the primers and of course then the bullet kits. And then you have ancillary supplies, things that people use.” He plans on starting a reloader class next year in case you’re interested.
What can you find in the Silent Technology Inc. shop? The website reveals a vast array of handguns, supplies, knives, and a large selection of ammo. Specifically David said, “We sell hunting rifles, concealed carry weapons, target guns, guns and silencers, short barrel rifles, shotguns. Anything anybody wants! We stock all that stuff and I do carry a lot of high-end knives like Benchmade, Spyderco, Sog. They are fairly high-end knives, they can get up as far as $400-$500 for a knife and people buy them a lot! These are duty knives, a lot of your EMTs carry them, your state troopers carry them, those are the people to come in and buy the higher-end duty knives. There’s a difference, I mean you can tell the difference between a $50 knife and a $400 knife. These people are getting them as tools.” In case you are wondering about David’s focus on high-end knives, one of the brands he stocks in his shop, Spyderco, offers a unique description on their website, “Our recognizable appearance is a result of designing ergonomic functional tools rather than applying lipstick and nylons to a pocketknife. We may look curious, homely, whatever, but we’ll never be called unusable or undependable.” Obviously David is committed to high quality and durable materials. If you find yourself in need of such tools, please visit the Silent Technology Inc. shop. David says, “We’re next to Walmart over here in Plant City. You know where the Watson clinic is off Alexander? We’re right behind it: 645 East Alexander St.” You can also visit his website: www.silenttechinc.com. INTHEFIELD MAGAZINE
January 2014
15