Southern Precision Tooling Factory Tour: Interview, Andy Welshan – Part III
Paul B. 10.03.23
We’re back for the final portion of our interview with Andy Welshan, Plant Manager and Norman Griffitts, Owner of Southern Precision Tooling (SPT). Before we get into the interview, here are some links to check out Southern Precision Tooling, what they have to offer, and a list of events they will be at so you can check out some of their products for yourself. Take a look at their YouTube page to see some of their HU-DU brakes in action.
- Southern Precision Tooling Website
- Southern Precision Tooling on Instagram
- Southern Precision Tooling on Optics Planet
- Southern Precision Tooling YouTube
- Events: NRA 2024, SHOT Show, Memorial Three Gun Championship, Noddy After Dark, and possibly next year’s Triggercon.
Paul B. – Do you have a release date on the suppressor?
Andy Welshan – Hopefully mid-October to be in full production, we’ll have the .223 Rem/5.56 NATO and .308 Win/7.62 NATO cans ready to go first. If we get ATF approval, we’re also making one that’ll be a multi-cal that will fit .45-70 Gov’t, .338 Lapua Magnum, .50 Beowulf, .458 Socom, and it’ll be a change the end cap type thing because the muzzle brakes will all have the same ring that this drops on. It’s a quick attached system across the board. For us, it makes manufacturing so much easier.
They’ve got a few specific parts for each one. Another thing that we’re going to be coming out with very, very soon is we will have the HU-DU muzzle brake with a suppressor adapter, which will be a 1/2×28 and 5/8×24 that you can put on anybody’s direct thread and have a quick attached system with our muzzle brake, it’s mimics having an extra baffle to your suppressor. So it will make your existing suppressor even quieter. That’s pretty exciting.
Paul B. – A lot of hunters, they want the lightest suppressor possible. They will give up some sound reduction, they’ll give up some durability, they want light, light, light, which makes sense. You reduce impact shift, the hike way into the mountains if you’re an Elk hunter is easier. I can’t think of a lighter suppressor.
Andy Welshan – We’re six ounces lighter than most other lightweight cans.
Paul B. – Back to the HU-DU. In a semi -automatic platform, the double tap, that was the big one for me. I had people walk up to me, do you have a binary trigger in that? Nope, sure don’t. You shoot it.
Andy Welshan – Chris Atkins, long haired three gunner. When he first started shooting with us, using our HU-DU, his major problem was he would outrun the gun. He was so fast.
My number one question to you, how much better is the HU-DU than you imagined?
Paul B. – To be honest, I thought it was going to be about on par with standard radial muzzle brakes. I figured it would work, but I didn’t think it was going to be anything like it is. I would say I went from skeptical to mind blown very quickly. When we met and talked, I thought it was BS.
Andy Welshan – One of the problems that you have is being immersed in the gun culture. You have seen the next latest greatest thing out there.
Paul B. – How many times have we heard the term the Glock killer?
Andy Welshan – Dude, I believe this my whole life. The .460 Roland was going to replace the 45 ACP. Yeah. The new .45 GAP. So, I get it. While you were at SHOT or NRA, everybody there had the best muzzle brake on display.
Paul B. – Do you think you could fix a full auto M14? Because that’s a legendarily uncontrollable full-auto gun.
Andy Welshan – I have done M1A ones and then done the chin shot with them. So, an M14, absolutely. I’ve done two of these, a five and a half pound .300 Win Mag hunting rifle that the guy wanted to carry around and I’ve got it to the point that he can let his granddaughter shoot it.
Paul B. – You’re going from this is going to bruise a grown man’s shoulder to anyone can comfortably shoot it. Let’s talk about that one real quick. The blending of a muzzle brake into a non-threaded barrel hunting rifle. I saw some of the work. Beautiful. It looks factory. It’s blended perfectly.
Andy Welshan – We have ways that we can do this for somebody that doesn’t want to have the finished messed up. We set the barrel up. Norman invented a fixture that goes into the lathe. We pull the barrel, put it in the lathe and what it does, it centers the back while we center the front, which means you are concentric all the way through the gun.
One of the things that I hate about putting our muzzle brakes on a hunting rifle if they don’t want to taper it’s a lot like putting your lingerie on your grandma it might fit, but it don’t look right.
So, you want to taper this thing down to where it actually looks like a classic rifle. Now, the one you saw was the full custom this is where somebody says I want this to look like it grew on the end of the gun and so when we get it we taper it down where it touches the barrel and then we hand sand this to the point to where it blends into the gun so when it is blued it looks like a piece of it.
Andy Welshan – Now the stainless one and the blue one that you saw both of those have been done that way. It gives that little bit of custom to your rifle. If you’re going to do this again what we do you’re looking if you send us your rifle you want to have it threaded with the brake on it taper to fit the gun it’s 325 bucks for the brake and the thread. And then if you want the full blend with the refinish, that’s usually an extra 75 dollars. But what you’ve got at the end of the day is something that is immaculate.
We’re going to keep getting the word out. We’re going to keep innovating. Anytime that we find something that works a little better, eventually you will see every muzzle brake. We have more to fit into this because again, our goal is to be like surefire. If I say surefire, you think of the best flashlights. Magpul, good affordable furniture. I want Southern Precision Tooling for people to think “They’re the muzzle brake guys”.
Paul B. – What’s coming down the road. What’s the next few years look like?
Andy Welshan – We’re working with Optics Planet now; they’re selling our stuff. We’re working right now on Primary arms, we’re trying to get them set up to start selling. I would like to get Brownell’s and Midway USA and get them to start carrying our products.
Working with people like you, I’m going to have to get the word out and the way best way to get the word out is to go to media events and let people shoot it get it in their hands and let them shoot it.
We’re gaining traction right now. I’m getting calls from states that we have never sold to. I’m getting calls from gunsmiths in different states, and we’re going to be setting them up as a way that they can do the custom work that we’re doing and spread the word. The big thing is, is I’ve got to have people shooting the brake. You are not going to believe the brake until you pull the trigger. Again, you’ll make your mind up about what it’s supposed to do, but it is so far past that.
Paul B. – Speaking of that, any plans for any of the media event range days so people can try it out?
Andy Welshan – We’re going to, we can’t do it this year because we’ve got to buy somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten thousand dollars worth of titanium. So that is our SHOT show. But we’re going to go to SHOT and we’re going to get a range because again, nobody’s going to believe it until they shoot it.
Paul B.
Okay, so you are gonna be at SHOT Show range day?
Andy Welshan – Not this year, next year. It’s going to be next year. Unless something happens in the near future and we can get one last minute. We’re still going with Shooting Targets USA. We’ll have a booth there, but we won’t have a range.
We will have the suppressors. We’re wanting the suppressor line to get out in full production. Next thing will be the adapters, which that’s the adapter (Andy hands me the prototype adapter) and what you’ll have is just got a thread on the end of it and you’ll have the whole collar system and everything these are prototypes of course still, but you just screw this into the end of your can and now you have the same quick attach system as our new Suppressor line.
Author Note – Southern Precision Tooling’s new suppressor line has a unique latching mechanism that ensures the suppressor is concentric to their compatible HU-DU muzzle brake. This new suppressor adapter allows you to use their latching mechanism on hub compatible suppressors to HU-DU muzzle brakes.
Paul B. – It’s amazing every time you hand me one of your products it’s an instant reminder that you guys are a machine shop first, this prototype is what I would expect most people’s production sample to look like. People need to check your products out. I thought it was snake oil, it’s not. So come by the Shooting Target USA booth at Shot Show and NRA. Talk with you guys and if you happen to be close to East Tennessee, drop by. Andy, Norman, it was an absolute pleasure talking with you today.
Thanks for tuning into our coverage of Southern Precision Tooling (SPT) and the innovative, cool, and inspiring products that they have coming down the pipeline. As always, let us know all of your thoughts on Southern Precision Tooling (SPT) in the Comments below! We always appreciate your feedback.
