Following a trend of firearms companies setting up shop in gun-friendly Wyoming, the KelTec factory in Rock Springs is up and running, with a goal of churning out 1,000 of the company’s new PR57 pistols every week.
The operation was years in the making. The Florida-based company announced plans for its KelTec West factory in Rock Springs in 2022.
Wyoming’s Second Amendment-friendly culture and politics played a big part in choosing Rock Springs when the company decided to expand its operating capacity, KelTec West plant operations manager Chris Williams told Cowboy State Daily.
“At the time (2022), Florida was teetering purple,” he said about the political climate there. “Wyoming is a solid red state, and it looks like it’s going to stay solid for decades to come.”
Other firearms companies that recently set up shop in Wyoming, such as Weatherby in Sheridan, have cited similar reasons for setting up shop in the Cowboy State.
KelTec set up its factory in a 33,000-square-foot building on Blairtown Road in Rock Springs. The facility was built in 2005 and previously used by the oil and gas industry.
Unusual Pistol Design
For now, the KelTec West factory will focus on producing PR57 pistols.
The company plans to build other firearms in Rock Springs in the future, but Williams wasn’t at liberty to say what those might be.
The PR57 is designed to fill a growing demand for a simple, lightweight, concealable self-defense firearm for beginners, the company says. The pistol was designed around the “rule of threes” as it applies to self-defense scenarios.
Meaning, most civilian self-defense shootings happen within 3 yards, last three seconds or less, and involve three or fewer shots fired.
It’s unusual insofar as it doesn’t take detachable magazines like most modern semiautomatic pistols.
Instead, it has a fixed magazine in the pistol’s handle, which is fed by pushing rounds down into the magazine through 10-round stripper clips.
The magazine can take two stripper clips, for a total capacity of 20 rounds, Williams said.
Loading stripper clips through the top of an open action is a design that dates back to World War I. It was a common design for bolt-action infantry rifles, as well as a few semiautomatic pistols from that era.
And while the 9 mm cartridge dominates the self-defense pistol market, the PR57 is chambered for a relative newcomer, the 5.7x28mm cartridge.
At first glance, it looks like a rifle cartridge with a tapered neck and pointed bullet.
The 5.7x28mm is gaining traction in the handgun world because it produces relatively light recoil and sends a bullet on a “flat trajectory,” giving it better accuracy at longer ranges, Williams said.
Local Workforce
KelTec West has 26 employees at the Rock Springs factory and isn’t quite fully staffed, Williams said.
The company is focusing on hiring locally from Rock Springs and Sweetwater County, and training staff from the ground up, he said.
“Everyone here is new to building firearms,” he said.
Sweetwater County also had an edge in recruiting KelTec because of Western Wyoming College, former economic development specialist Kayla McDonald told Cowboy State Daily.
The “industry-driven education components that Western Wyoming College has” gave the area an edge in attracting KelTec, she said.
That could help recruit more companies, said McDonald, who worked for the Sweetwater Economic Development Coalition (SEDC), which played a key role in recruiting KelTec.
Manufacturing could become a strong element of Wyoming’s economy, complimenting energy, agriculture and other sectors, McDonald said.
For now, it’s great to see the process that started in 2022 come online, she said.
“It’s pretty exciting, McDonald said. “It’s pretty fun to see it come full circle.”
Contact Mark Heinz at mark@cowboystatedaily.com
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
