As I was prepping to head down to Las Vegas for the SHOT Show, I decided to kick off my coverage a little early and begin profiling some of the gun manufacturers and other outdoor industry companies based in Montana that you can typically run into for the show.

One of our listeners said- hey, you gotta catch up with Big Sky Racks from Bozeman. What a great tip.

I caught up with John Morford from Big Sky Racks to hear more about their company and their story. Pretty cool how the whole idea started nearly 40 years ago thanks to the idea of a Shields Valley rancher here in Montana.

John Morford: I actually grew up in the Shield's Valley and it was our neighbor who invented the first rack. He was a cattle rancher and he got sick and tired of trying to get that gun out of the back window to get a shot when he would be out feeding his cows and see a coyote near his herd or something like that. And so by the time he got out of the truck and got the window out of that back window rack that you just described he lost the shot. So he came up with a way to mount it up in the ceiling- started welding them in his barn. And people up the Shields Valley kept saying well 'I want one, I want one.' And he approached my dad, who had a business background and that's when Big Sky Racks was born about 1982.

John describes Big Sky Racks as an OEM- an outside equipment manufacturer.

John Morford: We have some things that are produced outside of our shop. J.E. Soares outside of Belgrade produces a lot of our flat metal for us, ships it here and then we do the final welding and painting and all that kind of stuff here....And then we get raw steel from Big Sky Steel out of Billings.

Here's the full audio as he describes the racks, how they work, and how law enforcement in particular appreciates the gun racks:

 

 

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