While at IWA, I had the chance to sit down with two very knowledgeable guys from the Turkish firearms manufacturing company, Sarsilmaz. Semih, a sales executive, talked to me about the company itself and their plans to expand to the United States, while Ahmet, an engineer, discussed the various pistols, revolvers, and shotguns that the company makes.

The company was founded in 1880, and is thus just over 130 years old. Semih says “almost 150” in the video, which is pretty optimistic, but I can’t fault him for being proud of the company he works for.

As noted in the video, Sarsilmaz exports to 66 different countries, and supplies handguns to the Turkish military. They’re also the company that manufactures the AR-24 for Armalite, which has been sold in the United States for several years. Many of their products are quite similar to firearms that exist today, such as the AR-24 being closely related to the CZ-75.

The company’s products, I think, will provide good competition for a pretty good number of firearms that are currently on the market. While most are going to be very competitive on price, there were several on display that, shall we say, were not easily affordable. One of these was a gold-plated, hand engraved pistol that I took a liking to..