Hi-Point Founder, Designer Tom Deeb passes away
The founder of the budget firearms company Hi-Point, Tom Deeb has recently passed away at his semi retirement home in Texas. He was 65 years old and died from cardiac arrest. Deeb founded the company in 1993 with a simple philosophy of creating a budget firearm for the firearms community. Despite much of the criticism that Hi-Point gets, to include myself poking fun at the company from time to time, you do have to give it credit for the niche that it occupies, in being low cost and reliable. Other companies have tried to bring low cost firearms to the market, and have failed because their guns were unreliable. Hi-Point on the other hand, not only produces budget guns, and for the most part, they can be very reliable. I’ve even heard some good things about their carbines as well. To date the company has produced over 2 million firearms.
Tom Deebs history is quite interesting as well, if you have time, I would highly recommend reading the American Rifleman Magazine’s interview with him on how he got the company started, and kept it going. He didn’t come from a designers background at all, rather from a mechanical working area, and envisioned brining reliable budget firearms to the market.
Infantry Marine, based in the Midwest. Specifically interested in small arms history, development, and usage within the MENA region and Central Asia. To that end, I run Silah Report, a website dedicated to analyzing small arms history and news out of MENA and Central Asia.Please feel free to get in touch with me about something I can add to a post, an error I've made, or if you just want to talk guns. I can be reached at miles@tfb.tv
More by Miles
Comments
Join the conversation
I've owned numerous Hi Points, along with the higher priced guns. They work great and if there is a problem a simple phone call usually solves the issue. I currently own two Hi Points and will probably always own them.
Peace to a good man who founded a great company which delivered an alright product at a wonderful price. He will be missed. I hop others take away his lessons.