BERRYVILLE -- The cape buffalo didn't know that Bill Wilson was a living legend among gun enthusiasts.
In fact, he didn't even know that Bill Wilson had been there, gun in hand, lying as quietly as a church mouse behind some thick reeds on a tall plateau above a river bank in Zimbabwe as the herd inched closer and closer.
Wilson and his hunting buddy were trying to determine if there was a trophy bull among the herd, when suddenly the animals changed direction and pressed the pair ever closer to the edge, a good 30- to 40-foot drop to the water.
"The cape buffalo is one of the most dangerous animals on the planet," Wilson says. "They basically go around p* off at the world.
"They pushed us to the plateau and we had to hang off the edge to keep from getting stomped by the herd."
Buffalo and hunter went free that day -- both of them inches away from a deadly encounter -- in one of the most intense hunting experiences Wilson says he has ever had. And not a shot was fired.
Wilson started what is now Wilson Combat in 1972, and it has become known for handcrafted, customized pistols, long guns and accessories. The firearms are made for a practical purpose: to defend.
To that end, Wilson also founded the International Defensive Pistol Association, which has more than 22,000 members in the United States and 50 other countries.
Now, 43 years later, what started as a little gun shop in Berryville with the goal of making the average guy's gun better is a behemoth, reeling in roughly $20,000 every 20 minutes. Its sales of 1911 A1 handguns, AR-15 rifles and scattergun technologies are legacy purchases, with most handguns starting at more than $3,000.
RELIABLE GUN, STEADY HAND
"When people ask me where to get the best 1911 .45 pistol, I always say Wilson Combat," says Ken Hackathorn, an instructor with Alias Training, a weapons training and security services provider. Inevitably, "they tell me, 'But those are three thousand dollars!' I tell people that [others are] good pistols, but if you want a great gun, get a Wilson.
"That's one of the best ones you can buy."
That some of the products are used by military special forces, like Navy SEALS, speaks to the high quality and reliability of the gunsmithing. Firearms manufacturing giants Smith & Wesson and Remington Arms, among others, order gun parts from Wilson Combat. And last year Beretta USA collaborated with Wilson Combat on a limited edition 92G Brigadier Tactical, a semi-automatic pistol.
"Wilson guns are unbelievably reliable," says Jerry Barbo, a regular customer. "They're a function of good metals, strong design, and you can tell there's a high degree of craftsmanship that goes into Wilson products.
"That's what separates them from the pack."
"Whether we're talking about automobiles or TVs, most things are mass-produced products," Hackathorn says. "But Bill's guns are hand-fitting, with a high degree of craftsmanship that is no longer the norm in any product.
"He was smart enough to realize that hand-built custom [parts] made high quality work, and that's what he built his business around."
It is the precision, too, that attracts and retains customers.
What makes Wilson guns so good "is the precision of these, from one to the next," says Thomas Harris, a friend of Wilson's since childhood. "There was a lot of variation [early on] but there's none now. The precision is amazing for how well they shoot."
Correction
A previous version of this story had the incorrect first name for Thomas Harris. The error has been corrected.
That's a testament to "his technical skills to do precision work. But his attitude of 'I'll make this right for the customer,' that's built his business."
SHARP SHOOTER
Before his customized guns became a sensation, Bill Wilson was known as one of the best competitive shooters in the world. He started competing in 1976 and winning in 1977.
During the early days, he'd drive all night to the competition location, eat at fast-food places and sleep at low-cost motels.
"I never had lots of problems with nerves at the match. I don't remember it being any big deal," Wilson says. "I was more excited than nervous. I finally found this new sport and thought 'Wow, they made a sport just for me!'"
There were the International Practical Shooting Confederation Midwest championships (1978, '82, '85), Second Chance Street Combat Shoot showings (first, second and third places, 1978-82) and Tulsa Practical Pistol League championships (1981, '83, '84) while placing among the best at the Bianchi Cup Invitational and many other competitions.
At the height of his streak, Wilson competed in 35 matches a year. Steadily, he made a name for himself, and his accommodations got better, too. He'd stay at nicer hotels and maybe even have a steak dinner once in a while.
From 1977 to 1986, he remained Arkansas Combat Pistol League champion, placed many times in the IPSC national championships and came in fifth at the 1979 IPSC World Championship in South Africa. And in 1981, Wilson shot for the U.S. team at the IPSC World Match -- the Olympics of shooting.
The more he won, the more people got interested in his gear.
"The reason [Wilson Combat] had demand for product right off the bat was because I rapidly became a top competitor," Wilson says. "I was going out and using the equipment and winning matches with it.
"Like racing, you went [to a match] on Sunday and sell product on Monday. If I won a match with a gun I built, then other people would say 'Well, build me one.'"
It helps, friends and customers say, that Bill was and still is a very approachable guy. He doesn't wear jackets or ties, doesn't show any sign of ego and is unfailingly loyal and honest.
When Hackathorn met him at a competition, Wilson seemed like a "good ol' boy who built a pretty good business," Hackathorn says. "He came across as a typical Arkansas hillbilly. For Bill, getting dressed up is putting on clean blue jeans and a clean T-shirt. He wasn't overbearing or pretentious.
"He's actually a pretty humble guy. That's how it is when you come across the real deal, whether that's professional athletes or businessmen or heroes."
ALL IN THE FAMILY
As a child, Bill Wilson's after-school hours were filled with trekking the backwoods with Harris and hunting in the alfalfa fields of Berryville for groundhogs.
Wilson's parents owned a jewelry store on the Berryville city square, where his father spent his days in the back of the shop repairing watches. Since he was an only child, his parents expected Wilson to take over the shop when they retired.
"I was their only hope," Wilson says, chuckling. "It didn't work out."
He did give it a shot. Wilson graduated from high school in 1972 and went to work for his parents. The trouble was he couldn't get his mind off of guns and how to build a better one.
While he was working at Wilson's Jewelry, folks would send him their Colt .45 automatic pistols and Bill would customize them.
At his father's urging, he took more jeweler training courses, such as a watchmaking course in Oklahoma.
But he saw guns there, too.
"A lot of the skills for making clock parts and jewelry applied directly to working on guns," Wilson says. "So that training wasn't a total waste for me because a lot of those skills went right into the gun work."
As he started making a little money, Wilson began going on expeditions with professional hunters -- people, it turns out, with connections to big-name gunsmiths. They put Wilson in touch with Armand Swenson, the pioneer Swedish gunsmith who created the custom combat .45, and Jim Clark, a famed National Rifle Association bull's-eye pistol competitor and longtime gunsmith.
Swenson was on the verge of retirement and Clark specialized in a different market. Both became mentors to Wilson without thinking of him as a threat to their business.
In 1977, "we had the jewelry store and [opened] the gun shop two doors down," Wilson says. "But I put most of my interest in the gun shop and very little into the jewelry store."
He felt more confident, having a couple of guys he could call if he needed advice. Less than two years in, Wilson had to hire someone to help keep up with the demand. Before long, the gun operation was moved to the family farm, where it still resides.
The second, third, fourth and fifth people Wilson hired continue to work there, more than 30 years later -- only now surrounded by roughly 130 other employees.
Wilson felt the pressing need for more gun components in the early '80s. Those accessories -- triggers, magazines, grips and springs, for example -- make up more than half of sales today. By 1996, Wilson Combat had the resources to build the whole gun. The ever growing demand for parts and guns led the operation to grow into a larger machine shop in 2005, and there's a waiting list for most products.
For all its growth and many changes over the years, Wilson says he never expected his business to reach this level of success.
"I was just enjoying what we were doing and the fact that we were coming up with new stuff," he says. "Satisfying the customer ... if you bring out new stuff, quality stuff and take care of them, then business success just kind of follows. It just happens."
Wilson kept that customer service at the center of his vision and maintained his love of creating and tinkering (he's now head of new product development, while son Ryan runs daily operations). But he also had foresight.
"Bill's the classic example of the American dream, the guy with a humble background who had an idea to build a business," Hackathorn says. "He saw this national trend of concealed carry permits -- in the early '90s it wasn't a big thing -- but in the last 20 years, it's become huge. All walks of life and all venues are participating nowadays."
No matter how big his company grows, Wilson will always remember the feeling he had when he made enough business to start ordering gun springs in bulk. Ordering them 100 at a time gave Wilson a much needed discount, and it was a signal of success to come.
THRILL OF THE HUNT
With Ryan at the helm of Wilson Combat now, Wilson has more freedom to move around and focus on the research and development side. From his 10,000-acre ranch in North Texas, he has been working on an AR-15 carbine rifle, which will be released in January, and a 9 millimeter pistol to debut at the annual NRA show in May.
The flexibility has given him a chance to get to know his best customers better by hosting them a few times a year for wild hog hunts on his property.
"Bill is a fantastic hunter and a great teacher, if you'll pay attention," says Barbo, who attends each hog hunt. "He's really a hunter who runs a gun company so he can hunt. You've no idea the degree of his experience."
Wilson has hunted game all over the world -- New Zealand and Australia, Argentina, Turkey and nearly 30 trips to his all-time favorite hunting locale -- Africa. The spoils of his expeditions, elephant tusks and such, are all displayed in his trophy room. There are reminders of the time he killed a lion on the last day of a month-long safari, and when he hid under logs on the edge of a dropoff to escape a herd of elephants.
It's the adrenaline, the thrill of the chase, that keeps him out there hunting. And brings him home to reload.
"When you fire a shot at an elephant, all hell breaks loose," Wilson says, a twinkle in his eye. "You never know which direction they're going to run."
High Profile on 11/22/2015