Precision Commercial Parts Manufacturing

By 2017, avid marksman Dave Pobutkiewicz was frustrated with conventional stabilizer products on the market for long-range recreational and competitive shooting. To consistently strike targets at extreme distances requires accounting for complex ballistics and atmospheric effects, plus disciplined trigger control and breathing. But even with mastery of all this, sharpshooters rely on highly sophisticated gun assemblies that can be finetuned to the most minute adjustments. Years of using bulky, expensive front rests and unreliable wobbly monopods inspired Pobutkiewicz to seek a better solution.

Armed with decades of experience in the fabrication industry, and having grown up with a father who ran a tool and die shop out of their basement when he was a kid, Pobutkiewicz went to the drawing board in his own shop. The goal was to design a lightweight rear vertical adjustment tool that could be paired with a standard front bipod up for precision shooting.

After developing a prototype and several years of fine tuning, he released the patent-pending Adjustable Bag Rider (ABR™) and launched a new company – Long Shot Precision – to sell the product nationally.

Pobutkiewicz started with ABRs for the Ruger Precision Rifle and now offers them and other support products for more than two dozen rifle chasses. He touts the ABR’s stainless steel thumb wheel, encased in premium Delrin thrust washers, as offering intuitive, effortless adjustments with unparalleled strength and stability. Six years into the venture, his company’s website is filled with testimonials from a long list of customers who are winning awards and setting world records with the ABRs. There is also a growing movement among recreational shooters to post videos of their ABR success on social media.

After a failed attempt to secure a reliable producer at the start of his venture, Pobutkiewicz found UTRS Advanced Manufacturing (UTRS AM) –  known as Hunter Manufacturing Services at the time – through an online search and took some sample parts to their facility during a visit. When it became clear UTRS AM was a good fit for the work, Pobutkiewicz began using UTRS AM to produce aluminum components for a majority of the products he sells.

“This is an intricate process with tight tolerances,” he said. “There is no play, it’s like a Swiss watch. This has turned out to be a good relationship.”

Making ABRs for Long Shot Precision showcases the ability of UTRS AM to perform contract manufacturing, both in terms of volume and precision.

UTRS AM provides the expertise to program the machines and the tending robot – while holding a 5/10^th tolerance (a very high precision of five ten-thousandths of an inch) – and performs engineering assistance when design changes need to be made prior to production.

“We’re essentially an extension of his business,” Ouellette said.