S&H Arms – Small Arms Review

INTERVIEW WITH CURTIS HIGGINS OF S&H ARMS OF OK, INC.

SAR Staff — Mon, 01 Jul 2002 01:30:01 +0000

By Matt Smith

Above: Curtis Higgins holding an S&H factory clone of an MP-5SD SMG.

SAR: Curtis, tell us about your background.

CURTIS: I grew up in Kansas on a farm. I’ve always liked guns, but never knew much about them as I grew up. I went to Vocational College in Pittsburg, Kansas, and took machine shop and welding. I’ve been a machinist for the last thirty-seven years and in the tool and dye business for the last twenty years.

SAR: When did you get into the firearms industry?

CURTIS: In 1986, I formed a partnership with Tom Seslar, who had the idea to build autosears. Tom had limited funding at the time, so I put up some money and we became partners. Tom had a previous partner, Ed Hyde, with whom he formed S & H Manufacturing. Ed was no longer in business with Tom when he and I formed our partnership. Tom and I also had worked together at American Airlines before he quit there to open a pawn shop. Initially, we operated under Tom’s Class III license at the pawn shop, and eventually we got a license together. We worked together until 1989, when Tom moved to Arkansas. He kept the name S & H Manufacturing, while I began S & H Arms of Oklahoma, Incorporated. In addition to the gun business, which I work during the day, I have continued to work the night shift for American Airlines.

SAR: How did the idea for the H & K autosear come about?

CURTIS: Back when Tom and Ed were in business together, they use to work a lot of gun shows selling suppressor parts and drop in AR autosears. After the ruling in 1981, the AR autosears were considered machine guns. Tom had the idea to manufacture HK autosears, register them, and sell them as machine guns.

SAR: Who actually came up with the design?

CURTIS: We basically copied the HK design with some minor alterations. The sears we made went into a different place in the lower and would not fit in a factory full auto gun. Bill Fleming was also converting HK’s on registered receivers with a similar conversion sear made out of heat-treated tool steel. Our sears were investment cast in order to speed up the manufacturing process.

SAR: Did you have any problems registering the autosears?

CURTIS: Yes, because up to this point we had not been manufacturing anything in volume. Just before the machine gun ban went into effect, we manufactured and registered hundreds of sears. Two days after the law changed, we had an ATF inspection to see if we physically had the autosears on hand. Once the sears had been cast, there was still some machine work to be done to complete the manufacturing. The ATF even made a visit to our casting contractor to make sure that they were not giving us a finished product as they were not a licensed manufacturer. Another problem we had was trying to get the casting contractor to cast our sears during the five weeks we had before the law took effect. We kept asking them to run them, but they kept putting us off. We finally went up to talk to them and I took a silver dollar out of my pocket and gave it to the shop foreman. I told him to put it in his pocket and every time he felt or saw it, he was to think about running our parts. It took seven days from start to finish for the investment casting process. They made a wax master part and dipped it in a ceramic slurry, like they’re making a candle. It took seven days for that to set up, and then they poured our parts. They could put up to 50 or 100 on a tree, and several trees on a pour. So, seven days after I gave him the silver dollar, we had our parts. We made close to 2000 sears, before the ban, using the casting method. Fleming and Qualified Shooter Supply were making their stamped sheet metal HK sears at the same time, although we didn’t know it until later.

SAR: How about the FNC sears?

CURTIS: The FNC sears were machined out of sheet metal and then heat- treated. We were the only ones to manufacture and register these sears, and I still have some of these available. If a customer wants to have his FNC converted with one of my sears, it costs $1600 plus $35 for shipping and handling. This includes the installation and remarking of the trigger housing. I won’t sell the sears by themselves. We also manufactured 10/22 sears before the ban. These were made similarly to the HK sears as castings, which we later machined.

SAR: When did you start to manufacturing silencers?

CURTIS: At about the same time, but we weren’t able to do many of them because of the time factor. That’s when I encouraged John Tibbetts to get started in the suppressor business. I even sent him my design on the .22 suppressors, as he was a good friend. John set up his own business, did his own advertising, and now has a full line of his own excellent suppressors. I continue to manufacture the suppressed Rugers including the .22 Mark II pistol, 10/22 rifle, and 77/22 rifle. I also do an MP-5 9mm silencer.

SAR: Are your MP-5 silencers integral or muzzle cans?

CURTIS: Actually, I do both. Both cans have the same diameter, but the muzzle can is shorter at 8 and 3/4 inches with the integral SD can at twelve inches long. My SD suppressor is very close to the factory suppressor. I put the same amount of holes in the barrel, which is the same length as the factory barrel. I also build the rubber hand guards and metal hand guard cages for the SD. I don’t pull the barrels out of the receiver when I work on the guns, unless I absolutely have to for some other reason. I have built fixtures that go onto the receivers, which allow me to chuck up the whole assembly in the mill or lathe for required machine work. Pulling a barrel is time consuming, requires re-head spacing the firearm, and some barrels are screwed in so tight you run the risk of torquing the receiver when attempting to remove them.

SAR: Can you tell us about your machine shop?

CURTIS: With my recent addition, it is now 4000 square feet. As far as equipment, I have two Bridgeport mills, three lathes, a heli-arc welder and a lot of supporting equipment to go with it.

SAR: What kind of welding do you do?

CURTIS: I weld up the HK’s to re-identify them, put on the paddle mag release, and change the model numbers as needed. I have special tooling for all this, to make sure I don’t melt through the sheet metal on the top of the HK’s. I fill in the old model numbers with weld, machine them down, and steel stamp the receivers in a fixture with a new designation. I have different stamps for the MP-5, MP-5K, MP-5 SD, and the HK-33 and -53. For the paddle mag release, the ATF won’t allow you to put the hole all the way through on these guns, so once you put the hole in for the paddle, you have to weld it back up. The hole can’t go all the way through the receiver, so it ends up just being a partial hole through one side.

SAR: What other services do you provide?

CURTIS: I do restoration and refinishing work on guns, as well as gunsmithing to fix HK’s that aren’t running right. I don’t do HK 51’s or 53K’s. I only work on models that the H & K factory makes. I will also rebuild suppressors, including those made by other manufacturers.

SAR: Do you have any new products that you can tell us about?

CURTIS: Yes, I am getting ready to build a run of suppressed .44 Magnum rifles based on the very successful suppressor I used previously on the Marlin Camp Carbine .45 rifle. This run will include some of the lever action 96/44 Ruger rifles and eventually some bolt-action 77/44’s.

SAR: Curtis, thanks for taking time to share your history with our readers.

CURTIS: You’re welcome.

S & H Arms of OK, Inc.
P. O. Box 121
Owasso, OK 74055
PH (918) 272-9894
FAX (918) 272-9898

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V5N11 (August 2002)

DLO Manufacturing Production Numbers

SAR Staff — Sat, 01 Sep 2001 01:36:01 +0000

By Dan Shea

There have been four basic “Waves” of Special Occupational Taxpayers (SOT) since the National Firearms Act of 1934. While dealers may have come into the business at similar times, this description does not categorize them with other SOTs from the same era, this is simply to put some familiar names into a time perspective.

The “First Wave” was the few SOTs from 1934 to the early 1970s- J. Curtis Earl, William Vallerand, Military Armament Corporation and Dolf Goldsmith would be examples from that era. The “Second Wave” would include up to around 1982 or so- including AWC (Doc Dater), DLO Manufacturing, Jonathan Arthur Ciener, Reed Knight, Law Enforcement Ordnance Co, Bob Landies, LMO, Kent Lomont, RPB, SWD, and many others. The “Third Wave” was a major influx of dealers and manufacturers that happened in 1982-1988. Many familiar names came into the business at that time, including AWC Systems Technology, Fleming Firearms, S&H Arms, Catco and F.J. Volmer. Many of the 4500 SOTs in that period dropped their SOT status when in January 1988 we were all assessed a new tax level- from $200 per year to $500 per year, and we were billed mid year. In the following year, SOTs dropped to around 2000. The “Fourth Wave” occurred in the years from 1988 to date- it has been a cycle of new dealers and manufacturers coming in and going out, with a few sticking around for the long term. Like any other business, the Class 3 community has a turn over rate as people’s ideas either work, or don’t work, based on their reception in the marketplace.

DLO Manufacturing (Douglas Lawrence Oefinger) was a Class 2 manufacturer from the “Second Wave” of Class 2. DLO employed 2 workers other than Doug for approximately 4 years. Doug Oefinger’s contributions to the Class 3 community have been impressive. He has a somewhat combative personality and sticks up for his beliefs at all levels- and is quick to point out that to this date, he has proven his points. I have been friends with Doug for many years, and have interviewed him several times in relation to the laws that we deal with every day.

In a conversation some time ago, I suggested that the production numbers of various Class 2 manufacturers who impacted on the Class 3 community would be of great interest to SAR’s readers, and good for our historical record. Doug agreed, and he gave us his production numbers- approximates, to keep the records “Right”.

In the hopes of inspiring the rest of the Class 2s to do likewise, SAR presents the DLO Manufacturing production amounts.

All numbers are approximate, and came from Doug Oefinger as such; he did a general count, not a full item-by-item count. One other item of note, is that Doug has a longstanding Buyback Policy- DLO will purchase their machine guns back at the full price that a machine gun was purchased from DLO, once it has been three years since it was purchased from them. This is on a case by case basis, with the current NFA legal structure.

The transferable machine guns were manufactured from 1977 to 1986.

Transferable machine guns manufactured by DLO.

65 Water cooled Browning blued Commercial covering both the N.E. Westinghouse and Remington marked guns. These were Belgian Rust Blued by hand.

150 1917A1 Water Cooled Brownings, with either a bronze or steel trunion and end cap. Parkerized finish, 30-06 only.

65 MG-40 Browning machine guns- parkerized, mostly in 30-06, a few in 8mm. These were Colt Commercials originally in 7mm, bored to 30-06, and found in the UK in the early 1980s.

20 M37 Browning machine guns, all in 30-06. Ten were made for the Mini-Series “Amerika” with right hand feeds to mimic Soviet beltfeds. Ten were made for a commercial contract.

635 1919A4 Browning machine guns, all parkerized, 30-06 and 308 caliber.

4 M2 .50 caliber Browning machine guns, parkerized, welded up in the late 1970s.

25 Uzi submachine guns, all registered receiver conversions, Parkerized, 9mm. These registered receivers were converted by removing the semi auto receiver rail/ block, most had IMI Open bolts, a few had the semi auto bolts converted to open bolt.

1000 Sten MKII submachine guns, 9mm, all parkerized. Some left DLO suppressed, and almost all had loop style stocks, a few had tube/ tee stocks.

60 AK Registered Receiver conversions of both stamped and milled receivers, all 7.62×39 caliber

10 AK Registered Trigger packs. Serial Numbers AK01-AK10. These were disallowed at first, then Technology Branch ATF accepted them, as installed in host firearms.

10 Soviet SVT to SVT Automatics (Select fire), with wide trigger guards.

2 MG08 Maxim guns.

1 MG08/15 Maxim gun.

250 Conversions, assorted, all makes and models. This number also includes registered Short Barreled Rifles, Short Barreled Shotguns, Smooth Bored Pistols, AOWs.

Pre-86 Dealer Sample machine guns imported by DLO:

4 L4A1 “Bren” reworked, new in 308 caliber, done in the mid 1980s

75 AKM-56-1 Chinese export models, imported 1980-81. Underfolders with Chinese characters on the selector, and British Nitro proofing.

Post-86 Dealer Sample machine guns imported by DLO:

14 MG40 Colt manufacture, 30-06 caliber, government contract

Suppressors manufactured by DLO

300 Sten Suppressors

100 Uzi suppressors

Some prototypes, including a 1919 suppressor that was 3 1/2’ long

Semi Autos manufactured by DLO

40 1919A4

20 1917A1

2 M37

This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V4N12 (September 2001)