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A Look Back

Since 1995

Sep 30, 2020 | Christensen Arms

Our story starts in the small town of Fayette, Utah – a neighboring city to our current home: Gunnison, Utah. In 1984 the rural town of Fayette was struggling economically and did not have many options for employment. The Christensen family took notice of this, and having always had a strong connection to the town they decided to move their operations to Fayette. Not only could they foster the growth of their company in this small town, but they could provide the much needed employment to the residents. It was a win-win! Their move to central Utah gave locals a reason to put their roots down and call Fayette home. 

There was always work to be done in Roland Christensen’s eyes: he was and is an innovator at heart, and recognized the usefulness of carbon fiber before just about any other industry you can think of. He decided to test out what all carbon fiber could be used for. No really, he is the Thomas Edison of carbon fiber products. Softball bats? Let’s make it out of carbon fiber. What about knife handles, golf club heads, and maybe arrows too? Done. Tried. Built. There was no shortage of products to experiment with and Roland tried them all, but one really stood out in 1993: the rifle barrel. A carbon fiber rifle barrel seemed crazy at the time, but a shop full of hunting and shooting enthusiasts had no problem pursuing the possibilities it held! Thankfully this lead to a breakout product in 1995 for the Christensen family – 22 LR rifles. In 1995 “Christensen Arms” was born with this product.

Between 1995 and 2003 a lot of growth occurred within the small company. And one huge change: they evolved from building 22 LR rifles to producing the first aerograde carbon fiber stock in the firearms industry in 2003. People were confused, amazed, and most of all – very, very curious. This would be the beginning of Christensen Arms development of handcrafting rifle stocks. The success of the “hunter” rifle Christensen Arms began developing would lead to the company outgrowing their home in Fayette. With the immense recognition received nationally they needed to move into a larger facility that was able to keep up with the always evolving line of firearms and inventions coming from Roland and the team. This would lead the company to moving to its current home in 2009: Gunnison, Utah. This move would also be when the new logo was introduced as seen below.

Following the move to Gunnison, a lot of big steps were made that would further solidify Christensen Arms’ newly found respect and admiration in the firearms industry. There was not a year taken off! In 2009 the first AR platform rifle, the CA-15 would launch. In 2010 the first receivers made in house would go out on Christensen rifles such as the “classic”. In 2013 our first 1911 handgun would release. We were full speed ahead, making huge advancements in firearms every year and becoming more and more known for a variety of high-end and handcrafted products.

2017 would be one of the most significant years in the history of Christensen Arms with the release of the Modern Precision Rifle. It was perfect timing as this would also be the first year that distributors would pick up our products, and when they had the MPR in hand they knew it would change the firearm industry forever. If only they knew that 3 years later it would be the NRA rifle of the year for 2020! And that leads us to today. It marks 25 years of hard work, and a whole lot of fun. Without you we would have nothing to celebrate this month.

“Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for taking us to 25 years and continue to keep building a great American brand.” – Roland, Julia, and Jason Christensen.