a history of SportcoPart 1 by Gary Fleetwood orn in the western suburbs of Ade- Warne now live in Portland, Oregon, and Early in the war, Jack left BTM and started laide in 1923, Jack Warne decided recently gave the SSAA an opportunity to work in Adelaide at the Pirie Street prem- at the age of 14 to manage his own share the history of Australia’s greatest ises of Arrow Motor Company. He used his business. What type of business Jack sporting firearm manufacturer, Sporting welding skills to fit charcoal gas converters B Arms Company. had not decided but there was little doubt on vehicles. Being in a protected industry, by those who knew Jack Warne’s father took his young family Jack was not eligible for the draft and it was this energetic and to the small rural town of Kimba on South during this time that he met fellow Arrow ambitious young Australia’s vast Eyre Peninsula and estab- Motors employee Kevin Koch, a very capa- man that some- lished his barber shop. Young Jack spent ble mechanic and welder. Both young men thing special many days hunting kangaroos with his decided to leave Arrow Motors and they was going to father’s French single-shot .22 rifle and established Koch and Warne (KW), manu- happen. although an understanding of firearms was facturing tricycles and other tube products Jack and entrenched at an early age, Jack had no idea in the old Angas Street premises of Simpson Marjorie that his life would eventually see him design and Co. and manufacture firearms on a scale KW made the bicycle seats, hitherto not seen in the springs and frames for their tricy- Australian sporting cles and soon progressed to manufacture market. their own wheels for this very popular item on a self-manufactured rim-rolling machine. Spending time Tens of thousands of KW tricycles were sold as a builder’s assistant, Australia-wide to a market that was void of then, at the age of 17, driv- consumable items at the end of World War ing trucks between Adelaide, II. KW soon also manufactured an air rifle, Kimba and the rural properties in copied from an original Daisy they had the state’s far north, Jack eventually acquired. It became obvious that sales of took a job with British Tube Mills these cheap rifles were limited by the avail- (BTM) in Adelaide. He was placed in ability of pellets, so the company began to the metallurgy laboratories as an assis- manufacture their own from reclaimed lead tant and soon developed an excellent knowl- sourced from a secondhand dealer on Port edge of the processes involved with tube Road at Alberton. steel manufacture and the characteristics Jack designed a rolling mill to flatten out of metals involved in industry. His time at sheets of lead to the correct thickness and BTM reinforced Jack’s desire to set up his the pellets were stamped out in their mil- own manufacturing plant and encouraged lions. This capacity to overcome the logis- him to complete his high school studies at tical shortcomings of the postwar years the School of Mines in Adelaide. developed the company into quite a success- ful enterprise. This Angas Street property is Jack Warne with his beloved ‘Huntsman’ single-shot .22LR rifle. also the location where Sporting Arms Com- 66 Australian Shooter A HISTORY OF SPORTCO pany was also eventually established before blueing salts for the KW air rifles, advised that KW purchased their Pirie Street property they also supplied SAF Lithgow. A hurried trip from Freeman Motors for the princely sum of to Sydney resulted in being driven in a ‘fancy’ £30,000. This Pirie Street building has since Buick through the Blue Mountains to SAF been demolished and is the location of the Lithgow where the 25-year-old entrepreneurs Australian Red Cross Blood Centre today. were introduced to the barrel shop manager. The manufacture of the tricycles required They arrived back in Adelaide with the infor- the procurement of a rubber product manu- mation required to commence the manufac- factured by South Australian Rubber Mills ture of quality barrels for the Australian sport- (SARM) called ‘pram cord’, which was used on ing market. the steel rims of the wheels. It was through KW purchased machinery at a postwar sur- this liaison with SARM that Jack Warne met an Left to right: Sportco chief designer, Fred Gray, sales plus sale from the Hendon ammunition plant extroverted Irish man named Jack O’Flaherty, representative Don Stuart, Jack Warne and Don and, using their engineering and welding Fleetwood share a beer at a Christmas function at SARM’s sales manager, and an avid hunter, Sporting Arms. skills, the men adapted bargain-priced machin- firearm collector and competitive shooter. ery to produce barrels. Skilled tradesmen Jack Warne’s earlier experiences with hunt- jectiles and was a key player in the develop- were employed to operate the tool-making ing were rekindled by this association and he, ment and supply of quality projectiles for this equipment used to manufacture and maintain O’Flaherty, and Koch spent time on hunting and other new cartridges. It did not take KW the drills, reamers and cutters. The first few expeditions together. long to identify that the only missing com- months began the learning curve of experi- O’Flaherty was one of the many sporting modity in the postwar resurgence of use of ence, which involved among other problems, shooters who converted .303 SMLE rifles to sporting firearms was quality barrels suitable overcoming the fact that the drill sometimes .303/22 calibre in the postwar era for use in the for the high-velocity cartridges used in SMLE came out of the side of the barrel blank. Sev- field on soft-skinned game. At this time, South conversions. eral more trips to friends in SAF Lithgow saw Australian Ray Cully was reloading cases for Jack was aware that the Small Arms Factory these teething problems fixed and a smooth the new .303/22 calibre, which he sold under (SAF) at Lithgow was still manufacturing qual- production facility established, with four bar- the name of ‘Sprinter’, and the market for this ity barrels and they were perhaps an excellent rels an hour being produced. calibre and the conversion grew enormously. source of information he required for the tech- Not long after the barrel-making facility was Sid Churches, one of Australia’s earliest man- niques of barrel production. The problem was established, KW was approached by clothes- ufacturers of modern ammunition projectiles, how to get that information. Fortune smiled line manufacturer Hills Hoist that wished to was developing, also at this time, his Cudmore upon KW when contacts within Sydney-based purchase tubing products at a cheaper price Park company under the name of Taipan Pro- Steel Improvement Company, which supplied than from BTM. Unable to supply the quantity > ADI REPEAT JUNE 2005 YOU HAVE ON FILE Australian Shooter 67 A HISTORY OF SPORTCO that Hills Hoist required, both partners gave The Sporting Arms Company factory had consideration to selling their tube mill facil- its share of visiting ity to Hills Hoist. It was this business deci- dignitaries - this visit sion that saw the partnership of Kevin Koch in 1968 by the then and Jack Warne come to an amicable end, with Governor of South Australia, Lieutenant Kevin continuing on in the tube manufacture General Sir Edric Bastyan. business in his own Adelaide workshop, and From left to right: Jack moving towards establishing the Sporting Sportco finance director Bill Langman, Lady Arms Company. Bastyan, Jack Warne, Sir Jack was soon involved in a business oppor- Edric Bastyan, and barrel- tunity that saw Sportco well on its way in the maker Gordon Myles. firearms manufacturing industry in Australia. The Australian Government put up for tender some 40,000 BSA and Wesley Richards .310 Martini Cadet rifles, and Jack was aware of their potential for sale to Australian shoot- ers converted to the popular .22 Hornet and .22LR calibres. Approaching ‘old money’ friends within Adelaide for financial assis- tance, Jack won the tender and soon had truck loads of crated .310 rifles being driven from the Sydney defence warehouse to Ade- laide. This opportunity was compounded by an approach from failed bidder Golden State Arms in Los Angeles, which offered Jack a considerable amount for half of the rifles. These were shipped still in their Australian Government crates direct to the US after the agreed amount ‘was wired through to the bank in Adelaide’. It was at this time that Sporting Arms also 68 Australian Shooter A HISTORY OF SPORTCO The original staff terribly successful. The later Model 2 semi- of Sporting Arms Company outside automatic was redesigned to have a 10- or the Pirie Street 5-round box magazine and, with other minor factory in the modifications, had a good reputation as a early 1950s. reliable, sturdy and accurate firearm. During the mid-1950s, the opportunity came to purchase surplus machinery from SAF Lithgow when production of the new FN FAL (L1A1) rifle was being contemplated. Jack went to Lithgow and purchased 15 mill- ing machines and other items to enhance the capacity of Sporting Arms, which had now moved to their 35,000 sq ft facility at 1185- 1187 South Road, Clovelly Park. This new factory was made possible by a government produced their first .22LR rifle, the single- machines were purchased from local com- loan instigated by State Premier Sir Thomas shot ‘Huntsman’, which had to compete with mercial outlets, while rose alder, myrtle and Playford, who is regarded to this day as Slazenger’s SAF Lithgow-manufactured 1A sycamore timber was eventually accessed being responsible for pushing South Austra- and 1B rifle.