Barrett Firearms Manufacturing

Ronnie Barrett was a photographer with no engineering training when he designed a shoulder-fired rifle for the .50 Browning machine gun cartridge in his garage, and founded a company in 1982 to build it. No army had asked for one. The M82 found its first customers abroad, entered US service after 1990, and created a class of weapon — the anti-materiel rifle — that had not previously existed as a category. The company was acquired by the Australian contractor NIOA in 2023 and still manufactures in Tennessee.