The increased focus of Lithgow Arms on civilian rifles has become of major part of the Australian factory’s business, providing steady and profitable business for the company between military and police contracts.
Australia has been producing firearms since 1912, and even today you can buy a world-class hunting or target rifle made in the same factory that built the SMLEs equipping the Anzacs during WWI and WWII.
Lithgow Arms produces and overhauls firearms for military and law enforcement use, but those contracts aren’t constant, which means the factory can also produce hunting and target rifles made to the same standards, on the same machinery.
The obvious beneficiaries of this are Australian hunters and shooters, who can own a world-class Australian-made firearm — a precious commodity, especially in an era when fewer and fewer products are produced here!
The modern Lithgow Arms brand was established in 2014 but is based in the same Lithgow, NSW factory site where SMLE rifles, Bren guns, Vickers guns, L1A1 SLR rifles and F88 Austeyr rifles were produced.
Lithgow Arms continues that heritage today with its line of hunting and target shooting rifles, as well as the Australian Defence Force’s current F90 rifle and other weapons.
The company recently held an industry event, which Sporting Shooter attended, providing a look at the company’s refreshed product range along with a tour of the factory where the guns are made.
Lithgow is now moving strongly on the back of its new distribution partnership with TSA Outdoors, running the tagline Accurate, Reliable, Australian Made.
Lithgow Arms rifles really are Australian made — they’re not just assembled from parts made overseas. Pretty much every part of the rifles — including actions, barrels and most stocks — is made in Australia, much of it at the Lithgow Arms factory nestled in the NSW Blue Mountains town the company takes its name from.
The chrome-moly steel barrels are hammer-forged at Lithgow, the actions and bolts are made at Lithgow, and all the parts are heat-treated in a newly constructed facility there.
Most of the hunting rifle magazines are made at Lithgow, while the magazines for the LA102 Varmint rifle are made by Grizzly Magazines in Sydney.
Modern computer-controlled systems are an integral part of the production process, overseen by skilled Australian staff, including a number of apprentices learning the trade.
The latest addition to the facility is a heat-treating and coating facility, enabling Lithgow actions and barrels etc to be hardened and coated on-site.
Interestingly, every firearm Lithgow Arms makes undergoes CIP-standard proof testing, conducted just like the proofing undertaken by the European proof houses such as in Birmingham in the UK, St Etienne in France, Prague in the Czech Republic, and Eibar in Spain.
By way of demonstration of the “accurate” part of the tagline, several demonstration rifles — including the LA102 Outback in .308, the LA102 Varmint in .204 Ruger, and the LA105 Woomera in 6.5mm Creedmoor — were set up at the Lithgow range with ZeroTech scopes and put through their paces.
Every rifle shot extremely well and, to pick one example, the LA105 Woomera was consistently hitting a target the size of a mandarin at 550m.
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