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A collage of hunters with their kills using Torre Rifle Company bullets

About Torre Rifle Company

Torre Rifle Company actually started part time in 1980 as Whitetail Gun Shop. Harold Torre was then employed full time by IBM as a tool maker. 

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Whitetail Gun Shop’s primary workload was gunsmithing, specializing in lightweight hunting rifles. 

 

A scope mount that was detachable and incorporated a flip up peep sight was designed and manufactured by Whitetail Gun Shop and marketed as the Whitetail Mount. 

Harold and Justin Torre standing in the woods displaying two buck's heads

In 1990 the decision was made to go full time in the gun shop business and Harold (nickname Bonhomme) resigned from IBM in March of that year. ​

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After leaving IBM, in addition to gunsmithing Bonhomme took on commercial machining work from area businesses and began hiring employees. Eventually Whitetail Gun Shop became Whitetail Manufacturing. In 1999 Whitetail Manufacturing successfully completed auditing for a Quality Management System AS9100 that was a requirement for the Aerospace Industry. By now there were 19 employees manufacturing parts for aerospace and the custom gunsmithing business went on hold. The aerospace business continued to grow and in 2010 Bonhomme sold the business and decided to retire to his farm and the maple sugaring business that his son Justin was building.

 

During that time Bonhomme had set up some machines in a barn and began designing a lightweight hunting rifle. Because of his interest in rifles and hunting, Justin began learning the trade and helped with the design of the rifle. In addition, he took classes in solid modeling and programming. Torre Rifle Company was born in 2017 when a storm wiped out our sugar woods and Justin became a full-time partner in the rifle company.

Inspecting bullets for quality

The rifle business was not enough to keep us busy, so Justin wanted to solicit for some commercial work. Again, we became busy with commercial machining and the rifle took a back seat. In 2020 Bonhomme wanted to try his hand at bullet manufacturing.

 

Various methods were used. Deep drawn copper cups were first formed on dies and presses and lead cores swaged together (cup & core) to form expanding bullets. Impact extrusion formed all copper (monolithic) bullets with controlled expansion. 

 

A Swiss Turn Lathe was purchased along with specialized software and a process combining the different technologies was developed.

 

The bullets that we now produce are a product of Bonhomme’s design and Justin’s ability to bring them into manufacturing production. 

 

Torre Rifle Company is now committed to manufacturing a complete line of hunting and match grade bullets.

Precision bullets manufactured in Milton, Vermont

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