The origin of ATO
There’s got to be a gene for it someplace. All four of us clearly have it. We are gun nerds pure and simple. When we were in kindergarten we were the kids who took our Play-Doh, fashioned it into a gun shape, and then carried it outside onto the playground to hunt imaginary rhinos. You could still do that back then. As we grew up the addiction just never got any better.
It was our common faith that initially brought us together. When first we embarked upon this grand adventure we unanimously agreed that ours would be an enterprise devoted to glorifying Christ. Our logo, the cross between the A and the O, represents Jesus Christ as the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is the only thing that makes sense of this weird old world. We make no excuses. We don’t hide it under a bush. It’s plastered across the side of everything we make.
I’m Will, and I just like to type. I’m a Mechanical Engineer, and I’ve written for gun magazines for more than a quarter century. Dale, Durward, and Brian are the smart ones. They literally grew up in the machine shop. Dale built his first reloading machine from scratch when he was twelve. Brian conjures ballistic art in the digital realm and translates it into steel and aluminum. Durward is the sensible leavening influence. He keeps us from going broke.
Each of us dreamt of the day when we could design and build stuff like this for real. It’s still a pretty awe-inspiring experience to conjure something bold, fresh, and new and then take it out behind the shop for a test fire. Every rifle, suppressor, ditzel, and widget is as refined and mechanically elegant as we can make it. Our cans are modeled after jet turbine engines. Our rifles shoot unnaturally straight.
We build our rifles like lives depend upon them. The standard is perfection, and there is a little bit of our souls crammed into each and every one. Anybody with a driver’s license can stroll into their local box store and buy a deer rifle that will group inside a jelly jar lid at a football field. If you want to make a first shot kill on a tangerine at 700 meters then come talk to us.
Advanced Tactical Ordnance is relentless innovation, four lifetimes’ worth of experience, state of the art equipment, and uncompromising tribute to the God who spoke the universe into existence. We’re just four gun guys fortunate enough to turn an avocation into something more. Thanks for dropping by. Y’all have a great day.
-Will Dabbs, MD
The ATO Team
Eric: Assembly Manager, Product Testing, Research & Development Specialist
Colton: Assembly Specialist, Product Testing, Salesman
Harrison Davis (hdavis@ato-us.com): Website Designer/Manager, Social Media Manager, Sales Manager-Southeast Region US.
Bill Davis (bill@ato-us.com): Sales Manager-Southwest Region US
Brian Davis, CEO. email: (bdavis@ato-us.com)