About a week ago I dropped by Blade-Tech to pick up  holster. Their customer service is stellar and they had the holster done (at no charge) in a day, even cutting it to custom length for me. Anyway, you can read the details here: http://fortreg.com/firearms/?p=2149. But, this is about the tour...

Blade-Tech kindly offered to give me a factory tour which I gladly took them up on. For those that don't know Blade-Tech is located in Puyallup, WA (kind of between Seattle and Tacoma).

I was first struck by the size of the facility. I parked and walked up to a building marked BladeTech.  That was the first suite which was not retail accessible. I kept walking...and walking...about four suite lengths. That's when it dawned on me--The whole strip  was Blade-Tech! They have grown quite a bit since they first opened up Lakewood, WA!

They currently occupy approximately 30K square feet. They were literally expanding (knocking out walls, etc)  into 45K as I took the tour with eyes on expanding even more. If you were thinking that they are a small shop, you would be wrong!

I didn't realize it, but they have two knife divisions and a fire safety equipment division. They build soft goods, for example fire extinguisher carriers.

Speaking of soft goods, they are expand that line into the vest/armor carrier market! Think Tactical Tailor type gear.

Back to the tour...

I saw an injection mold machine used for their Revolution line of holsters.  It uses little plastic pellets that are shaped/sized like wood stove pellets. I think they said there are two.

I was lucky enough to be there while the Kydex mold machine (sorry, not sure what it is actually called) was running. I will try and explain it as best I remember. It runs two molds at once.

Basically there are Kydex sheets of different thickness depending on what they are making. Interesting, because I have noticed that some of their competitors only use one thickness. Logically, Blade-Tech's IWB holsters are thinner than a level III duty holster. I didn't count, but there were at least three different sizes.

So, these sheets are placed into ovens and heated up. The pistol  molds  are placed on top of two separate vacuums. These molds have tiny holes in them. The heated sheets are placed on top of the mold and the vacuum basically sucks them onto the shape of the molds!

Several large blowers then cool the roughly formed holsters. If you pictured someone with a hair dryer to heat the Kydex to mold it and then a fan to cool it off, you have the right concept, just not nearly on the same scale or technology.

From the holsters are checked by hand. Actually, let me just mention that I was genuinely surprised at how much a Blade-Tech holster is made by hand. It then goes to a person that actually puts a mold of the firearm to finish fitting. After that it goes to a person that puts the mounting hardware in, and then finally off to a QC person.

I would be very surprised if someone ever gets a holster that their pistol doesn't fit in.

Speaking of molds! This was my favorite part of the tour. Row and rows and rows and rows of stacks of molds of pistols! While I was there I spied a mold for a S&W 4566. I see an order being placed shortly. In case you couldn't tell I was really impressed with the number of molds they have. They also do flashlights, multitools, and revolver speed loaders.

I seriously doubt that anyone in the industry has more molds than Blade-Tech does.

I asked why the Blade-Tech website did not list all the holster/pistol combinations that I know they have. For example, the traditional belt holster has a huge list of selectable pistols (like the 4566), but if you go to the Eclipse it is quite a bit shorter (no 4566).

Regarding this, there are a couple things to point out:

1. There is a new website coming out and the current one is incomplete for all of the molds they have. If you call customer service they do have a full list. (They do have a toll free number too.)
2. They haven't made molds for all of the holster combinations they could possibly make. In other words they probably have not made  an Eclipse for a S&W 4566, although they can.
3. They plan on offering the Eclipse for everything they have in the standard belt line. Unfortunately, they are not the same mold so they have make it.
4. The Revolution holsters use completely different molds and they are VERY cost prohibitive. I wouldn't count on the list of supported pistols to expand greatly. They will probably only have/get molds for the most popular pistols (so, no 4566).

I asked about turn around time. They are currently at 5 weeks. This is in line with a lot of Kydex holster makers. They were actually embarassed - they had prided themselves that they until recently had a 1 -2 week turnaround previously. They are currently running 3 shifts a day including weekends to get caught up!

Now, order back logs might raise concern that QC could suffer, especially as employees work increased/more shifts. However, I was surprised and impressed that everyone there seemed to be happy--from customer service, to sales, to Kydex molder, fork lift driver, etc.  Definitely a sign of a good company.

So--great products, superior variety of pistols molds, exemplary customer service and they have happy employees? Blade-Tech is  definitely doing things right.