A visit to Crimson Trace

I had the chance to visit the headquarters of  Crimson Trace earlier this week and take a tour of their factory and armory. I have used Crimson Trace products for a number of years, and have had one on a primary defensive revolver for about a decade.

The first thing that impressed me was the nature of the office and factory area (almost all of the manufacturing of the product is done in the main building, including the actual construction of the laser diodes themselves!). The atmosphere was busy, but not hectic and casually friendly. Everyone there seemed to have plenty to do, but not seemed particularly stressed out. Several employees told me that this atmosphere was a direct result of Lew Danielson’s leadership and style. I

Almost all of the assembly and construction of Crimson Trace products is done at their facility outside of Portland, Oregon.

have met Lew at various industry events and always found him to be a good guy as well. In fact, in 2007, when I won the Range of the Year award, Crimson Trace received the Company of Year award and we shared a table at the ceremony and had a great time.

One of the things that the visit to the armory reminded me of was that the original Crimson Trace product was actually a very sophisticated laser sight that was literally built into Glock Autopistols by Lew Himself… one at time for each customer. The laser system cost more than the gun, but it was a pretty slick solution. Of course, since then, Crimson Trace products have become a bit more convenient to install and remained a slick solution to mounting a laser to a defensive firearm.

I took the opportunity to speak with Travis Notebloom, CTC’s Director of Public Relations about the products in a short video clip, which you can see here, at YouTube.

Top: Crimson Trace's first laser product. Below: One of their newest, The Laser Guard.

If you aren’t familiar with Crimson Trace’s product line, check out their website!

-RJP