PARA Exits Tactical Rifle Market

posted on October 5, 2011
ii2015_fs.jpg

This is a story about guns and motorcycles, but it has nothing to do with the Hell’s Angels’. It’s a story about a rifle that begins in the last century in Aldo’s Harley-Davidson shop in Massachusetts and, now, ends another chapter at PARA USA’s factory in North Carolina.

The rifle is the LR-300, an innovative conversion of an AR-15 to a novel operating system. The LR rifle (for Long Range) is the brainchild of Alan Zitta, a blunt-spoken, chisel-jawed Harley rider who owns Aldo’s H-D shop. Zitta licensed the right to manufacture the LR-300 to PARA USA several years ago. PARA marketed the gun as the Tactical Target Rifle until last week, when it was announced that the maker of .45 caliber 1911 pistols will exit the rifle market. The reason: to focus on its core product, the legendary P14-45 pistol.

Thanos Polyzos, CEO of PARA, said, “PARA has some exciting new projects in development that will continue the innovation we started with the high-capacity P14-45 pistol. We want to bring these exciting new major caliber handguns to the firearms market and we need to focus our attention on them.”

Zitta has hoed a tough field with the LR-300 since it debuted in the mid-‘90s. Originally sold as an upper receiver kit to install on a customer’s AR lower, the LR-300’s main claim to fame is that it relocates the bolt carrier return spring into the fore-end, thus eliminating the receiver extension and allowing for a side-folding, collapsible stock.

The LR-300 also boasted a flat-top upper receiver with M1913 Picatinny rail slots for mounting electro-optics, a step ahead of the AR market that was only then discovering the M4. Zitta’s company, Z-M Weapons, marketed the LR-300 as an accessory (not as a complete gun) but it looked like the rifle would make the Big Leagues as a stand-along rifle when Para picked up the design.

It was not to be. Para’s Tactical Target Rifle was introduced in 2008. The rifle was expensive, approaching $3,000, and it was a hybrid—not quite a piston system and not a DGI (direct gas impingement, the traditional operating system of an AR). Production was delayed and by the time the wheels were rolling, the panic buying frenzy on 2008 and 2009had dissipated.

The timing was bad for another reason as well. Ted Szabo, PARA’s co-founder, had died in 2007 at the age of 60. It was an unexpected and devastating loss for the company as Ted had been the principal engineer and firearms designer. I don’t think my good friends at PARA would be insulted if I refer to Ted as the brains of the operation, for that’s what he was.

Without Ted to direct new product developments, taking on the LR-300 as PARA’s entry into the tactical rifle market was the only way (at the time) for the company to enter the market.

No one will ever replace Szabo, but in the ensuing four years, PARA has augmented its engineering team and is now focusing on its pistols. The LR-300 has thus fallen back to Zitta to try again. It’s a good rifle, but it might be “out there” for the average shooter to understand.

Latest

heavy machine gun crew with DShK on tripod pointing in air above trees
heavy machine gun crew with DShK on tripod pointing in air above trees

Red Fifty: The Soviet 12.7 mm DShK Heavy Machine Gun

While the Browning .50-cal. M2 machine gun has been unequaled for more than a century, John Moses Browning’s genius design has had one significant 12.7 mm competitor: the Soviet DShK.

Support The NRA Youth Education Summit (YES) On Giving Tuesday

With more than 1,200 students having graduated from the program and over $700,000 in scholarships awarded since 1996, NRA's YES is an immersive leadership program for high school students eager to learn about the foundations of our nation, the importance of civic engagement and the role of the Second Amendment.

Rifleman Review: Remington 360 Buckhammer

Remington Ammunition's 360 Buckhammer is a straight-wall hunting cartridge that's designed to give deer hunters an ideal round for their Midwestern hunt.

New For 2025: EAA Girsan Witness2311 Brat, Match and MatchX

European American Armory Corp. (EAA) introduced an affordable variation of the double-stack 1911 design with their Girsan Witness2311 in 2023, continually adding additional chamberings and slide length options. New for 2025, the company is adding three new versions of the Witness2311 with the Match, MatchX and Brat models.

Review: Citadel Trakr

At less than 4 lbs., this repeating rifle is easy on the back while also being extraordinarily easy on the budget.

Freedom Munitions To Move Ammo Component Production To Idaho

Freedom Munitions has announced it will be consolidating its projectile component production from X-Treme Bullets out of Nevada into its Lewiston, Idaho, facilities.

Interests



Get the best of American Rifleman delivered to your inbox.