Charter Arms History

Doug McClenehan was a gun designer with several prominent American gun companies. Using his strong engineering and inventive background he decided to go out on his own and in 1964 founded Charter Arms. McClenehan and David Ecker were lifelong friends and in 1967 Ecker became a 50/50 partner in Charter Arms.
•1972: David Ecker made a buy out offer to Doug and Ecker became the sole owner of Charter Arms.
•1984: Nick Ecker, David Ecker's son and the present owner of Charter Arms, joined the company and ultimately ran the manufacturing/production arm of the company.
•1988: Through a complicated set of circumstances dealing with a somewhat related real estate deal, Jeff Williams, VP of finance for Charter Arms came into ownership of 100% of the stock of the firearm manufacturing and sales operation and renamed the company Charco. This stock transfer allowed David Ecker to work on the real estate deal. In order to ensure that the firearm portion of the company continued, Jeff Williams offered 20% of company stock to Nick Ecker to continue running production and Nick accepted
•1996: There was a dispute between Nick and Jeff and Nick left the company. Ultimately the production failed due to this loss of expertise and the company closed its doors for a short period in 1998.
•1998: Learning of the closing Nick Ecker brought on two partners and bought the company from Jeff Williams.
•2000: Nick Ecker's two new partners had the name changed to Charter 2000 to coincide with the change of the millennium. Charter 2000 marked firearms were produced between 1999 and mid-2007.
•2002: Due to excellent sales, Nick Ecker was able to buy out his two partners and changed the name back to Charter Arms. In mid-2007 Charter Arms was again stamped on the firearms and this mark continues to be stamped on Charter Arms revolvers to this day. Nick Ecker is now the sole proprietor of Charter Arms.
•October 2004 Founder, Doug McClenehan passed away and in March of 2005 David Ecker passed away.
•2005 MKS Supply became exclusive marketer of Charter Firearms expanding distribution and giving Nick Ecker more time to design innovative new products.

The new company is in the hands of the original owners family and the original quality and guarantee is being upheld.