Wilson Combat

The famous gunsmith brand that conquered the world of knifemaking

Wilson Combat is an American arms manufacturer that specializes in manufacturing the famous M1911 Colt-Browning pistol designed at the beginning of the 20th century by John Moses Browning. Besides that brand customizes different firearms. Masters from Wilson Combat make those barrels perfect: mount optics, decorate with engraving, change elements, cover them with a protective coating. On top of that, the company produces different accessories and tactical knives which are often made in collaboration with famous knifemakers.  

Among the firearms fans, you would find Bill Wilson – a legend, a creator of “those” guns, founder of the iconic Wilson Combat company. Let’s take a look at how it all began. 

Bill’s father was a jeweler. He owned a small store at the Berryville Town Square, Arkansas and recommended his son to think of a profession that could help in expanding family business. Bill was a good boy, he studied watchmaking and opened a little workshop in his father’s store.

Wilson junior was crazy about weapons as many other southerners were. He was not only collecting articles about pistols and watching movies about cowboys but also regularly hunted and was a professional shooter. Bill got his first awards in competitions with Colt Python's presence. The revolver was not perfect. To change that Wilson disassembled the weapon, reworked some parts of it and improved the whole structure. That was the point when Bill got the idea to start customizing firearms. At the beginning of the 1970s, he changed the signboard on his door to “Sportsman’s Headquarters”. The new workshop was busy with upgrading weapons and selling sports and outdoor goods.

Bill Wilson was clearly understanding he didn’t have enough experience to upgrade firearms on his own. So at first, he was mostly working as an agent between clients and gunsmiths, gaining a background as a designer at the same time. Bill noticed that the majority of orders were for M1911 Colt-Browning. The high popularity of the model is explicable  – it has been in the use of US military service since 1910th. Having deepened in Copyrights Bill found out that any person could make semi-automatic pistols based on the M1911 Colt-Browning model. That moment Wilson thought about his own gun manufacture.

Bill created Wilson Combat company, which in 1977 became a leader in M1911 custom pistols manufacturing. At first, the company was only designing the structure and assembling the items, parts of the pistols were ordered from famous gunsmiths such as Armand Swensen. But with time, Wilson Combat has gone into the full cycle of the manufacturing process and launched its own manufacture. The M1911 from Wilson Combat became a dream of professional shooters and hunters. Customized models Beretta 92 and Beretta 96 got their success as well. Wilson Combat produced elements for those models to make them more functional than they were.

In 2001 Wilson Combat bought “Scattergun Technologies'' and launched several lines of 12 and 20-gauge scatterguns. After a few years, Bill Wilson’s attention was drawn by custom knifemaking. Wilson negotiated with the best American knifemakes who have designed custom and semi-custom tactical knives in collaboration with Wilson Combat. Company’s assortment was extended with fixed blade knives created in partnership with Scott McGhee, Horrigan Knives and Steve Woods and folding knives from George, Hogue, Elishewitz, Fox, Reeve, Zieba and Auto Knives. Moving forward, Wilson Tactical brand was born which launched their own production of the knives. 

Maria Stalina Knives’ shop will be happy to present you sturdy customs from Wilson Combat and other tactical knives from American authors. Call us: +7 (812) 676-33-47.