When it comes to selling gun parts and gun-related military surplus, Charles “Cholly” Steen has been at it for longer than almost anyone. It all started when, as a 5-year-old, he began stashing odds and ends in the drawers of his clothes dresser. Later, after serving in the Marine Corps, he began selling surplus at gun shows to support himself during college where he had hoped engineering studies would lead to a job as a machine-gun designer. Announcing his plans to his wife, Marie, they agreed that if he did not clear $60 a week profit within the first year, he would give up. But after earning $200 in the first two days, Steen was hooked.
Today, SARCO, Inc.—an acronym for Steen Armament Research Co.—frames its business accomplishments and aspirations within the following statement on the company website (sarcoinc.com): “SARCO is one of the world’s largest wholesale and retail suppliers of firearms, firearms parts, gun accessories, and associated material. [We] buy and sell internationally all types of firearms gear, new and used, military and commercial. We have been serving sportsmen, collectors, dealers and brokers for 63 years. No deal is too big or too small.”
Following the Steens’ early success at gun shows, they filled the attic of their small apartment with merchandise and later expanded to a barn and, eventually, to a New Jersey storefront. Official incorporation came in 1962. As the business grew, Steen expanded through advertisements in Shotgun News (now Firearms News) and American Rifleman, often in the form of entire pages densely peppered with line-art drawings and intriguing descriptions of scores of firearm parts and curiosities unlikely to be found elsewhere. The ads still account for the lion’s share of SARCO’s sales today.
After more than six decades in the trade, Cholly Steen still helms SARCO, although at 90, and with the recent passing of Marie, he depends on family members, including his son in law, Paul, and daughter, Valerie, along with longtime employees such as Dave Michels to keep the company on track. SARCO is also still headquartered in New Jersey but employs up to 40 people at its 20,000 sq.-ft. Easton, Pa., showroom and retail store along with warehouse facilities comprising 7,500 and 24,000 sq. ft. Never one to pass up a good deal, Steen said, “While I thought that second warehouse would be the last one I would need, we filled it up to capacity.” The store stocks a mind-bending array of mainly surplus military rifles and handguns, along with some transferable machine guns and even a Gatling.
Through the years, Steen has traveled in 65 countries, building up a global network of agents from whom he still sources military goods—he believes that side of the business has made him the largest U.S. importer of gun parts—and SARCO also has hundreds of items, such as Mauser 98 slings, manufactured overseas. The company also contracts with the federal government and has supplied it with 17,000 units of a device that holds two magazines in a “V” configuration on the underside of the M16 rifle to allow for quick reloading. Among his many other activities, Steen is president of the Firearms & Ammunition Import/Export Roundtable (F.A.I.R.), a trade group that protects the interests of firearm industry companies by monitoring legislation and other activities.
But it’s still those once-in-a-lifetime deals that excite Steen, such as buying the Rock Island Armory military manual library—all 8 tons of it. Even more ambitious was the purchase of the old High Standard Co., which involved nine models of pump and semi-automatic shotguns, including the iconic Model 10B bullpup, along with three models of pump and semi-automatic .22 LR rifles and 10 revolver models. The deal also encompassed SARCO’s acquisition of fixturing, drawings and parts along with cutaway guns, trademarks for revolvers and technical data on High Standard silencers. Again, it added up to several tons of spare parts filling five 40-foot trailers. “We bought this as a project to produce guns,” Steen said, “but there just isn’t enough time in the world for us, as new deals keep coming in. We expect that with the making of a few parts, approximately 400 Model 10Bs could be produced.”
It seems there will never be enough time, or space, to acquire and store all the goods that Cholly Steen simply can’t pass up. He credits the unique business that he and Marie started as having allowed him to “live in a toy store all these years.” Given the company’s ever-expanding inventory, and the team that’s now in place to sort, clean and sell it, it’s safe to say that SARCO is likely to continue supplying the world’s military arms collectors, shooters, history re-enactors and gun tinkerers with the “toys” of their trades for many more years to come.
