In 1945, a small machining shop was started in downtown Mayville called Mayville Engineering Company, or MEC. Ten years after that, a branch grew off that shop called MEC Outdoors, started by Ted Bachhuber and his uncle Leo. Now 71 years later, it has grown to be the leader in shotshell reloading.
Their growth hasn’t stopped there, in 2013 they branched out their product line to include clay target machines which was expanded to 185 SKUs. By 2016, they had launched the metallic press which further expanded their product line capabilities.
Full circle is a great way to think of their product offerings. They not only make the machines to reload but they also offer the machine that throws the targets.
Shawn Wozniak, Business manager for MEC Outdoors explained, “We make the shotshell reloaders, we offer single stage press for beginners and then we offer a progressive press for someone that’s going to shoot a lot of volume within a year. So we offer product that’s basically budget friendly but also something that’s a little bit higher end.”
Wozniak has been with MEC Outdoors for 16 years, 14 of them as the business manager.
MEC Outdoors offers end user products rather than custom manufacturing like MEC itself does. Customers are able to come into MEC Outdoors in Mayville and pick up or order their products. They do ship out to retailers as well. If customers have any questions or are just getting into it, they can look at their product showcase in the lobby. A repair service is offered on site. Customers can bring in their product to get it serviced and fixed.
Online help is also available, “If they already have a product and they have questions, they can actually point out what the issue is on their at home and then we can walk them through and help,” Wozniak said.
Their products vary based on experience and needs. One of their machines can only put out one shell at a time while another can do six shells.
How Do They Make Their Products?
Their products often start out as sheet steel which they laser the product out of. Then they can bend it, weld it or form it based on the needs of that product. Afterwards it is painted at their Beaver Dam facility and comes back for final assembly and inspection in Mayville. Once it is completed, it is shipped out to the customer for use. The product may also start out in a steel coil, if that’s the case it will be run through a punch press to flatten it.
Everything is made out of metal, that can be, and the turrets are blank slates. They can decide what gauge it will be during assembly.
They build from the base up starting with the actual base of the product and attaching the components on top along with the frame and then continue building upwards.
15 to 20 minutes is all it takes to assemble a MEC 600 Jr. Mark V reloader, which is their most popular press, if the pieces are all in the shop. For something a bit larger like the 9000GN, it could take around 35 to 40 minutes.
Inside the Facility
Behind the scenes they have a shipping fulfillment area, inventory bank, assembly area and staging and testing area.
The shipping fulfillment area handles the packaging for products that will be shipped around Dodge County, Wisconsin and even worldwide.
At the inventory bank, it shows all their products to the staff. Each day they get a build sheet that highlights which products to focus on making and what they might be behind on.
According to Wozniak, on a good production day they can make 15 to 20 progressive presses and around 50 to 60 single stage presses.
Testing the products they make is crucial so they test the machines in the back as well to double check that everything is good to go. It is also the area where customers can park their trailers to load the equipment they ordered.
The standard clay target in America is 108 millimeters while internationally it is 110 millimeters. MEC Outdoors offers both along with 60, 90 and 70 millimeter targets. Two special targets their machines can shoot are the rabbit target and peekaboo target. The rabbit target bounces on the ground randomly, simulating a rabbit or other small animal while the peekaboo target can roll on its side to turn black, making it harder to see than the normal orange color.
“It’s something that actually creates the fun of shooting sporting clays. And then also, we can be throwing all three of these targets (different sized targets) at the same speed and you’re going to be thinking [the 60 millimeter target] is going 100 miles an hour. So the deception and whatnot is the fun of the sport,” Wozniak noted.
Some of their machines can be hooked up to one another to make transporting them easier. Usually 20 to 30 can be hooked up for one time which helps with large events.
Attached to their facility is MEC and their facility hosts the fabrication side of the business. The punch press is kept in their area along with some other equipment used to make products.
MEC Outdoors only has people working during the first shift, from 4:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is so that parents can pick their children up from school. Additionally, they get Friday, Saturday and Sunday off.
Community Involvement and Beyond
MEC has had a long-standing place in Mayville, especially with it being named after the city. Wozniak said, “We’ve had a lot of history here. I mean the business started here. We have two facilities, we’re a very very well known brand from a MEC Outdoors standpoint but just Mayville Engineering Company in general having 22 facilities, we do have good brand recognition within the market.”
But it isn’t just Mayville, or even Wisconsin, that knows MEC. The Guiness Book of World Records knows their name, they have been in it twice now.
The first time was when one of their pro-shooters shot 3,653 targets in the span of an hour earning him the record in 2015. When he was shooting, he shot only from the hip, he never raised it to his shoulder. Because MEC Outdoors’ machines were used, they got in the book too. The gun used is mounted to the wall in their lobby.
In 2019 they did it again with their clay target machines. Wozniak said, “We wanted to incorporate the youth, obviously that’s the future of our business as well. So we ended up having kids write some essays, have good grades and compete in so many scholastic events and we picked five shooters. We used four of them, plus our pro-shooter again. And the goal is to break as many targets in a 12 hour span as possible. They ended up breaking 14,167 targets in that span.” The prior record was 4,200 targets.
They are very involved with the shooting industry in Wisconsin and across the country. Wisconsin Hunter Education Association, the Scholastic Clay Target Program, the NRA, Texas State and Grand American are a few of the organizations they are involved with.
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