Daniel Defense

Daniel Defense is an American arms manufacturer founded in 2002 by Marty Daniel in Savannah, Georgia. Following substantial growth from a 2002 U.S. Army Special Forces grant for M4 upper receivers, Daniel Defense expanded in 2009 and moved into a new manufacturing facility in Black Creek, Georgia, where it is now based. 

Daniel Defense is among the largest privately held manufacturers of firearms and firearm accessories in the US, and by 2014 it had been named to the Inc. 5000, a list of fast-growing privately held U.S. companies, three times.In its early years, Daniel Defense manufactured rails but the company dramatically expanded in 2003, after winning a $20 million U.S. Special Forces contract for specialized rails for M4 rifles. In 2009, the company began manufacturing its own rifles and cold hammer forged barrels. The company produced 24 guns in 2009 and 10,000 guns in 2010. Daniel Defense manufactured slightly fewer than 53,000 guns in 2020. The National Rifle Association of America selected the Daniel Defense V7 as the 2017 gun of the year.

The company's flagship gun is the DDM41 AR15-style rifle, which it sells in automatic form to the military and in semi-automatic form to civilians. In 2014, Daniel Defense sold DDM4 to Missouri State Police and North Dakota Highway Patrol, making its first sale of that gun to law enforcement agencies. Daniel Defense also manufactures the 14.5 in barrel and gas block for USSOCOM's Upper Receiver Group-Improved (URG-I).