BSA
The BSA Family
When you join the BSA family, you’re investing in a company with an unrivalled airgun pedigree and a worldwide reputation for quality, service and innovative design. We’re proud of that reputation and of the gunmaking heritage on which it was founded. While our history inspires us, we’re every bit as proud of our present range of products and even more excited about our future.
BSA Since 1861
In a little over hundred years BSA has grown from a small union of gunsmiths to become one of Britain’s important industrial groups. The story is not entirely one of steady progress and expansion there is drama and excitement too. And because BSA has served its country more directly than most private concerns, its story is also part of Britain’s history.
Apart from the company’s own factories in Birmingham, Coventry, Redditch, Sheffield and Co. Durham, many dispersal units and shadow factories were used for the purpose of arms production. The Small Heath administration alone (BSA Cycles Ltd and BSA Guns Ltd) controlled 67 factories, employing 28,000 people and containing 25,000 machine tools. This organisation produced more than half the small arms supplied to Britain’s forces during the war. BSA’s war production included nearly half a million of the Browning machine guns with which RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes won the Battle of Britain; one and a quarter million service rifles; 400,000 Sten guns; machine guns, cannon, anti-tank rifles, and gun carriages, ten million shell fuses,over three and a half million magazines, and 750,000 anti-aircraft rockets. Several Group factories were heavily bombed and at Small Heath more than 50 employees lost their lives.