Replica Weapons Used for Training

Scranton Company's Arsenal of Replica Weapons
by James Haggerty

Rob Rozzi glanced around a showroom displaying an arsenal of rockets, assault rifles, missile launchers, land mines, cluster and pipe bombs and hand grenades.

"We're not training people how to kill people," said Mr. Rozzi, president and chief executive of Inert Products LLC, of Scranton. "This is about keeping people safe."

The "weapons" are all replicas, mostly heavy duty plastic materials sold primarily to the U.S. Department of Defense for military and terrorism training.

The Pentagon spends more than $22 billion annually on training and simulation products and services, according to Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm near San Jose, Calif.

"There's only a handful of companies in the country that deal with what we deal with," said Mr. Rozzi, 31, of Clarks Summit. "We're growing 600 to 800 percent a year. Last year, we did $6 million in sales."
Read more