About Us

True-Flite is owned and operated by Grant Lovelock and Anthony Walsh.

  • Grant Lovelock

    I am a New Zealander, qualified as a Fitter/Turner/Machinist with twenty-three years of engineering skills and experience. I have spent sixteen years in precision machining with much of that as foreman in charge of the workshop. My skills have been further honed by working as an engineer in the UK. To date I have completed many alterations and repairs to firearms and my enjoyment of this led to my decision to become part of True-Flite NZ Ltd.I truly relish the challenge of producing high-end quality products such as True-Flite rifle barrels and see this as a great way of using the skills I have accumulated over the years. The key to success for our customers and ourselves is to supply a service second-to-none and to keep our customers equipped with the very best custom-made rifle components. As a keen shooter, I would want no less for myself.

  • Anthony Walsh

    Growing up I was always good at tinkering with things. You could say I had a love for pulling things apart and putting them back together. I spent most weekends and worknights working on cars. I then moved on from cars to Firearms. I really enjoy repairing firearms and also restoring older firearms to their former glory.

    My knowledge of guns coupled with my Mechanical Engineering certificate and passion for hunting, led me to apply for the job at True-Flite back in 2017. Grant was a pretty cool guy to work with so I decided to buy into the business. I then went on to become a member of the New Zealand Society of gunsmiths and completed NZQA Gunsmithing papers.

    Since being in business with Grant, we have purchased a few new machines and learnt an enormous amount of new things over the years and I am confident that is what I love most about my job. Continuously learning, improving, growing. I enjoy seeing the innovation that is in our industry, there are always new products being developed and designed to improve the target shooting and hunting world.

    Customer satisfaction is also what drives me. Seeing a customer win a competition or feedback to us that they shot that trophy stag because of the accuracy of our barrels is a great incentive to keep doing what I love. I like to think here at True-Flite we are good blokes who love to chat all things guns, hunting, family, fishing, cars, motorbikes, boats, travel. So if you are ever in Gisborne, please come and see us as we love having a chat with our customers.

Our History

Our rifle barrel production started back in September 1995 when we were experiencing problems with delayed supply from manufacturers in the USA. Also, we were not happy with the quality of some barrel shipments from lesser-known barrelmakers. Our reputation was on the line and a decision had to be made.

Consequently, we "bit the bullet" and built our own barrelmaking plant based on the pulled-button method of manufacture. At every stage of design and manufacture of the plant, accuracy and product consistency were given priority. Looking back, the machines were probably "over-engineered" and setup to an unnecessarily high standard of accuracy; hours, days, sometimes weeks were spent chasing extreme levels of alignment and concentricity. More than ten years later, not a single component has had to be re-aligned.

Our original barrelmaking workshop in Auckland occupied a miniscule 450 square feet! In May 2000 we moved to a new 2000 square feet facility in beautiful Mount Maunganui in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. The extra room allowed additions of much-needed machines and tools to increase production as by this time our reputation had achieved international status and demand for True-Flite barrels had  taken off.

True-Flite NZ Ltd now operates from a new facility in Gisborne, New Zealand.  The manufacturing of Barrels, and Gunsmithing is managed by Anthony Walsh and Co-Ownwer Grant Lovelock who has a lifetime of Machining, and engineering background, and has been involved in F class competition for years.