Chamber-View Sets its Sight on Gun Safety

Gail Cook and Ned Bitsack, co-founders of Chamber-View. Courtesy Photo.

Hikers, runners, walkers and their pets have long worn orange in the woods during hunting season to signal they are not a deer or other target of hunters. Now hunters are using orange to signal to other hunters that their gun chamber is empty, unable to fire and thus safe.

Ned Bitsack, CEO, and Gail Cook, president, created Merrimack-based Chamber-View in 2013, which sells blaze orange silicone flags for shotguns, rifles and pistols called empty chamber indicators, or ECIs. Designed to give rapid, visual reference to a firearm’s status, the ECI, when properly secured, provides bystanders and shooters with peace of mind knowing that the gun cannot be discharged even if the trigger is pulled. In 2015, sales were triple that of its first two years.

The product is now sold through a variety of retail outlets including Amazon, Bass Pro Shops, Brownell’s, Cabela’s and Orvis. The conspicuous safety devices have also attracted the attention of others in the firearms industry, including centuries-old Italian manufacturer Beretta, which sells them online and in factory stores.

“It’s a leap forward in product design and styling for firearms,” says Bitsack, a practicing dentist. The idea was conceptualized in 2009 following a skiing injury that forced Bitsack to pursue new avenues of outdoor recreation. Bitsack and Cook both decided to try the sport of clay shooting, where competitors traditionally use double-barrel shotguns. This type of shotgun allows everyone to see when the gun is incapable of firing because the barrels can be tilted out of the way of the firing mechanism.

“I was actually really nervous,” says Cook, whose background is in the fashion industry and who had little prior shooting experience. Cook discovered that she preferred the softer recoil of an auto-loading shotgun, however both she and Bitsack felt it alarming that, by its design, the auto-loader was more difficult for a bystander to see whether it’s loaded.

Using a polymer typically found in dental impressions, Bitsack was able to create a mold of the shotgun’s chamber that could be removed before use, and easily replaced afterwards. The company has a patent that covers all chamber safety devices secured by non-mechanical means. While the prototype used dental materials, Chamber-View’s ECIs are now made of silicone, which is heat resistant and provides a barrier to water and debris while also being highly durable, says Bitsack. “I want to standardize safety,” he says.

The company has sponsored three shooters: 3-Gun competitors Matt Holmes and Jesse Tishauser and world champion shooter and television host Doug Koenig. It provides travel fare, entry fees, uniforms and product. Currently a five-person operation, Chamber-View has introduced more than six new products since its inception. The most popular is designed to fit common, tactical-style modern sporting rifles. Other companies have expressed interest in packaging ECI’s as original equipment with their own products, and as a result Chamber-View now offers custom colors and logos. For more information visit chamber-view.com.

By David Wiley of the Young Reporters Project, a partnership between Business NH Magazine and the University of NH Manchester.