McDONALD COUNTY, Mo. — Using outdated and unreliable equipment can make it a lot harder to do your job. But in law enforcement, it can be a matter of life or death. An area company is doing its part to help.

Whether you’re a deputy, an officer, member of a special response team, or all of the above, a working weapon is an absolute must. Thanks to Black Rain Ordnance, that’s one less thing for law enforcement throughout McDonald County to worry about. The Neosho-based company has provided 20, brand new AR nine rifles.

“Black Rain was so generous in providing these riffles to us and so now we’re able to put these new, not all worn out pieces of equipment into use and issued to our personnel and staff,” said Robert Evenson, McDonald County Sheriff.

“This is actually the first day that their SRT team has used the guns to train, Ok that’s pretty special to us at Black Rain,” said Darrell Klink, Black Rain Ordnance, Law Enforcement Sales.

Sheriff Rob Evenson says having these brand-new, state-of-the-art weapons made by a local manufacturer provides his people with a level of confidence they’ve never had before.

“So yes the confidence level, everybody knows they have a brand new rifle that hopefully never even have to use it, but if it is used we can count on it to work,” said Evenson.

Some of the department’s weapons dated back to the 80s and were hand-me-downs from the Department of Defense. Black Rain will recycle or refurbish those — so this was beneficial for both sides.

“They have managed to between donations and trade-in value on on on trade in guns both seized and duty weapons uh they’ve managed to completely pay for this without money out of their pocket, so you know hand in hand working with our neighbors,” said Klink.

This isn’t the first time Black Rain has made rifles for law enforcement. Officials say it accounts for about a third of all the company’s sales.