Idaho firm makes new ammunition for law enforcement

After a decade of development, executives at Integrity Ballistics are preparing for a January launch of new law enforcement ammunition that won’t injure bystanders.

Soon after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Integrity’s founder, Joe Kolnik, and CEO Jim Greer started talking about ways to help air marshals patrol flights. The Federal Air Marshal Service had been rapidly expanded after the terrorist attacks.

“Talking about current events around the family dinner table turned into a brainstorming session on making ammunition that air marshals could use aboard planes,” Greer said.

The two decided marshals need ammunition that likely would not injure or kill innocent bystanders, or pierce the skin of a plane. Yet the ammunition needed enough force to stop a potential hijacker. From this concept, Kolnik created the Burns Round. He named it after his cousin, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kyle Burns, who died in action in Iraq in 2004.

Kolnik has a background in chemical engineering and spent about three years figuring out how to make the product. Integrity’s ammo looks like an orange shotgun shell and is made up of three proprietary segments: a pliable dark gray ball, orange plastic that encases the ball (also known as a Sabot) and a base filled with propellant.

Fired out of a 12-gauge shotgun, the ball flattens like a pancake on impact and stuns and bruises a human target. Unlike bean bag and sock rounds that look like small fabric sacks filled with shot or BBs, Integrity’s ammo looks like a rubber ball that hardly bounces when thrown on the ground. The ammo is being marketed as a tool for law enforcement officers.

“It will be a lot safer for the officer and for the person being shot,” said Greer.

The ball is made of soft polymer composite, a chemical compound, that gives it a pliable but durable structure. This design, Greer said, makes the ball less likely than rubber bullets to penetrate skin and cause fatal injury. Bean bag and sock rounds, if they fall apart, can cause as much damage as shot or BBs, according to Greer.

The company describes the ammo as “less-lethal” and “less-than-lethal” on its website.  According to the Small Arms Survey, an independent university research project located in Geneva, these two terms and “nonlethal” are all used to describe law enforcement ammunition such as rubber bullets and bean bags.

Kolnik also designed the injection mold to build the ball and received a patent on a machine that loads the Burns Round. A company in Wyoming makes the parts. The equipment to assemble the product is housed in a partner’s garage in Boise.

To refine and test the product, Integrity’s partners fired the Burns Round repeatedly at indoor gun ranges and targets on land south of Kuna administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. They also sent the ammo to Wayne State University in Detroit for more rigorous trials.

Integrity’s website displays two results from the university’s Ballistics Impact Research Lab that show the Burns Round causes less penetration and soft tissue damage than sock rounds. Wayne State might be the only university that tests for biomechanical injuries from ballistics, automotive impacts and blasts, according to a spokesman.

About 450 companies in 52 countries make less-lethal or less-than-lethal weapons, according to the Small Arms Survey. Many of the firms provide both ammunition and “launchers.” Integrity Ballistics concentrates on ammo alone.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lists 43 active ammunition makers in the state of Idaho as of December 2012. There are 2,053 of these manufacturers in the United States.

Greer said the fact that there are others in the market tells him that law enforcement and corrections agencies need and use these products.  Integrity entered the market because company executives think their product is an improvement over what’s available.

Although Greer wouldn’t divulge the price of a Burns Round, he said it was competitive with products out on the market.  An Internet search of sock and bean bag rounds showed a range of prices from $5 to $25 each.

It took Integrity a decade to get the product ready for market, because all six company partners have day jobs or work on other projects. Three are in Boise, but three others, including founder Kolnik, are outside Idaho. He once worked at Micron and now holds a position with semiconductor maker Intel in Arizona.

Greer and Kolnik started refocusing on the technology and company in 2008. Greer wrote a business plan for Integrity that year. He decided to invest in the company in 2010 and became CEO. Integrity first set up shop at the Watercooler, a Boise startup incubator, but decided to move across town to another incubator, the Greenhouse, 18 months later.

The Greenhouse is where Greer balances his duties at Integrity while working on three other businesses, Business Plans Pro, where he writes business plans for startup companies; CEPO Energy, an alternative energy project management service; and Snake River Natural Animal Treats. He calls himself a full-time “parallel entrepreneur.”

Greer said the founders hope to sign their first order with a Southern California bounty hunter in the next few weeks. This customer found Integrity Ballistics through a Google search for “less-lethal” ammunition to use in his work, and he contacted Greer.

Greer hopes that first sale will lead to further refinements to the product and, eventually, greater revenue.  The company also has begun marketing to U.S. law enforcement agencies. One Integrity partner based in Denver consults with such organizations and understands their procurement cycles, said Greer.

If they can get a foothold with such agencies, Greer hopes that will help grow the company in terms of revenue and staff.

“What our products are going to do is stop and defuse threats.  Our goal is to replace the rubber bullet and sock round,” said Greer.

 A cheat sheet for the terms ‘non-lethal,’ ‘less-than-lethal’ and ‘less-lethal’

Executives at Integrity Ballistics use the terms “less-lethal” and “less-than-lethal” to describe the Burns Round. According to CEO Jim Greer, they typically refer to the ammo as “less-lethal” to mean the intent is not to be lethal. He said, “If a ‘less-lethal’ product is misused, it might still be lethal.”

According to the Small Arms Survey , an independent research project located at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the terms “nonlethal”, “less-than-lethal”, and “less-lethal” are used in various ways by different organizations and countries.

For instance, in the United States and United Kingdom, the military typically uses the term “nonlethal” to describe what law enforcement agencies would call “less-lethal” weapons. Still other public safety organizations use the term “nonlethal” to describe techniques that use physical force only. For these agencies, “less-lethal” weapons include Tasers, sock rounds and rubber bullets.

The Small Arms Survey “serves as the principal international source of public information on all aspects of small arms and armed violence and as a resource for governments, policy-makers, researchers and activists,” according to its website.