Many knew Mack Gwinn Jr. for his contributions as a Special Forces soldier in Vietnam and his long career as a firearms inventor. But to his family, he was also a strong father figure and “an idea guy” who cared about improving the world around him.
Although Richard Dyke, a Maine businessman who died last year, has been credited with making the AR-15 into America’s bestselling rifle, that wouldn’t have happened without Gwinn’s firearms inventions. A pistol that Gwinn designed and sold in the 1970s was considered a futuristic weapon, and it wasn’t until Dyke bought the company out of bankruptcy that his journey of building Bushmaster Firearms began.
Gwinn was an inspiration to all he met, and his pursuit of new technologies made him a leader in his field, said Mack Gwinn III, one of his four children.
“I think most will remember him for his impact on the firearms industry as far as being an innovator,” he said. “He was interested in making better, more reliable firearms for the military because it would save more lives.”
Gwinn III noted that sometimes his father would become emotional when talking about firearms because he took seriously that people’s lives are on the line.
Gwinn Jr. died March 11 after a long illness at the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta. He was 79, about a month shy of his 80th birthday. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Crystal; three sons and a daughter; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Gwinn Jr. was born in Quincy, Florida, in 1944. He grew up in a military family that moved around, including to Bangor, where as a 14-year-old he met his future wife.
Gwinn Jr. served in the U.S. Army Special Forces from 1961 to 1972, including seven deployments to Vietnam. He was awarded four Purple Heart medals, which the U.S. government gives to soldiers injured or killed in combat. He also received the Gallantry Cross medal with Bronze Star for displaying heroic conduct while engaged in combat, according to his family.
After he retired from the Army, Gwinn Jr. began to fully pursue his journey as an entrepreneur. He designed the Bushmaster pistol, which he began selling from an office at Bangor’s Bomarc Industrial Park in 1974. Two years later, Dyke bought the company and moved its manufacturing facility to Windham, where it became a leading maker of semiautomatic rifles.
Gwinn Jr. once developed a 0.50-caliber quick change barrel for a 0.50-caliber machine gun, but the U.S. Armed Forces wasn’t interested, Gwinn III said. So his father licensed it to Fabrique Nationale, which manufactured and sold the product under its name to armies in Europe.
Gwinn III remembers his father jumping from one project to another, including one that he referred to as a modular canoe that collapsed in on itself and whose parts could fit into a backpack. The idea was to simplify access to the outdoors and transporting a canoe, particularly for people who lived in cities.
“He was an idea guy,” Gwinn III said. “He looked at things and asked, ‘How can I make this better, faster and stronger?’ That was just how his brain worked.”
Over the decades, Gwinn Jr. filed nine patents, according to his obituary. He owned several companies, including Bangor-based MG Industries, which was around from 2000 to 2017, and MWG Co., which was sold and still exists in Miami, Florida.
MG Industries’ primary product was the Hydra, which Gwinn III called the most versatile assault rifle on the planet in a 2012 interview with the Bangor Daily News.The company, which manufactured its weapons in Old Town, marketed the Hydra to gun enthusiasts, law enforcement and the U.S. military. Police officers in Bangor, Milo and Machias, along with members of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, carried the rifle in their trunks, Gwinn III said at the time.
Gwinn III is president of GunBusters of New England and Hydra Weaponry, whose primary production line is based on ideas developed by his father in the early 2000s.
Gwinn III recalls that his father was strong and stern but fair, which he believes kept him out of trouble when he was growing up. Gwinn Jr. also had a dry sense of humor. He laughed at the corny one-liners in the 1970s “Airport” movies and enjoyed the Muppets, his son said.
When Gwinn III had his first daughter, his father joked, “Just remember, you spend the first two years teaching them to talk and walk, and the next 20 years telling them to sit down and be quiet.”
Outside of work, family was everything to Gwinn Jr., who most recently lived in Levant, his son said. Last week, Gwinn III recalled when a family friend pointed out how funny it was to watch “your big, tough, Special Forces dad” when his wife walked in the room. Crystal was the love of his life, and he didn’t care who knew it.
“He was always a little larger than life itself,” Gwinn III said.
