HS Produkt d.o.o.

HS Produkt started in 1990 as IM Metal, set up by two mechanical engineers, Ivan Zabcic and Marko Vukovic, in a country that was about to need guns badly and had almost no way to make them. The firm moved to purpose-built premises around Karlovac and Ozalj in 2000 and has stayed there. What began as wartime improvisation is now one of the larger pistol manufacturers in Europe, turning out roughly 30,000 handguns a month and booking about 149 million euro of revenue in 2024. Close to ninety percent of that production leaves for the United States. The company remains privately held by its founders and Croatian shareholders.

The American connection explains the scale. HS Produkt designed the HS2000 polymer-framed striker-fired pistol in the late 1990s, and Springfield Armory of Illinois picked it up as an exclusive distributor and rebranded it the XD. That family grew into the XD-M and XD-S, then the compact Hellcat that Guns and Ammo named handgun of the year, and then the Echelon, a modular full-size service pistol with a removable chassis that took the NASGW best new handgun award in 2023. Every one of those guns is made in Croatia and sold in America under a different name, an arrangement that has quietly funded a national defence industry. Under its own badge the company sells the HS series, the SF19 duty pistol and the H11 compact.

The military side is smaller in volume and larger in strategic weight. The VHS is a 5.56x45 mm NATO bullpup assault rifle designed from scratch in Karlovac, introduced in the mid-2000s and replaced in Croatian service by the improved VHS-2, which is the standard issue rifle of the Croatian Armed Forces and has been exported, notably to Iraq. HS Produkt sells it as a soldier system rather than a bare rifle, bundling the VHS-2 with the VHS-BG 40x46 mm under-barrel grenade launcher and a CT-1.5x optical sight, with carbine and designated marksman length barrels available across the family. The Kuna submachine gun is the newest addition, a compact 9 mm weapon aimed at police and special forces users. Pistols and rifles from Karlovac are the standard sidearm and rifle of both the Croatian police and the Croatian army, which gives the company an unusually complete domestic reference. Manufacturing is heavily automated and vertically integrated, covering polymer moulding, machining, heat treatment, surface finishing and barrel production in house, and that capacity is the reason a company of this size can hold a volume contract with an American brand while also developing its own service rifle. The VHS-2 is offered in several barrel lengths, from a short carbine for vehicle crews and close protection work up to a longer designated marksman configuration, all sharing the same receiver and controls so that a unit can equip every role from one logistics chain. Croatia's defence exports are a short list. HS Produkt sits at the top of it, and the company's position as sole domestic supplier of the army and police service weapon has made it the reference customer for other Croatian defence suppliers in optics, ammunition and accessories. The founders still run the business, which is unusual at this scale and helps explain a product strategy that has stayed narrow and deep rather than spreading across categories.