Video: Mississippi Made BattleBells

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — A new kind of cow bell is making a lot of noise and Mississippi State Bulldog fans are all ears.

Two Mississippi State University graduates and a West Point company is resulting in a must have, made-in-the USA product.

The ringing of cowbells have long been a tradition at MSU, now a business merger involving MSU alums Stephen Caples and John Howell, and Long Branch a 35 year old West Point custom steel fabricator, is resulting in mass production of BattleBells that can definitely be used at sporting competitions.

“And what we wanted to do eventually was to find a local manufacturer and with the help of Innovate Mississippi, The Mississippi State Entrepreneur Center, we were put in touch with Long Branch and we were able to work out a great partnership,” said Stephen Caples, BattleBells.

“And we spent about 8 months designing the bell itself and our first season was last year, this is our second season with the bell in the market,” said Linda Pilley, Long Branch.

A home grown product that’s custom hand made. Not pleased with off shore companies in places like China, local Mississippi companies were sought to help create what produces an annoying and distracting noise to some, but for others a sound of victory.

“The handle breaks, they split on the sides, and they didn’t like the branding it was giving the BattleBells. They wanted to make something that was going to last for generation to generation,” said Linda Pilley.

Having a winning season is a plus and the time seems to be right, for getting a chance to ring a traditional cowbell that’s so loud it comes with it’s own set of earplugs.

“With the record on Mississippi State right now, the orders are flooding in and we are struggling to make deadlines. We already have somebody working overtime,” said Linda Pilley.

“And for that our sales have increased up to 300 percent since last year,” said Stephen Caples.

To help boost online sales, BattleBells has also teamed up with Mossy Oaks, in a few weeks a camouflaged BattleBell hits the market.