SKB Arms Company traces its name to Shigyo SaKaBa, appointed a gunsmith by a feudal lord in 1855. The Japanese factory began combining modern machinery with traditional gunmaking in the early 1960s and exported its first shotguns to the United States in 1966, the same year it started building guns for Ithaca. From 1984 it produced the Orion and Athena over-and-under lines distributed by Weatherby. SKB built its millionth shotgun in 1986 and the factory closed at the end of 2009. Current SKB shotguns are made under licence by two factories in Turkey. Models include the RS300 and RS400 semi-automatics and the 720 Field and 90 HTR.