Despite this Senatorial fiat, however, the Navy arms deal eventually fell through. But although the US Navy scorned Dr. Bull's wares, others were not so short-sighted. Bull's extended-range ammunition, and the murderously brilliant cannon that he designed to fire it, found ready markets in Egypt, Israel, Holland, Italy, Britain, Canada, Venezuela, Chile, Thailand, Iran, South Africa, Austria and Somalia.
Dr. Bull created a strange private reserve on the Canadian-American border; a private arms manufactury with its own US and Canadian customs units. This arrangement was very useful, since the arms-export laws of the two countries differed, and SRC's military products could be shipped-out over either national border at will. In this distant enclave on the rural northern border of Vermont, the arms genius built his own artillery range, his own telemetry towers and launch-control buildings, his own radar tracking station, workshops, and machine shops. At its height, the Space Research Corporation employed over three hundred people at this site, and boasted some $15 million worth of advanced equipment.
The downfall of HARP had left Bull disgusted with the government-supported military-scientific establishment. He referred to government researchers as "clowns" and "cocktail scientists," and decided that his own future must lay in the vigorous world of free enterprise. Instead of exploring the upper atmosphere, Bull dedicated his ready intelligence to the refining of lethal munitions. Bull would not sell to the Soviets or their client states, whom he loathed; but he would sell to most anyone else. Bull's cannon are credited with being of great help to Jonas Savimbi's UNITA war in Angola; they were also extensively used by both sides in the Iran-Iraq